How Recent Japanese Boys Are Getting Femininize Essay

The recent male Japanese gender identity is so unique in the same way as their culture. Most of them are fashionable and they always care about their hairstyles just like girls, and desire to be skinny. The reason why they look so feminine is not just because they want to become a Kabuki Onnagata actors. There is a controversial reason. Since the women are getting a bigger part in the society, Japanese gender roles have drastically changed. Previously in Japan, women used to be expected to follow men and learn house works to get married with men who are introduced by parents or marriage meeting. However, as women’s rate increased in the company, men more and more feel small. As women has got more money and free time, the media started to illustrate their desire. If they have the high expectation for men, guys tried to fill up it. This is the beginning of the system where guys follow the women’s expectations, and recently it is distorting Japanese male identity. Women’s expectations for men cause the disturbance of masculinity, and especially the medias emphasis the distort the images of male identity. The media always represents the value of the current people, and especially recent Japanese media is inclined to the women’s opinions, and it distorts gender identity. Recent Japanese guys are so feminine. Whenever you walk around a city, you can find guys who are wearing skinny jeans, or guys who have long hair like girls. You can even find guys wearing girls’ clothes. To describe those guys, there are a lot of slangs words, such as â€Å"Sousyoku-kei-danshi†, â€Å"Otokono-ko†, â€Å"Jyosoushi†, â€Å"Oto-men†, and so on. Sousyoku-kei danshi† means herbivore men who do not act aggressively and they favor the peace in the group, so they don’t have interest in girls, love, and they even don’t want to make love. There is a ranking research for asking them why you don’t have girl friends. The popular reasons are that â€Å"they want to enjoy their time†, â€Å"they are satisfied with current situations†, â€Å"troublesome†, â€Å" because of shyness†, â€Å" feeling easy with guys†, and so on. Thus, they are negative for not only girls but also other things. It’s kind of similar as herbivore animals, so they are named like this. For them, violence is not real and they hate to compete with people, so they don’t work out like other counties’ guy want to become muscular. Instead, they believe working out is a gay’s work, and good men should be skinny to wear fashionable clothes. They have grown up in the resection, so they don’t desire luxuries. If someone show off the richness the they would look down on the Off course there are opinions that the economic situation and education influence their value to live. While Japanese young people used to consume cars, brand products and travel to overseas during bubble era, current youth do not desire these things because they have shifted value. Previously Japanese youth wanted to emphasize richness, so they bought expensive products as if they were competing, but that is considered as stupid now because recent young people want average things. They are not good at competing with others and do not want to be distinguished from others because they experienced how much it scares to been left out. For example, the media has exposed the decline of big stars. Most poplar actress, hottest athlete and other famous talents are charged just because they made a slip of a tongue. They treat them as criminal. Moreover, once comedians become popular and are shown on too many programs, audience tend to want them to disappear. Not only the other world, they also have watched the real life bullies. That is why they do not behave like muscular guy, and cherish the cooperativeness with others. That is what girls have expected to have in Japan. education also affect their value. Japanese young generations are lacking the competitive spirit because Japanese have gotten a more relaxed education since the 1980’s, which means setting high price on the individualistic value. this education system is influenced by America because Japanese education system was too competitive. They had memorized text as much as possible to pass the entrance test for university. To improve such machine like education and prize the individual value, they needed the system that makes students have their own opinions and take more time to discuss how to solve problems around them. However, it didn’t work because Japanese people are culturally passive, so few people make statements in classroom, as a result, while the amount of the words which students have to memorize decrease, they came not to consider, as a result, the system just cut off the amount of study. Furthermore, it becomes easy to go to university because the traditional entrance test become easy, 50% student pass the entrance test only by the interview. Which is not enough to explain the reason why Japanese guys are motivated to be feminine or skinny. However, those facts do not directly influence the gender identity because they still have money if they live with family and Japanese schools still have traditional gender treatment for each boys and girls. The media is the most influential factor to distort the male role in Japan, and drama is one of the good sources to know how different the gender role is. Traditionally Japanese TV love dramas illustrate the trend of each age, so if it’s compared up to each age, it’s easy to understand the value for the era. In the bubble age, the heroes had longing jobs, such as advertising, travel agency, or someone who works at oversea, and story is about the love affairs of a group of several characters. Most women admire life in the drama and fashion of female role, and they desire to have same one or try to find those guys who can purchase it for them. At that time they expected guys to economic force, and they thought guys should have the competitive power, so that was common like other countries. However, some