How Self-Caricaturing Makes Foreigners Stay Foreign
"Variety shows" are one of the mainstays of Japanese television. Entertainers put on skits and funny talks about exaggerated versions of everyday events, getting laughs from the viewers by making fun of just how absurd even the most mundane situations can be if pushed to the logical conclusion. With thousands of funnymen trying to make living doing their own skits, only the most memorable few make it to the big stages of national television, become household names, and earn a decent living by regularly performing and hosting their shows.
Among the thousands of funnymen attempting to make it in the competitive world of Japanese televised entertainment are dozens of foreigners. These foreign funnymen, in often contrived and desperate attempts to stand out from their Japanese colleagues, focus on creating and performing skits on exaggerated versions of what it is like living and working in Japan as a foreigner. With foreign-sounding accents and foreigner-only situations the subjects of laughs, they at least create a window for many Japanese who do not come in contact with foreigners in their daily lives.
Yet, the need to be funny and memorable means that the foreign funnymen have to get the audience to laugh not with, but about foreigners' experiences in Japan. Nothing is funnier about foreigners to the regular Japanese TV viewer than seeing the foreigners being haplessly lost in their daily lives in Japan. As foreign funnymen play out the haplessness of foreigners on the national stage, they legitimize the suspicion of the Japanese that foreigners are indeed lost and confused in Japan, leading to laughs based on a mix of true sympathy about the foreigners' difficult lives and condescension about how they will never fit in a more complex, sophisticated, and nuanced Japanese culture.
In the process of exposing the Japanese audience to highly exaggerated versions of foreigners' travails in Japan, these foreign funnymen inadvertently help caricature all foreigners, and not only those living in Japan, in a particularly negative way. For the many Japanese who never interacted with foreigners in real life, the dramatized confusions of foreigners portrayed in skits become a believable guide to understanding how foreigners really think and behave in real life. Forgetting that the skits are creations of entertainment, the Japanese audience may even come to believe that foreigners really just behave in exaggerated ways.
That exaggerated confusion portrayed by foreign funnymen cannot be more different from what the Japanese expect a normal Japanese person to behave like. And because the foreign funnymen attempt to get more laughs out of their Japanese audience by exaggerating differences between foreigners and the Japanese, frequent Japanese audience of their skits and talks will become more convinced of the foreigners' differences from the Japanese as enormous and inherently unreconciliable. And because foreign funnymen understand the basis of their Japanese audience' thinking about foreigners, they play along with the expectations for their own career success.
In essence, the vicious cycle of foreign funnymen self-caricaturing foreigners and their Japanese audience taking in the caricaturing at face value help entrench the belief that foreigners are fundamentally and permanently different from the Japanese and will never become Japanese in their ways of thinking. Put simply, foreign entertainers in Japan, by playing up their foreigners, are making sure that the larger foreign community in Japan stay foreign in the eyes of the majority of the Japanese who never regularly interact with foreigners.
Perhaps what is most unfortunate in this development is that the ways of foreign funnymen seeking to make it on Japanese television have been borrowed by hundreds of thousands of regular foreigners who are simply trying to make some regular Japanese friends in their daily lives. In these regular foreigners' attempts to score local friendships, they may mimic what they see on TV, knowing that foreigners' portrayals on TV are what regular Japanese are most familiar with. And understandably, to become friendlier, foreigners will use humor as a basis of conversations with their Japanese acquaintances.
The result is foreigners' self-caricaturing not just on TV, but even in daily lives. For the Japanese who do come in contact with foreigners regularly, the consistency of foreigners' behaviors in mass media and in real life can be a source of validation that foreigners will stay foreign no matter how long they are in Japan. It can be a difficult (and unprofitable) task, but for foreigners in Japan to treat beyond the foreigner label, they need to make conscious efforts to downplay their foreignness both on TV and in real life. By focusing on their characteristics that are beyond their differences from the Japanese, foreigners can finally be treated as part of society rather than just an exotic curiosity in it.
Among the thousands of funnymen attempting to make it in the competitive world of Japanese televised entertainment are dozens of foreigners. These foreign funnymen, in often contrived and desperate attempts to stand out from their Japanese colleagues, focus on creating and performing skits on exaggerated versions of what it is like living and working in Japan as a foreigner. With foreign-sounding accents and foreigner-only situations the subjects of laughs, they at least create a window for many Japanese who do not come in contact with foreigners in their daily lives.
Yet, the need to be funny and memorable means that the foreign funnymen have to get the audience to laugh not with, but about foreigners' experiences in Japan. Nothing is funnier about foreigners to the regular Japanese TV viewer than seeing the foreigners being haplessly lost in their daily lives in Japan. As foreign funnymen play out the haplessness of foreigners on the national stage, they legitimize the suspicion of the Japanese that foreigners are indeed lost and confused in Japan, leading to laughs based on a mix of true sympathy about the foreigners' difficult lives and condescension about how they will never fit in a more complex, sophisticated, and nuanced Japanese culture.
In the process of exposing the Japanese audience to highly exaggerated versions of foreigners' travails in Japan, these foreign funnymen inadvertently help caricature all foreigners, and not only those living in Japan, in a particularly negative way. For the many Japanese who never interacted with foreigners in real life, the dramatized confusions of foreigners portrayed in skits become a believable guide to understanding how foreigners really think and behave in real life. Forgetting that the skits are creations of entertainment, the Japanese audience may even come to believe that foreigners really just behave in exaggerated ways.
That exaggerated confusion portrayed by foreign funnymen cannot be more different from what the Japanese expect a normal Japanese person to behave like. And because the foreign funnymen attempt to get more laughs out of their Japanese audience by exaggerating differences between foreigners and the Japanese, frequent Japanese audience of their skits and talks will become more convinced of the foreigners' differences from the Japanese as enormous and inherently unreconciliable. And because foreign funnymen understand the basis of their Japanese audience' thinking about foreigners, they play along with the expectations for their own career success.
In essence, the vicious cycle of foreign funnymen self-caricaturing foreigners and their Japanese audience taking in the caricaturing at face value help entrench the belief that foreigners are fundamentally and permanently different from the Japanese and will never become Japanese in their ways of thinking. Put simply, foreign entertainers in Japan, by playing up their foreigners, are making sure that the larger foreign community in Japan stay foreign in the eyes of the majority of the Japanese who never regularly interact with foreigners.
Perhaps what is most unfortunate in this development is that the ways of foreign funnymen seeking to make it on Japanese television have been borrowed by hundreds of thousands of regular foreigners who are simply trying to make some regular Japanese friends in their daily lives. In these regular foreigners' attempts to score local friendships, they may mimic what they see on TV, knowing that foreigners' portrayals on TV are what regular Japanese are most familiar with. And understandably, to become friendlier, foreigners will use humor as a basis of conversations with their Japanese acquaintances.
The result is foreigners' self-caricaturing not just on TV, but even in daily lives. For the Japanese who do come in contact with foreigners regularly, the consistency of foreigners' behaviors in mass media and in real life can be a source of validation that foreigners will stay foreign no matter how long they are in Japan. It can be a difficult (and unprofitable) task, but for foreigners in Japan to treat beyond the foreigner label, they need to make conscious efforts to downplay their foreignness both on TV and in real life. By focusing on their characteristics that are beyond their differences from the Japanese, foreigners can finally be treated as part of society rather than just an exotic curiosity in it.
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