Pop Culture Tuesdays XIV

Oh man, where to begin with this one?

This video is such a crash course in Japanese culture and Japanese/Foreigner relations.

Seriously, there are some really profound things going on in this video. Really. I promise. I’m not just posting it for the drag.

For the typical Westerner, one might watch this video and go, “Oh those tacky and crazy Japanese, does their self-degradation-for-a-cheap-laugh know no bounds?”

Yet, this video is making fun exactly of that uniformed Westerner.

First, in case you missed it, the singers are in drag. The group is supposed to be a mother and her two daughters from Nevada who are trying to make it big as a singing group (as a side adventure, they’re also looking for their long-lost father). Just the costumes are telling; in this family unit from America you have the slutty Mom with a giant chest and huge ass, the daughter with blonde hair, and the other daughter with the Afro (and it’s interesting that the one character with distinctly African-American features is also portrayed as the most masculine). Because, you know, that’s American.

So they come to Japan and the song is basically about how they make total asses of themselves (and by obvious extrapolation, is meant to portray all Westerners) and put themselves permanently on the outside of Japanese culture.

The video strikes me as a great primer on the essential Japanese phenomenon of Honne/Tatemae (You're a big kid, you can Wikipedia it on your own if you need to.)

Although I like the video, and I definitely think it’s clever, as a foreigner in Japan it obviously makes me a little uneasy and possibly paranoid. I watch this video knowing full well that Japanese watch it and have a good laugh at the ignorant Westerner’s expense, agreeing among themselves that “It’s so true!”.

Yet, it may also be that the video is a parody of Japanese cultural phenomenon as well. I don’t know, it could probably be argued either way.

There’s definitely a lot of good-natured fun, and it is really smart, but it seems that there’s something also a little passive-aggressive and more critical right below the good natured fun…

It’s so Japanese!