Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to another student takeover episode of The
Sociology Show. This episode is with Olive Smith and she's
going to be talking about romanticization the effects of globalization
on Japan. Fascinating stuff. Thank you very much for sending
it in a file, Olive. Before we get to the episode, though,
just to let you know that the Sociology Show podcast
now offers online tutoring. So whether you are looking for
(00:22):
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(00:46):
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(01:07):
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This episode by Olive is around twenty minutes long, real
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(01:29):
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is the Sociology Show podcast at gmail dot com. So
let's have a listen to this episode then. This is
from Olive Smith, who attends Westcliffe High School for Girls
in Essex, and the title of this episode is Romanticization
the effects of Globalization on Japan. Enjoy As already likes.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
To assume we are moving into a more postmodern world.
I am particularly interested in how globalization affects the world
around us. For those who don't know what globalization is,
it is a sociological term for how the boundaries of social, political,
and economic means have been broken down across the world,
(02:17):
so you're able to access information from everywhere at any
point through the Internet, and Giddins, who's a sociologist, described
it as a runaway world that it's moving so quickly
and we can't stop it, and it was actually dubbed
the space of flows by Manuel Castele and other sociologists
(02:38):
because information is constantly moving and there's no way to
stop it. So particularly I wanted to focus on Japan
and how globalization has impacted not only its culture at home,
but more so how we in the West have adopted
its culture and not necessarily twisted it, but how we've
taken it and changed it from what it necessarily was
(03:03):
in Japan. So Japan has actually been trading with the
West since fifteen forty three when a Portuguese ship wrecked
in Tanegeshima, and particularly in the eighteen hundreds, we saw
this rise of Japanese art and culture spreading across Europe,
(03:23):
which was described as Philip Bertie in eighteen seventy two
as Japanism. And in the modern day, I think we
can all see how ideas and parts of Japanese culture
have really established well in the West. But I particularly
wanted to focus on four elements media, fashion, image, and food.
(03:45):
So when I say media, I'm really mostly going to
be focusing on the Japanese art form of anime. It
is a huge thing here in the West. I myself,
I'm not a particular fan. I wouldn't say that I'm
a die hard anime watcher, but I have watched the
media now and then, and actually in the West, until
(04:07):
about nineteen eighty eight, it was just called japanimation. We
didn't actually adopt the term from japan anime, but that
was until the film Akira came out in nineteen eighty eight,
and it's sort of been attributed to the birth of
anime as a real big thing in the media in
(04:28):
the West, which was followed by Pokemon and Dragon Ball
Z in the late nineties. And even though I was
born in two thousand and seven, I remember that those
were shows that were frequently on TV growing up, especially Pokemon. Now,
what a good thing is about things like anime spreading
across the world like this is that it keeps an
(04:50):
art style alive. Not necessarily saying that anime was a
dying art form, I don't think it is by any means,
but it really helped to sort of inspire people across
the world and allow them to explore this art style
that maybe they weren't aware of before, and they really
(05:11):
like it, and they're able to really delve deep into
other artists that maybe aren't from their country or aren't
as well known just because they aren't doing these really
famous modern or traditionalist art pieces. But it also breaks
some boundaries. So obviously, because this is an art form
(05:33):
coming from Japan, a different culture, some people might have
preconceived notions about Asia, particularly East Asia, and because of
this art form, they are able to be immersed somewhat
in the culture of that country just from the media
(05:55):
that they are being shown. And I think that could
be quite a powerful thing, being able to look at
just a piece of media and whilst it might not
accurately portray one hundred percent what that culture is about,
you're able to see elements of it and possibly be
interested and research further. However, like everything, there are always
(06:21):
negatives to this, and I think particularly this has come
in live actions of traditional anime and manga pieces done
in Japan. Two very prominent ones off the top of
my head, was the Ghost in the Shell movie with
Scarlett Johansson. Now she's a white woman who was cast
to play an Asian woman. And I haven't really seen
(06:44):
a lot of back classroomers. Obviously there has been, but
definitely at the time at least I didn't see a
lot of people being like, isn't it a bit weird
to just completely erase a characters of original ethnicity. And
the other one was the Death Note remake in twenty
(07:06):
seventeen from Netflix that actually has a well known actor
in it. It's got Willem Dafoonet playing Reuke, the shinagami
who's one of the main characters, but it's they decided
to take it from Japan and not only said it
in America, but changed the characters to be American. So
(07:30):
rather than have Misa, I believe one of the character's
name is, it was Mia. And it just feels like,
how could we not have changed the story or at
least adapted it if we wanted it to be in America?