women started to be suspicious about the masculinity because Japanese society was still male-dominated base, so it was not interesting for some. And then, they became to hope that the next generation or their kids to be more kind. Women’s expectations shifted from the masculinity to gentle conduct to females. Thus, the herbivore men generations started to be born. Fashion is the most the concern things in some people feel young generation feel they want to go drink or play around if they don’t have the good cloth Likewise the topic in the girls’ magazine, Japanese guys also interested in health and not only the talent Japanese male life is not also become feminine. I did not mean the discrimination, but just criticize the Japanese too much self-concerning. In the 80s, Japanese media used to show the Yankees or yakuza kind of stories on the drama, and that was a fundamental stereotype in Japan because people in that age still believed that the guys must be strong and male also dominated society. The representative drama is â€Å"School Wars†. The story is about that a former Japan national rugby team player hired as a high school rugby coach. However, the school is famous for the bad boys and especially the rugby kid’s were uncontrolled. The team straggles with a lot of problems and in the story, but finally the coach pulls the team together and won the high school national rugby tournament. That kind of story is so-called â€Å"spokon†, and this genre became a popular at the era because the story is quit simple and make audience refresh the mind. However, the some guys also admire those images on such a drama, so it let them go into juvenile delinquency, and it became a social issue. To prevent from such behavior, Japan broadcast committee came to make restrictions for violence scenes, so those dramas disappeared from the screen. At the same time the male gaze objectified women on screen, so there are so many comedy shows that describe the women naked on midnight. In the 90’s to early 00’s, Japanese media was drastically changed and the contents had became to reflect women’s request, so the popular genre shifted from â€Å"spokon† to love romance which is so-called â€Å"trendy-drama†. The stories look at the girl’s comics and got a large female audience. In this decade, a lot of women came into the society, so feminists and female employee criticized about the strongly male dominate society. Those dramas also illustrate the ideal women workers role, so that got support from women, and Japanese media gradually start leaning to the women side. Not only the dramas, the music shows also became popular because J-pop reached the peak of popularity, especially Johnny & Association, producing boys’ celebrity groups company, turn out many popular groups, and got the many funs, so the media producers learned that they can got huge viewers and sponsored instead of the actors if they have the acting skills or not. As a result, those good-looking celebrities dominated Japanese dramas, movies, or even music industry. At the same time, those body images threat people’s self esteem. It was raised as a social issue that Girls obsess with the dieting and desire to be thin, so it also caused the eating disorder. Current youth guys has grown up in this era and exposed those ideal models of new masculinity by the media, as a result appearance is spontaneously placed on their primary concerns. As Iida says â€Å"It was the development of an image/information oriented mode of capitalist economy of the 1990s that made the imaginative exploration of alternate selves, including the aesthetically sophisticated self-representation by young men, a highly desired economic practice. (2) People were motivated to imitate the behave of celebrities, so young generations takes it for granted to blush up their appearance to be attractive or popular in their class room. Since later 00’s, the image-oriented capitalism became hash and distorts body images, and especially guys are objectified as much as female objectification on the screen because the media producers change the strategies to get audience. TV stations basically depend on the advertising income, but sponsors do not offer the advertising cost because youth generations came not to watch TV compared to the 90’s young generation. Even thought drama story were written by originally until beginning of 90’s, most recent dramas are based on the girl’s comics because there are funs that already know the comic, so it’s easy to correct audience. Moreover, the girls comic stories usually appear a lot of hansom roles, and producers can adopt good looking celebrities who also have a large number of funs, so it can get viewers As a result, particular kind of fetishisms become to be represented in the drama. For example, â€Å"Ouran High School Host Club† is a drama, which visualized originally from popular girls comic. The story is about the official host club in boys school treat the patrons from girls school next to there. In such a daily life, character makes problems. The male characters are unique and created by the women’s fetish. Suou Tamaki is a selfish but good at to escort girls and categorized as an â€Å"Oujisama kei ikemen†, which means prince kind guy. Yusuke Yamamoto, a most popular young actor plays this role. His face is well organized and looks feminine, but girls regard him as neutral and adore. Mitukuni Haninostuka is also representative in this drama. He always has a rabbit dole and behaves like a girl, but it stimulates the maternity of girls. Although Yudai Chiba is a popular fashion model in the male magazine, but he paly this role because his face is so sophisticated and feminine. Even though this drama is for girls, both Yamamoto and Chiba are supported by male youth and they suggest those guys a new kind of masculinity that is leaning to famine side not only on the screen but also on the magazine. Guys who are sensitive for appearance imitate their fashions, behavior or life stile. That’s the major reason