Feminine Power and Protest in Postemodern Japanese Society

BY AMY XU A nation’s concern for its future often crystallizes around the status of its young women. As the literal and figurative keepers of the bloodline, young women in various cultures have been the subject of intense scrutiny. The patriarchal structure of Japanese society in particular upholds the traditionally chaste and obedient girl as an exemplar of womanhood, thus placing young Japanese women squarely at the “center of national racial defense” (Kinsella, 152). Yet identifying women as “the bodily vessels of national ethnicity” necessarily introduces conflicts of interest between repression and freedom, conformism and individuality, and of course, between patriarchal and feminine ideals (Kinsella, 152). In the midst of male-dominated society, young women have nevertheless managed to stage a silent but pervasive rebellion. In this paper, I will analyze women that consciously manipulate their styles, such as Lady Gaga and the ganguro (Black Face) girls, to reflect their critiques of society to expose the hidden maladies that the dominant society seeks to conceal.

Yet despite the wholehearted efforts made by these female subcultures to challenge social preconceptions, their attempts often fall flat in the face of a hegemonic social structure that ultimately absorbs new subcultures and often uses them for monetary gain. Subcultural protests are effectively and silently stripped of their power by the mass media and marketing machines that counter instances of iconoclastic self-portrayal. While they may not persist, the objections raised by these young women perpetuate the tensions between dominant and subordinate culture that ultimately enables the reshaping of society.

Changes in social perceptions are often precipitated by a traumatic national event. In Japan, WWII and the subsequent U.S. occupation intensified the conservative, traditional view of women that gave rise to the current male-dominated social structure. At the time, the threat to ethnic purity posed by American GIs raised fears that “Japanese womanhood would be raped and impregnated indiscriminately” by the incoming U.S. army (Kinsella, 153). The purity of Japanese girls required protection at all costs, and women who associated with the enemy were seen as licentious traitors by the “painfully emasculated male imagination” of the post-war period (Kinsella, 153). Indeed, the Japanese girl became a “panic site” in the sense that “visions of disaster…[and] spiritual collapse” coalesced around her image (Napier, 329). The post-WWII male establishment reincarnate is in the modern Japanese mass media. It is a field dominated by a conservative male press that decries female rebellion with racial slurs, derogatory names, and satirical articles. Regarding Japanese women as the “biological reproducers of the nation,” the press espouses traditional gender roles that view faithful schoolgirls as the “natural and enduring…partners of heroic young kamikaze pilots” (Kinsella, 152). In the context of the male media establishment, the pure girl becomes a national symbol and the torchbearer for the survival of the Japanese nation.

Yet the industrialization and commercialization that followed the Occupation resulted in a dramatic rise in disposable incomes that ushered in a new generation of young women. Unlike their forebears, these women possessed both the time and the money to cultivate a “full engagement with the culture of consumption” (Yoda, 13). The postmodern girl thus fulfilled the stipulations of time, energy, and money necessary for a rebellion against the traditional moors of society. These characteristics, coupled with an environment where “virtually any kind of person [could] be a celebrity or star,” produced a generation of self-aware, socially liberal young women not afraid to speak their minds or dress their bodies unlike any group before them (Sato, 96).

The outrageous fashion choices of these young women represent a purposeful challenge to the traditional social order. Running completely counter to the image of the faithful schoolgirl or obedient wife, women like Lady Gaga and the Japanese ganguro girls consciously use their styles to critique the underlying problems of society. Often dressed in skimpy, futuristic costumes with elaborate stage makeup and false eyelashes, Lady Gaga utterly and completely flouts existing social conventions. Although her risqué outfits – like the suit of raw meat she donned for the 2010 MTV Music Awards – draw fire from both male and female critics, she justifies her fashion choices as a pointed message against female objectification: “if [women] don’t fight for our rights, pretty soon we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones” (Gaga quoted in Kit, 1). With such an explanation in mind, Gaga’s stylistic choices can be interpreted as a protest against the continued sexual objectification of women.

Like Lady Gaga, the dark-skinned, theatrically-accessorized styles of the ganguro (Black Face) girl subculture of the 1990s ran brazenly counter to traditional Japanese values. By donning tropical flowers on strings of necklaces and sporting dark fake tans, ganguro girls took on the various “hybrid ethnicities” that alternately confused and horrified media critics (Kinsella, 144). Their dark suntans prompted comparisons to “animals walking on the continent of Africa” and other social Darwinistic implications that stripped them of their humanity while denigrating darker races (Kinsella, 147). The ethnocentric, racially-tinged remarks elicited by the ganguro subculture exposed Japan’s continual insistence on ethnic purity, a national preoccupation since the years following WWII. Though the ganguro subculture may not have begun as an outright critique of racist ideology, its existence and various permutations (kogyaru and yamamba, for example) indicate that the girls discovered a racial sensitivity in the dominant Japanese culture which they relentlessly exposed in their desire to assert a new female independence. Like the ganguro girls, various other female fashion subcultures, such as the lolita and the cutie, also manipulate style as an assertion of individuality and rebelliousness.

