Several weeks ago, a Japanse pop-star by the name of Minami Minegishi posted a video on YouTube that received widespread global attention. Minegishi is seen in the video with a shaven head, and delivers a teary apology to her friends, fans, band members, and production crew for letting them down. What horrible thing did Minegishi do to prompt such an emotional apology? Well, she allegedly had a boyfriend.
Thus, we approach the issue of severe misogyny in Japanese culture (specifically the "otaku" subculture) by looking at two tiers of profit-driven oppression. The first tier most related to this incident is the overreaching interference by the AKB48 band producers / owners into the lives of its members. AKB48 is a female pop-star band which succeeds because of a strict code of conduct regarding the band members' relationships: they aren't allowed to have any. The consequences of violating this rule to any degree include shaming and removal from the band. Shaming comes about by how the rule is labeled as a virtue to strive for. Band members are expected to be role models for the other members, and deviating from the strict rules is seen as letting their fellow band members down. This is evident in this posted video:
"As an original member of AKB48, I am supposed to set an example for the junior members, but I was thoughtless and showed a lack of self-awareness. I didn't know what to do, so I decided to shave my head without telling other band members or my agency. I don't expect to be forgiven by doing this, but the first thing I thought was that I didn't want to quit AKB48."
Members of AKB48 have also been removed from the band in the past for similar violations.
This type of oppression serves a very specific purpose: appeal. The logic is fairly simple: a band member who is single is more appealing than one who is in a relationship. It allows the fans to further idolize and dream about how they might have a relationship with one of the members. This rule is even defended by the band's members:
"If there weren't a 'love forbidden' regulation, we wouldn't be idols. If there weren't such a rule, the world wouldn't turn."
Maintaining this requirement thus serves to increase the sex appeal, and by extension the success of members of AKB48.
The second tier of oppression is more relatable to western culture, and that is the issue of marketing by sex appeal in general. Promotional material for AKB48 will often depict the band's members in scanty dress. This is also seen in features in sex-oriented magazines such as Weekly Playboy and even song titles such as "My School Uniform is Getting in the Way," despite the young age of some of the members, which can be as low as 13.
However, both tiers cannot be so readily explained with more western ideals of feminist theory. Western feminist theory will often deal with issues of sexualization as a form of objectification. In the case of AKB48, however, this is not exactly the case. The band members are often highly-sexualized, but they are done so in parallel with a strong emphasis on personality, or "person-hood." The band members are not marketed as simple sex objects, but as sexy people that can be communicated with. A sense of attachment and attraction that supersedes mere sexual idolization is thus created between the band members and their fans. In my opinion, this form of sexualization is a far more potent formula than simple sexual objectification.
Unfortunately, this also means that far more drastic and invasive means are required to make use of such a formula, as we have seen. AKB48's members can't simply be shown as sex symbols; they have to have their personal lives dictated by their careers, and the normalcy of this control is engrained into their sense of being, such that any violation of it is viewed as a personal failure. Under western feminist theory, this might be interpreted in the context of how oppressed groups under a status-quo may themselves help perpetuate the status-quo's existence, but such a viewpoint is limited as it does not take into account the agency of AKB48's owners in promoting this engraining and what could even be considered indoctrination.
Thus, I propose that a different framework for studying issues of Japanese misogyny is needed thanks to the extreme differences between western and Japanese culture.
Source article: http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/8/3967268/akb48-minami-minegishi-how-a-j-pop-cult-took-over-japan
Translation of the original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=JSYhNJBPL9I
This is the second non-western issue I've attempted to post about. Again, I know very little about Japan and its culture, so my analysis is limited. However, this was simply too interesting to pass up writing and learning about. Elements of Japanese culture often strike me as incredibly strange and foreign, this issue being no exception.
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