Could we have not adapted it? So that is based
off of Death Note, but it is not completely one
(07:51):
to one, but instead we've just inherently whitewashed it. I
guess you could say to make it more appealing to
a Western audience, and the main problem with that is
is that that just removes opportunities from Asian actors. I'm
not claiming to know everything about the struggles it means
(08:12):
to be an Asian actor in Hollywood. I am not
Asian nor an actor, but I know from things I've
seen in the media, from things that Asian actors have said,
that they really struggle to get out of those stereotypical
roles that Hollywood has placed on them. And so by
taking characters that arguably should go to these East Asian actors,
(08:39):
these Japanese actors, and giving them to any famous white
actor or actress, it just really creates stigma in this
whitewashing and it normalizes it, which is such an issue
and widespread issue which I really feels like needs to
be addressed more often. So I'm gonna talk about fashion.
(09:01):
So fashion is actually one of the main reasons I
decided to focus on Japan. I myself am interested in
a particular j fashion style that's a subcultural style of
harajuku called Lalita, not the book as some people think,
but rather it is a style that takes inspiration from
(09:24):
Rococo and Victorian England silhouettes, and it's all about big,
proofy dresses in fun prints, and there are a lot
of different styles within that. It's really a subculture within
a subculture. But there are many other styles. We've got
yaru vk og Decora, just to name a few that
I particularly look at myself, and as someone who's interested
(09:49):
in fashion, I find it quite interesting how you can
see how other cultures have responded to like sociological movements.
So Lalita is a a response to a feminism movement,
and it is all about empowering women by giving them
the ability to dress however they want, dress as like
(10:12):
pretty as they want, as feminine as they want, without
feeling judged, without making them feel like they're going to
be sexualized for it. And I think it's so important
to not only with globalization see that happening, but be
able to take inspiration from it.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
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(10:56):
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Speaker 2 (11:02):
Again, a negative is though, is that we see these
death of subcultures. We see them warped and with fast
fashion and micro trends, we see how particularly Lolita, I've
seen they take the basic ideas without looking further into
what the style is, about what certain brands are there,
(11:27):
and because it's a subculture, the things they do as
part of the fashion, it's not just a fashion. With
most of these like a lifestyle, particularly with Yaru and VK.
They have specific things that the people who indulge in
them focus on, and because of social media and globalization,
(11:48):
this has been watered down. The other element of fashion,
though it is obviously traditional Japanese dress, The one I'm
focusing on is the kimono, which is obviously probably the
most well known one. There was actually a huge scare
in probably like the two thousand's early twenty ten of
(12:09):
people worrying that the traditional garments of Japan were going
to die out because the young people were only wearing
them for special occasions and they weren't feeling connected to them.
And I guess a real positive of globalization is that
people look at those styles from other countries and they're like, Oh,
(12:32):
I really like that, Let me incorporate that into my
fashion designs. And so, for example, we have Tom Brown
in his spring summer show in twenty sixteen using the
kimono's inspiration and allowing for it to be preserved in
a way. There's also been a resurgence of the komono
in Japan's recently, though, with the sort of pushing that
(12:56):
kimono is a personal thing and allowing the youth to
creative freedom with the way they wear it so they
feel more connected to it because it's more personalized with
the other cultures. However, looking at that and taking inspiration,
there is obviously the room for the debate of whether
it's cultural appropriation or appreciation. And while you may not
(13:20):
be able to discern yourself whether the actions you were
taking or for the right and wrong reasons, it is
something we need to keep in mind when we're looking
at other cultures, particularly in dress, how we're adapting these
things to fit our own culture, our own style, and
make sure that we're not just cherry picking the things
(13:43):
that are appropriate to us, or inherently changing them and
ignoring their history. A big thing about fashion is its
history and how it's evolved. And if you ignore the
cultural history behind how these fashions have come about, you've
really watered down their meaning, which could be seen as
(14:07):
cultural appropriation. Now, with image and food, I'm going to
try and keep it as brief as possible because there
isn't a lot to say. But with image in particular,
I find that when we google Japan, when we look
at Japan and Japan appears in the media to us
in the West, it always looks very pristine, very pretty.
(14:27):
It focuses a lot on the culture of Japan that
is deeply rooted into the country. But with this we
tend to ignore some of the darker side of Japan.