On the whole, critics’ responses have been resoundingly negative. The media’s reception of Lady Gaga and the ganguro girls has been remarkably similar in their respective nations, with portrayals of these women as mindless, traitorous, and even less-than-human. In addition to drawing protests from PETA, Gaga’s meat outfit was derisively speculated to “smell like the rotting flesh that it is…[and] be crawling in maggots” (Collins, 1). Likewise, the ganguro girls have been not only been “accused of undermining tradition,” but have also been subjected to racial slurs and dehumanizing insults (Kinsella, 247). Epithets leveled at them include “ugly witches,” “moron black faces (ōbaka no ganguro),” and “girl-animal (gyanimal)” (Kinsella, 145-148). The harmless girls were labeled as “infantile” and “tasteless” in the uptight, conservative view of the mass media (Kinsella, 248). Criticisms by the male-dominated press clearly indicate the panic sites that these young women have become. The media sees in their blatant rejection of social standards the dissolution of traditional social moors that have ensured an orderly, smoothly functioning society. Although some critics are more sensitive to the young women’s cause, it is no wonder that the majority of popular media regards the new generation of girls as “inscrutable, amoral, and apocalyptic” (Yoda, 21).

In their experimentation with self-presentation and style, Lady Gaga and the various female subcultures in Japan may in fact be exercising a deeper form of power. The rise of such iconoclastic girls heralds the new role of sexuality as a vehicle for female ambitions – a so-called “lady power” (Bauer, 1). Starting in the post-war era and spurred by the availability of consumption, young women began to control their image as both the “objects and subjects of sexual desire,” affirming their femininity and using it as a form of control (Yoda, 20). Women like Gaga and the ganguro girls now revel in the power that overt sexuality endows, both over men and over the mass media. Yet inherent in lady power is the positive self-affirmation of a negative image. As Kinsella writes, “women debased as infantile and irresponsible began to fetishize and flaunt their shojo [girl] personality still more, almost as a means of taunting and ridiculing male condemnation” (250). Lady Gaga and the ganguro girls respond similarly to female objectification and racism, respectively—they exaggerate sexual and racial characteristics to the extreme. Such an active affirmation is inherently dangerous (for reasons described further below), but it allows the girls to turn social constructs around and “manipulate [sexism and misogyny in the society] to [their] own advantage” (Yoda, 5).

Not only does lady power grant more leverage in masculine society, it increases popularity in a capitalist social sphere. Popular Japanese bands such as SMAP often manipulate femininity as a marketing strategy and a way to attract an audience of both women and homosexual men. SMAP and their producers understand that “feminine sexuality is a social construct, [that] anyone, even a man who’s willing to buck against gender norms, can wield” to increase their popularity (Bauer, 2). Popular ever since their teens in the 1990s and featured on advertisements, billboards, and TV, SMAP clearly illustrates the power that feminine sexuality – even when completely constructed – has in the mass media. (That Lady Gaga also understands the construction of femininity is evident in the high-heeled men featured in her music videos.) Men like SMAP willing to take on more effeminate appearances are rewarded with increased popularity and a larger share of the consumer market.

Yet the wielding of such feminine power is, on the flip side, a dangerous gamble. By so clearly championing their sexuality, young women ironically risk being interpreted as the very image they seek to reject – a sexualized object. As Bauer writes, “the more successful the embodiment, the less obvious the analytic part is” (2). For Lady Gaga and her ganguro counterparts, the continuous self-affirmation of sexuality and race may in fact jeopardize the strength of their protests; the validity of their underlying messages is easily obscured by the glitz of their constructed appearances. Responses from many male critics indicate that this is in fact what is happening. Most are unable or refuse to see past the girls’ superficial getup to their implicit social critiques, preferring instead to categorize the girls in magazines resembling “illustrated picture books about birds, fish, or insects” (Kinsella, 150).

