As I come to the end of an academic year advising an after-school program on Manga/Anime culture, it becomes more and more clear What Is Going On. A lot of people who are peripherally exposed to anime, like the readers of the Wall Street Journal, seem to have the impression that Anime = Porn. In the editorial “Manga Mania” (Aug 31, 2007), Bianca Bosker presents a convoluted and flawed, badly-researched argument that using anime to promote Japan’s image overseas is a bad idea. There is a pretty good analysis of the editorial by la_contessa here.
Basically la_contessa critiques the tendency of ignorant Amerikans (including the over-educated Bianca Bosker, a fellow at the Far Eastern Economic Review) to
- collapse all anime – a diverse and rich medium of expression - into a single genre and
- assume that All Anime Is Porn.
Here are some choice quotes from Bosker’s article that help la_contessa to make such a critique:
Perhaps the biggest problem is the highly sexualized nature of the form, which can be exceptionally seedy, if not illegal.
Anime and manga also tend to perpetuate negative images of daily life in Japan.
What la_contessa fails to do however is offer any analysis of why they tend to do this. Here are my two cents:
- Ethnocentric Amerikans think that the little they see of anime is representative of the entire phenomenon. This is comparable to how many Amerikans think that All Asians Are The More Or Less The Same.
- The most ubiquitous anime available in the US is online and in video stores and is unabashedly pornographic in content. Why? Because it sells, duh!
And if I may, I’d like to make the following extended metaphor:
The Amerikan perception of anime is like the Amerikan perception of hip-hop. The highest-selling hip-hop and rap songs/videos are the super-sexual and most hedonistic, but does that mean there aren’t rappers and emcees writing really good music? Take 50-Cent, the Ying-Yang Twins, Lil Kim (back in the day). Then take a look at the Coup, Blackalicious, Talib Kweli… the list goes on in both directions. Byron Hurt has a really great documentary on this phenomenon of producing gangsta rap, who profits, who gets exploited, and who ultimately suffers the consequences. It’s called Beyond Beats and Rhymes.
