Japanese traits Essay Example for Free

Japanese traits Essay In short, the characters of anime show the Japanese who so aspire to Western traits as they would like to see themselves. It is an effect that cannot possibly be duplicated by live actors, who — being alive — can never really change the physical characteristics determined by their genetic makeup. They can dye their hair and even change their eye color with contact lenses, but they cannot fundamentally alter their skin color, facial features, or physique. And even if they tried, using special make-up effects or plastic surgery, the result would be unnatural. Only anime, and its cousin manga, can convincingly meld Japanese and Caucasian attributes into a natural-looking human being. This is because the upside of these genres inherent lack of realism is their unique ability to exploit the appeal of and fascination for the unreal. And that is why manga and anime have attained such a high status in the popular culture of Japan, compared to that of other countries. These are the only two media capable of portraying reality the way Japanese feel it should be. By comparison, live-action films sacrifice appeal from the outset simply because they feature Japanese actors. Fashion illustrator Nagasawa Setsu expressed the feelings of many Japanese in an essay he wrote in 1983 for the Japanese playbill of the British film Dont Look Now: With their sharp-featured faces and long-limbed bodies, Westerners (read Caucasians) are physically suited to the movie screen; everyone looks almost too beautiful, down to the minor characters . .Japanese are just the opposite. Even people who appear delicately beautiful in person look round and dumpy and totally unstylish on camera. The reason many people today say they dislike the ugliness† of Japanese films — content notwithstanding — is that the looks of Japanese screen actors put domestic films at a crucial disadvantage. Period pieces at least allow one to cover up these failings with elaborate costumes. But when they take off their clothes for bedroom scenes, even the most glamorous Japanese actors and actresses look hopelessly unattractive — which is why you cant pay me to watch Japanese porn. That Nagasawa is not alone in his preference is attested to by the growing number of animated pornographic videos that have been produced in Japan since the mid 1980s. Thus, the history of the past twenty years, during which anime has pushed live-action to the side and emerged as the face of Japanese cinema, has in essence been the history of ethnic bleaching in Japanese film. Incidentally, it was also during the last two decades that manga, originally regarded as kids stuff, truly came into its own as adult entertainment. In contrast to ideologies of American communities being portrayed as great melting pots, Americans have historically aligned themselves along racial and ethnic divisions. This has flourished in stereotypes of practically all non-majority members in the media. Japanese-Americans have been no exception. Characterizations of Japanese-Americans in the media often fail to make distinctions between Japanese, Japanese-Americans, Asians and Asian Americans. Consequently, attitudes towards Japanese-Americans have been heavily influenced by portrayals of all Asians. The first Asians to come to America in significant numbers were Chinese laborers. The early depictions emphasized slant-eyes, buckteeth and yellow skin. This representation reinforced the notion of â€Å"otherness. † Anti-Asian bias was a major reason behind immigration exclusion acts directed first at he Chinese, then the Japanese. Rather than the media acknowledging the difference between Asian cultures, American representation of Asians often borrowed indiscriminately from all cultures. All the dozens of Asians and Pacific Island cultures are lumped together into one homogeneous group identity. Even the Korean and Vietnamese women in the late 1950’s-70 were commonly called â€Å"Mama San† despite the Japanese American origins of the term. Characterizations of Japanese-Americans (and all Asians) in the media of the 1920’s and 1930’s as â€Å"vicious, rat-like sneaks, part of a world-wide â€Å"yellow peril† appears to have been one of the reasons for the internment. Amy Kashiwabara in â€Å"Vanishing Son: The Appearance, Disappearance, and Assimilation of the Asian-American Male in American Mainstream Media (1996) states â€Å"The visceral hatred of the Japanese inevitably tapped into yellow peril sentiments before the turn of the century which had been directed mainly against the Chinese†. In early movies, attached to the assignation of being Japanese came the implication of duplicity, violence and untrustworthiness appearing as Japanese traits, thus, sending the message that Asians, particularly Japanese men could not be trusted, no matter how Americanized they seem. This furthered the notion that Japanese-American men were even more dangerous than unassimilated ones because they could deceive people into trusting them. Persistent in early media was the idea of the diabolical Japanese that continually plotted the destruction of America in general and white women in particular. The 1946 film, â€Å"The Yellow Menace,† showed attempted Japanese domination. The 1940’s images on film were rife with scenes of Japanese torturing and abusing white people. The majority of Americans in the ‘40’s were intimately introduced to the Japanese in the context of war and violence at the movies, newspaper editorials, propaganda posters (*scan example) and later on in the 1950’s on television. Films from 1942 included â€Å"Prisoner of Japan,† â€Å"Remember Pearl Harbor,† and â€Å"Secret Agent of Japan. †