In addition to jeopardizing the very principles they fight for, female subcultures are also easily absorbed into society due to their transient nature. Like the Candies, a 1970s girl idol group, youth subcultures, such as the ganguro girls, spring up with a fervor that often lasts only as long as the adolescence of its members. Indeed, girlhood and its associated fashions and protests are seen as a transient “detour”—a “liminal girl-time” between birth and the eventual assimilation into society through marriage (Yoda, 17). Capitalizing on the transience of youth, the popular TV series Sunset Kitties marked the departure of each member into society and womanhood as a celebratory “graduation” (Yoda, 18). Although the sentimental gesture rarely occurs in real life, the entry into wifehood or motherhood in Japan is nonetheless considered a worthwhile achievement (Yoda, 17). A young woman’s time as a ganguro girl is thus clearly demarcated as a moratorium before the reincorporation of true adulthood. Given the fleeting nature of adolescence, female subcultures may only be able to protest for as long as their girlhood lasts; even Lady Gaga and the ganguro girls seem to realize the ephemeral nature of their existence and imbue its briefness with all the intensity they can muster.

These female groups are assimilated into society not only due to the transience of girlhood but also due to mass media’s active role in their incorporation. Once a new subculture is discovered, the intense media coverage that follows results in a dilution of its originality and forcefulness. Through large-scale coverage and advertising, the popularization of countercultural styles pulls subcultures into the mainstream and divests them of their unconventionality. The power of Lady Gaga and her ganguro girl counterparts does rest on public recognition to a certain extent—otherwise, their protests would never reach a wide enough audience. Yet popularity exceeding a critical point is ultimately detrimental. Mass media’s dissemination of subcultural styles relentlessly pushes the equilibrium towards the tipping point, until finally, what was once novel becomes banal. Like the “commercialization of bosozoku [motorcycle gang] style [that] facilitated nationwide diffusion of bosozoku symbolism and mass participation in the subcultural style,” the rising popularity of female subcultures only signals their eventual demise (Sato, 97).

The distinctiveness of countercultural groups is further diluted by mass market capitalism. Capitalist enterprise aggressively promotes lesser-known styles to the mainstream, “[scrambling] over one another to invent new goods, services, and gimmicks to sell on the expanding domestic consumer market” (Kinsella, 247). The resulting replicas of countercultural objects dramatically decrease the exclusivity of the subculture. Such propaganda primarily targets the mainstream population, but even the subcultures themselves fall into the lures of material gain. Female groups like the ganguro girls are characterized by their “notorious faddishness, eagerness to try new product ideas and technology, and sharp radar for detecting new trends on the horizon” (Yoda, 2). Such vehement consumption is perhaps necessary for the continual upkeep of appearances, but it ironically perpetuates the very system that the girls protest. Regardless of the target audience, capitalist marketing strategies duplicate once-exclusive subcultural styles and thus dilute their unconventionality, just as replicas of a statue diminish the aura of the original. Although motivated primarily by monetary gain, these capitalistic practices actively reincorporate nonconformist groups into society. The various imitators and duplicates produced by such fervent marketing ultimately render the original groups and their protests obsolete. When operating under both media coverage and capitalist strategies, the reincorporation of subcultures becomes continuous and complete.

Despite their transient nature and their eventual assimilation at the hands of mass media and mass markets, Lady Gaga and the ganguro girls raise issues that perpetuate long after the women themselves have reentered the dominant culture. Lady power, for example, will remain a complex issue long after Lady Gaga herself has graduated into womanhood; the gender dynamics she toys with will remain open to debate. Each subculture also has the potential to inspire new groups that branch out or supersede their predecessors and continue the implicit critiques of society. Although the ganguro girl was a phenomenon of the 1990s, the subcultures it spawned (the amazoness, yamamba, mamba, celemba, and kogal, for example) continue to work to the same ends in exposing ethnic contradictions and social prejudices (Kawamura, 788-789). Though short-lived, subcultural movements revive debates relegated to the fringes of society. Without such voices of dissent, society risks the gradual assumption of immorality and ignorance.

In analyzing the complex dynamics of rebellion versus coexistence among female subcultures and society, it becomes clear that mass media and the social constructs it espouses have the final say. The media not only perpetuates the ideal images of society—like the devoted schoolgirl and her kamikaze companion—it consequently eradicates subcultures by popularizing once-exclusive trends. In addition to the media, mass markets and the transient, consumption-dependent nature of youth subcultures also cement their eventual demise. Despite the attempts of Lady Gaga and her Japanese ganguro counterparts to dismantle or at least challenge existing preconceptions, the media and markets never fail to present an effective counterattack. In popularizing and replicating unconventional styles, the mass media and marketing machines incorporate social subcultures to maintain a homogenous, like-minded population. In the face of such opposing forces, the brazen young women of these subcultures nevertheless raise objections that perpetuate the tensions between dominant and subordinate culture. Through their efforts, issues once relegated to the edges of social consciousness become at once visible and contentious. Only in the push and pull between culture and subculture does society have a chance of evolution and ultimately, of improvement.

WORKS CITED

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