The Grand Narrative

Last Sunday, my new daily must-read Sociological Images blog discussed the Tokyo City Government’s appointment of three young women as “cute ambassadors” for the city, the better to promote Japanese kawaii (cute) culture and project Japan’s “soft power” abroad. Which just officiates what has occurred for decades really, although by all means Japan needs to exploit what it has a comparative advantage in given the dire state of its economy.

But choosing a 19 year-old that dresses like a schoolgirl, another as a Victorian doll in voluminous frilly skirts, and a third in a polka dot shirt with a bunny print, has certainly raised more than just eyebrows, and strongly tempts us purveyors of the Western gaze to pigeonhole them into the Western pornography genre of “lolitas.” Yet as numerous commentators there (and here and here) pointed out, Japanese lolita fashion, and much of Japanese cosplay in general, is intended as anything but sexual, and many of their adherents would be surprised at Westerners’ associations.

Given the huge size of the Japanese child and adolescent pornography industry for one though, then personally I find that view incredibly naive at best, but on the other hand it’s true that concepts of “cute” and “sexy” differ widely between individuals, let alone between cultures. Which is not to say that I don’t think that there are universal standards that can and should be applied for determining which is which regardless, but it does point to what can be fine lines between them sometimes.

Still, my primary interest is Korea, and while it is by no means as extreme a case as Japan, and thus gets correspondingly less attention by the Western media and academia, arguably it’s much the more interesting. For like in Japan infantile, immature, and “cute” behavior on the part of adult women (or those in their twenties at least) is also very much encouraged by the media, but unlike Japan it occurs in an environment which discourages explicit expressions of sexuality, premarital sex being widespread but always kept secret (particularly by women). Which means that what expressions that do exist in popular culture are often in this faux cute guise instead, giving a dynamic to Korean celebrity culture that is ultimately very different to its Western counterparts.

( Source )

(Probably related are the harsh restrictions on pornography also {no genitalia or pubic hair allowed}, and hence the fact that the domestic industry is easily dwarfed by its relatively laissez-faire Japanese counterpart, but I don’t want to make too much of that: Korean men don’t like teenage girl groups {and thereby further encourage their sexual clothes and dance moves} simply because they lack the ready access to, say, schoolgirl manga that their Japanese counterparts have, although it would be naive to dismiss that element altogether)

Korean celebrities do provide role models for teenagers of course, and so while I’d be the last person to say that adolescents’ sexuality is suddenly dormant until being turned on like a light at the age of consent (which is 18 in Korea, not 13 as is often erroneously reported), nor that sexy dance moves and clothes by under-18s should be strictly verboten, it is true a public reluctance to acknowledge them as anything but cute is seriously inhibiting the development of sex education in schools and a healthy sexual culture in general, let alone acknowledging and dealing with the huge size of the teenage prostitution industry here.

As my friend Gord Sellar has written an outstanding (and lengthy) piece on all the questions raised by those issues here, and which has played no small part in my own evolving views on the subject, then I’ll wisely defer discussing them for now. But I can, however, give a very good recent example of the sort of thing I mean. Consider this commercial for the Korean yogurt drink O’yu (오’유):

I’ll wager that had you not seen it in this post, that you’d have found it perfectly innocent at first (given my recent track record, then me too). But consider what Extra! Korea wrote on it here, through which I first found it:

I don’t think it’s cute, and here’s why.

From their uniforms and the hallway leading to classrooms, these are schoolgirls. But look at how short their skirts are. That’s not regulation length, trust me. If these were 18-year-old high school seniors, then it could be overlooked, but when the camera shows a close-up of their faces, it’s clear that they’re much younger than that. And do I have a uniquely dirty mind, or does the final scene, in which one girl opens her mouth and tilts her head back in order to receive a drink from a giant phallus-like beverage container that gets closer and closer to her lips, remind you of a blowjob?

Now that you mention it…

But on the other hand (no pun intended), was that simply a fun perspective shot like this?

See here to see more like it (make sure to click on “더보기” under the two that will come up to see all of them). Now if that was the only scene in the commercial open to interpretation, then I’d probably err on the side of cute, but consider the first few seconds of it especially:

Yes, they are indeed cute and innocent teenagers. They’re also lying on the ground, wearing extremely high skirts – which look hitched up a bit to boot – and repeatedly spread and close their legs. And later:

I accept that there may be school uniforms with skirts as high as that (update: at least when they’re out of school that is), although I haven’t seen any personally, but regardless I’m not going to pretend that, once having seen them in the commercial, they didn’t get anything less than my complete and undivided attention, and that’s even without the jiggling of the girls’ hips at o:10 too. Nor that I feel a sense of outrage about the commercial as a whole either, but although I’m certainly convinced of the sexual elements to it, and am bold enough to think that you will be too now, I’d be very interested in hearing what mental contortions Korean friends or students of yours may go through to argue otherwise!

Update: Here is a good example of the two extremes, with adult women acting like babies, and babies acting like…well…it has to be seen to be believed!

Update 2: I wrote about this subject for the KoreaTimes a week later.

( All screencapture sources: Paranzui )