why Japanese youth are getting feminine. In later 00’s, this male objectification has started on the drama commercials or paper media also force them pay attention to their appearance. While Japanese commercials are traditionally celebrities make the products look good, the characters on the current commercials are different from a decade ago. The clients favor to use more neutral guys to promote their products. A typical example is that suits company, â€Å"Haruyama†, adopt AKB48 for their male suits commercial. The company considers that AKB48 is a Japanese most popular female group, so they can attract a lot of guys fun. At the same time, they wanted to highlight their thinness of suits by letting girls wear the male suits. What we can see this commercial is that how much Japanese guys desire to be thin or look slim. As I mention that, most of Japanese girls are stick to the skinny body images, but it’s not only women’s issues anymore. Japanese guys also want to be skinny because those who are recognized as an ideal guy is like a western looking just like girl’s comic represent. To the matter is worse, Japanese cosmetic company; publishing company or TV comedy shows have a promotion campaign, and exploit for them to come close to the images. For example, Rohto Pharmaceutical CO. , Ltd produce a many kinds of male cosmetics, and push the strong messages on commercials like â€Å" if you don’t use this, girls never come close to you†. The extreme campaign is that they force them to do whitening their skin just like women. This kind of objectification to guys as a female is often seen on the media. Magazines for men force them to be fashionable as much as girls do, and teach them how to deal with the male cosmetic products. At the one corner of popular TV comedy show, guys are dressed like women and compete how much they are beautiful even though they are not homosexual or transvestite. Iida mentions, â€Å"†¦the idea that the â€Å"feminisation of culture† leads to the â€Å"feminisation of masculinity† is an interesting proposition†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (3). Thus, Japanese society itself threat young guys to be clean, skinny or feminine. Japanese young men are looking for the new muscularity under the media pressure, women’s high expectations, and hyper pure society. As the media describe, the ideal parson is that he is tall, skinny, understanding what girls are thinking and having the flexibility to correspond to the social requirement. That model is rare or no exist case, but the media never stop exposing those ideal. To matter worse, Japanese are not good at to accept or discuss the extra ordinal thoughts. While that ideal mode is completely unusual or wrong, they are stick to it, so most of guys feel unconfident about themselves. They are lacking self-esteem, so they cannot be aggressive toward girls. They think they must be fashionable and keep cleanness wherever they go, but women do not so much care about the men’s appearance when they chose their partner. In fact, some of them are more likely to get marry with previous generation guys in 30’s to 40’s because their self-esteem is high enough to approach the women regardless of their appearance. If male appearance is the first priority for women to decide marriage, the young generation must superior to that generation. However, the fact is different. The thing is that women are more realistic than men. While they admire those who inside of the media, they know that is not real. That becomes variance for those guys wants to response to women’s demand. While elderly critic often argue about this issue, that was never understood by their generations because their generation was not complex as much as nowadays, so it stereotypically analyzed and label young guys as inferior new type, and make fun of them it just like a game. However, they should take it account that social expectations are shifted, and guys are expected to have more female role to coexist with women. The gender could not be easily judged by biological role in current complex society. â€Å"Sue Thornman claims that a â€Å"female person† holds a â€Å"doublesubjectivity† ;while â€Å"she represents herself to herself,† she also performs a role of another subject who â€Å"consciously creates, manipulates, and compensates for the figurability of an imaginary subject that projects cohesiveness as its founding assumption through a fictional body. â€Å"(5 Iida). To response to social demand, guys are just imitating the female behavior not because they actually wants to be a women, so the media should let them know it, and suggest how understand the female role and new male identity. In conclusion, distorted masculinity by the media make Japanese young guys hard to find appropriate model. Older generations also critici ze their constructing new way, so it makes more difficult issue. Most young generations get the complex from that reason, and they seem lack the self-esteem. However, those who suffer the issue must ignore what the media expose. Most Japanese people tend to believe that the media is truth because they used to follow the majority. As I mentioned, most Japanese people are disciplined not to have the individualistic opinions. In the class, it’s rare to be asked their opinions and only take the note what teachers are talking or writing on the board. As a result, they stick to one idea. They also lack the experience to acknowledge other cultures. They don’t know how fouling people observe themselves because majority of Japanese never been abroad. Japanese society is traditionally closed, so problems become too domestic. If it’s the U. S. people express the rejection to the media like Justin Bever is criticized as a gay singer. Even though minority people criticize about that on 2ch, those people are thought they are dropped from the main stream and are not persuasive because they hide their name. Anyway, to combat this issue, Japanese must be more flexible and reject to be brainwashed by the media.