Your cultural appropriation thread

by liberal japonicus

One thing that the Japanese are exceedingly good at is appropriating things from other cultures and making them their own. Latest acquisition? Halloween! Those pictures are not the best, this page has better photos, though it is for a party, so you may think that this is more staged than real, so this link, with a movie and 300+ pics, from Tokyo downtown last year gives you an idea. The general pattern is that this is taken up in Tokyo and within a few years, gets picked up in places further out, of which this is no exception.

This article gives a bit more background.

I hope this might give folks not here a taste of how Japan (much like any dominant culture) acts as a blender, taking whatever bits and pieces that happen to catch interest, tossing them in, and making the results unrecognizable. If there are any pics which seem inexplicable, drop a link in the comments and I'll try to explain.

Comments

[Ugh]

Does a picture of W winning reelection in 2004 count?

[liberal japonicus]

Any Japanese Halloween pics...

[wj]

I do notice that it's all young adults. Not grammer school kids, which is the American norm. And hardly any guys (although I suppose that may be a function of who was taking the pictures).

[Ugh]

Rats.

[liberal japonicus]

I do notice that it's all young adults.

Very true. Though the sprinkling of 'young mama's is notable, taking their kids along. There is a 'bread and circuses' aspect to this, as the system of lifetime employment has broken down, so young people have less reason to be conformist, and consumerist culture can appeal to them (that's the gist of the explanatory article)

[Snarki, child of Loki]

The "fireworks to celebrate Xmas" is the bestest. Because every true holiday must have fireworks.

[Nigel]

What's with the Teletubby costumes ?

Not something I'd immediately associate with Halloween...
(Although the programme, ostensibly for the 1-4 age group is allegedly popular with college students.)

[liberal japonicus]

Which pic(s) are those? if you could toss a link, I might be able to help. I'm not positive which one you are talking about, but i suspect they are some variant on a sumo wrestler/oyaji (old bald guy)/yurykyara outfit.

[Nigel]

Quite a way down the 300 pics link...

These are the teletubbies:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/sep/16/teletubbies-owner-bought-canadian-dhx-media

Not easily confused with a sumo wrestler ?

[liberal japonicus]

Hi Nigel,
I couldn't see it (and all the costumes got disorienting, no pun intended), but it could be a Japanese student on an exchange picked up the costume in the US or they could have had one here. Teletubbies are known here, but don't/did't have the kind of traction they had in the states and of course, the costume wearers would be blissfully unaware that they are advancing the homosexual agenda.

This is what fascinates me about all this. The Japanese gleefully hoover up whatever they can find and cheerfully make it their own without much thought as to where it comes from or what it means. Going through the pics, you can see any number of upraised middle fingers, which are often accompanied with a cheerful smile. The girl on the right in this pic, with the Totenkopf on her cap, probably would have been up first thing in the next morning to do this.

[Slartibartfast]

I was just wondering the other day why drag queens aren't appropriators of femme culture.

It's not exactly a burning question for me, though.

[Morat20]

You missed a chance to link to Babymetal's "Gimme Chocolate" which is what happens when you take J-Pop and heavy metal, blend them together, and spit them out with a side of Goth Lolita.

And despite the fact that it's in Japanese, it's a ridiculous earworm to boot.