The Deep-rooted Xenophobic Nature of Japanese Variety Shows
At first, the show seems to be just another Japanese TV show that features a bunch of well-known comedians and other celebrities sampling good food around the country. For this episode of the typical "variety show," the group headed to Yokohama Chinatown to find the best-tasting and best-valued Chinese buffets in the area. The hour-long show featured the group going to four different restaurants to try out shrimp, shark fin, spicy stir-frys, and gourmet fried rice. There were plenty of mouth-watering close-up shots of the food and plenty of celebrities talking about how good the food is. So far so good.
But the problem emerges when a surprise guest, another prominent comedian, shows up halfway through the show dressed up as a Shaolin monk, with stereotyped Chinese mustache drawn on his face, and plenty of bouncing around the streets in mimicry of a training monk. As an obnoxious comic relief of the show, he visited the kitchens of the restaurants to speak to the chefs and announce special deals for views of the show, all in a highly exaggerated Chinese-accented Japanese spoken to the country's new Chinese immigrant population. For a Chinese person watching the show, the "special guest's" act can be described as nothing but jarring.
Of course, the Chinese are not the only foreigners being used for jokes in Japanese variety shows. Veteran comedian Masatoshi Hamada dressed up as Eddie Murphy, with full-on blackface, for the 2018 edition of "Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!!," a popular New Year's comedy series watched by millions each year. While the incident led to some domestic backlash and overseas media exposure that shed light on Japanese entertainment's perceived racism, neither Hamada nor the TV station in question apologized for the incident, while plenty of regular Japanese citizens jumped to their support in the ensuing days.
Two years later, using foreignness as a butt of jokes, both through domestic and foreign actors remains unfortunately common. The fundamental issue of celebrities being racist on TV is that their getting away with publicized acts of racism implies that what they did is not at all problematic, thereby encouraging other celebrities and normal people to do their own casual racist skits for humor, both on TV and in real life. The result is a stubborn persistence of racial stereotypes among the general public, despite open criticism of such by a conscious minority.
The flippant attitude toward respecting other races, unfortunately, all also adopted beyond the world of popular entertainment. Despite his recent half-hearted apology, the racist comments Prof. Shohei Ohsawa made about Chinese people have seen parallels from a wide variety of individuals in every walk of life. The online support he received from many people in Japan, defending his right to say what he said in public means that similar incidents, perhaps involving another ethnicity on another separate matter, will play out soon.
In the case of China, in particular, the negative image carried by the country and its government in recent years has only made it even more difficult for racism against the Chinese to be stamped out quickly. Prof. Ohsawa and his supporters, for instance, quickly shielded themselves from further criticism by stating their anti-Chinese sentiment pertain to the ongoing fear of Chinese espionage in Japan and other countries, combined with global outrage toward the country's hostile policies in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan. The continued negative impression of China among the Japanese general public means that racism against the Chinese will continue to exist by tapping into these government-related factors.
Yet, just because China is negatively perceived today does not mean that other countries will escape similar treatments in the future. After all, racism against the Chinese is complex, rooted not just in the negative impression of the country's government, but also the negative impression of Chinese individuals, who are visible in large numbers, both as residents and tourists in Japan. Yet, as more countries become wealthier and gradually overtake China as the largest source of foreign individuals in Japan, it is entirely conceivable that the anti-Chinese bias held by the Japanese will be transferred to other ethnicities and nationalities in a matter of a few decades.
To ensure that instead of people continually finding new races to hate on, racism is truly branded as socially unacceptable in Japan, it is celebrities who really need to step up to the plate. For young people, people on TV are often role models for behaviors and values. If those role models are busy drawing laughs from the audience through caricaturing the country's ever-increasing foreign-born population, it is difficult to see how the issue of racism here can ever go away. Now, more than ever, TV personalities must play a positive role in socializing a future generation that does not condone racism in everyday life.
But the problem emerges when a surprise guest, another prominent comedian, shows up halfway through the show dressed up as a Shaolin monk, with stereotyped Chinese mustache drawn on his face, and plenty of bouncing around the streets in mimicry of a training monk. As an obnoxious comic relief of the show, he visited the kitchens of the restaurants to speak to the chefs and announce special deals for views of the show, all in a highly exaggerated Chinese-accented Japanese spoken to the country's new Chinese immigrant population. For a Chinese person watching the show, the "special guest's" act can be described as nothing but jarring.
Of course, the Chinese are not the only foreigners being used for jokes in Japanese variety shows. Veteran comedian Masatoshi Hamada dressed up as Eddie Murphy, with full-on blackface, for the 2018 edition of "Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!!," a popular New Year's comedy series watched by millions each year. While the incident led to some domestic backlash and overseas media exposure that shed light on Japanese entertainment's perceived racism, neither Hamada nor the TV station in question apologized for the incident, while plenty of regular Japanese citizens jumped to their support in the ensuing days.
Two years later, using foreignness as a butt of jokes, both through domestic and foreign actors remains unfortunately common. The fundamental issue of celebrities being racist on TV is that their getting away with publicized acts of racism implies that what they did is not at all problematic, thereby encouraging other celebrities and normal people to do their own casual racist skits for humor, both on TV and in real life. The result is a stubborn persistence of racial stereotypes among the general public, despite open criticism of such by a conscious minority.
The flippant attitude toward respecting other races, unfortunately, all also adopted beyond the world of popular entertainment. Despite his recent half-hearted apology, the racist comments Prof. Shohei Ohsawa made about Chinese people have seen parallels from a wide variety of individuals in every walk of life. The online support he received from many people in Japan, defending his right to say what he said in public means that similar incidents, perhaps involving another ethnicity on another separate matter, will play out soon.
In the case of China, in particular, the negative image carried by the country and its government in recent years has only made it even more difficult for racism against the Chinese to be stamped out quickly. Prof. Ohsawa and his supporters, for instance, quickly shielded themselves from further criticism by stating their anti-Chinese sentiment pertain to the ongoing fear of Chinese espionage in Japan and other countries, combined with global outrage toward the country's hostile policies in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan. The continued negative impression of China among the Japanese general public means that racism against the Chinese will continue to exist by tapping into these government-related factors.
Yet, just because China is negatively perceived today does not mean that other countries will escape similar treatments in the future. After all, racism against the Chinese is complex, rooted not just in the negative impression of the country's government, but also the negative impression of Chinese individuals, who are visible in large numbers, both as residents and tourists in Japan. Yet, as more countries become wealthier and gradually overtake China as the largest source of foreign individuals in Japan, it is entirely conceivable that the anti-Chinese bias held by the Japanese will be transferred to other ethnicities and nationalities in a matter of a few decades.
To ensure that instead of people continually finding new races to hate on, racism is truly branded as socially unacceptable in Japan, it is celebrities who really need to step up to the plate. For young people, people on TV are often role models for behaviors and values. If those role models are busy drawing laughs from the audience through caricaturing the country's ever-increasing foreign-born population, it is difficult to see how the issue of racism here can ever go away. Now, more than ever, TV personalities must play a positive role in socializing a future generation that does not condone racism in everyday life.
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