So in terms of crime statistics, certain sexual crimes have
(14:48):
very high rates in the country. Particularly mobile phones over
there have to have the ringers on because of the
amount of like reports of people taking photos of women
on the train without their consent. But mainly I've seen
(15:10):
this erasure of the colonial past of Japan in World
War Two. Now it is really really heavy. So I'm
not going to elaborate on everything that they did, but
countries like Korea have felt that the atrocities that happened
(15:33):
as a result of Japan's sort of imperialist colonial past
that they tried to cover up, they haven't really fully
been addressed. And I know that this has been something
that obviously every country doesn't want they're horrible past to
come up. But I think because of this particular rise
(15:54):
in acknowledging the imperialist past of England, of America, the
backlash of America trying to cover up certain topics to
do with the racism in their past, I feel like
this should be a cut si extended to the whole
(16:15):
of the world. And whilst I'm not I don't want
it to come across as I'm just targeting Japan on this,
I think there are many countries that do this that
needs to be addressed. I think because I'm talking about Japan,
I should make it known that we have a very
romanticized view of Japan that doesn't necessarily reflect the history
(16:35):
of the country all the way through. Now with food,
it's a lot lighter. There's not really a lot of
negatives to say about food. One of the particular things
I've seen is food like sushi raman. It is like
everywhere you can get in supermarket. There are really popular
fast food chains such as Wagon, Mammas and Yosushi that's
(16:58):
just a couple of them, obviously loads and also small
independent businesses as well. It has really become a big
thing over here for people to enjoy food from other cultures,
and Japan I think has really benefited from this, Like
you can literally get Japanese food in most supermarkets, in
most places on the high street they will have something.
(17:20):
People take inspirations from the spices, from the dishes. I
think with food it is so positive how it ignores
somewhat like how society may view a culture, and it
purely focuses on taking inspiration and bringing a positive light
(17:42):
to food in different countries. I love learning about food
in different countries. I love eating it. Whilst I may
not necessarily like something, it's always good to experience what
other cultures eat, what other countries eat, And with cooking
practices especially, they can be adapted in so many ways.
(18:04):
So there is actually a cooking technique called yoshoku now
that is a Japanese cooking technique where they take traditional
Western dishes such as fried chicken, and they make it
using traditional Japanese cooking methods. So think chicken katsu that
is fried chicken made with traditional Japanese methods. And again
(18:27):
that is such with all their hate that I think
can come in this world. Food spreading like this can, honestly,
for some people, be a way to learn about other cultures.
It is such an easy way to learn about another
culture just going into shop seeing food you don't necessarily
(18:49):
know and being like, Oh, that looks nice, I'll try it,
or oh, I've never heard of that before, let me
look more into it, or oh I really like that,
I want to learn more about it and try other dishes.
Food is a really positive way to bring people together
because we all need food. So it's unsurprising really that
Japanese food has really taken a hold of the Western
(19:14):
food market. So to conclude, I really wanted to focus
on the question why do we idolize Japan. There are
so many countries across the world. Why is Japan in
particular one of the ones that we idolized the most
in the West. And I've come up with three reasons
why I think that Japan has become sort of this
(19:38):
token child in Asia for the West to look at.
The first one is pop culture, and the West is
so greenland to pop culture. Nowadays, you not necessarily anime
like I've focused on in my paragraph, but just you
might see a name, or you might see movies taking
(19:59):
place in Japan. You might have characters from Japan that
wear traditional garments, perform traditional tasks, traditional cultural practices, and
that just really helps to cement in people's mind like
an idea of the country. And obviously that has positives
(20:20):
and negatives. You can learn more about the country just
f on this basic overview, but some people may take
that face value and really see Japan as this beacon
of light in the world, so to speak. That it
may not necessarily be. It has a very rich culture.
(20:41):
That is probably a great example of how even with globalization,
even with detraditionalization, which is a phrase Giddens users, it
has really held its roots and its culture. I feel
like it's still something that spreads quite a lot throughout
(21:01):
its society. And in America and England we may not
feel that we have this deep rooted culture like Japan,
and some people might see that and be like, wow,
that's not necessarily inspirational, but that sort of feeling like heartwarming,
I guess you could say. And they really idolize the
(21:23):
ability of a country to be innovative and yet still
hold its roots, and that takes us to the final
point I came up with. They are a very stereotypical
view in the West of how East Asia can be innovative.
(21:43):
Their economic model is actually nicknamed the East Asian model
in the West. It is very highly revered over here,
and I think because of this, we've come to with
this stereotypical idea that they are leaders, they are in
a and whilst that's you can't say that maybe that's
(22:05):
not necessarily the case. They are definitely they definitely have
a very strong economy because they have a lot of
positives about them. They're innovators, they have a rich culture
that they've held onto, and they are ingrained into our
pop culture. It's very easy to look past maybe some
of the negatives and look past our own romanticized view
(22:26):
of the country. This has been my very brief overview
of how globalization has affected Japan, and I hope you
enjoyed and thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Sociology Show podcast relies on the kind contributions of sponsorship
and donations. If you enjoy the show, then you can
help with the hosting costs by donating as little as
five pounds on the go fundme page. Simply visit UK
dot GoFundMe dot com and search for the Sociology Show.
If you can donate, then you will be sent a
(22:57):
Sociology Show pen as a small thank you for your
continue support of the show.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
M Yeah