Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Isn't Idol Culture Bigger In America?
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belvadeer
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Thus creating some of the worst kinds of fans, ones who take their obsession too far and go to crazy extremes like attacking an idol on a dark night somewhere simply for daring to have a personal life outside of work or not remembering one fan's name among thousands.
I'm surprised they haven't made an anime about that yet. XD |
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Top Gun
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Short answer: because it's incredibly toxic and inherently misogynistic?
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Chester McCool
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Someone better tell my friend she's a misogynist then because she's a Love Live nut. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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If they Americanised Love Live, we'd just get another Glee.
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kotomikun
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Only three posts in and we've already hit this argument... On the one hand, no, enjoying Love Live does not automatically make someone a bad person. A lot of chocolate uses child labor in the farming process, but that doesn't mean everyone who eats chocolate is evil and hates children (most people don't even know about this, "fair trade" type sources of it exist, etc.). On the other hand, if you're trying to imply that because this woman you know likes Love Live, the problems in the industry must be overblown or nonexistent... that doesn't work, either. If she doesn't know about those issues, then obviously that doesn't tell us anything. If she does... well, people do have the right and the ability to like things while recognizing social problems they may be indirectly associated with. If it's not that, though, internalized sexism is a thing. In any case, ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. |
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Shiflan
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I'm not saying your description is inaccurate, but toxic atmosphere and misogyny doesn't seem to be an impediment for a great number of Hollywood movies, the hip-hop scene as a whole, and countless other examples in popular music and television here in the US. |
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John Thacker
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There are some sort of comparisons to the idol industry in the US, mostly in Disney Channel female stars, some of whom "graduate" to other roles. Hillary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, Raven-Symoné, Miley Cyrus, et al., along with Nickelodeon stars like Ariana Grande. The big difference is that any older male fandom is much smaller and/or quieter, with most of the teen idols having fans who are mostly tween and teen girls.
There are also boy bands in the West that aren't *that* different from the Johnny's type groups in Japan, with one of the more recent incarnations being One Direction. |
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thofheinz
Posts: 98 |
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What did Justin mean when he said at the end that something like Perfect Blue was "low stakes"? Was he talking about the level of investment?
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Shiflan
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I think he was talking about the odds of the movie succeeding financially. The point is that Perfect Blue would do well because it is a psycho-thriller, and psycho-thrillers tend to be well-received by audiences in the west. So in other words it is a low risk for the movie studio, as opposed to a full-on Idol show which would be much riskier. |
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Top Gun
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Oh absolutely, though those are all obviously home-grown products reflective of different aspects of US culture. But the thing that sets idol culture apart in particular is its (for lack of a better term) infantilization of the performers involved. There's this disturbing undercurrent of artificially-enforced "purity," this idea that the artists should be these perfect little pets that exist only to fulfill fantasies about the ideal waifu. That's something that doesn't really have any sort of parallel in US culture. The closest would be the aforementioned Disney Channel starlets, but those are explicitly marketed to appeal to the same tween/teen age groups as the performers themselves, and any sort of explicit attention from an adult fanbase would be viewed as creepy at best. But the whole point of idol culture is to appeal to a fanbase that's often far older than the performers themselves, and in an America where "think of the children!" reigns supreme, that raises all sorts of red flags. Plus, in the US, personal drama and relationship issues are seen as part and parcel with celebrity, and often wind up increasing a performer's notoriety and success. And no, to answer an earlier question, I'm not about to call someone a bad person because they like a franchise like Love Live. (I might question their taste in entertainment, but that's neither here nor there.) But it's undeniable that that particular franchise in no way represents the reality of idol culture. It's an idealized, saccharine, pastel-rainbow sameface fantasy, in much the same way as real-life idols themselves are spun by their promoters. The franchise doesn't begin to touch on the darker, far more exploitative side that its own performers are a part of. In that regard, as much as it may seem like a sensationalized thriller, I think Perfect Blue hews far more closely to what idol culture actually represents. |
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Shiflan
Posts: 418 |
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Very true. Though that is a bit different from plain 'ol misogyny and toxic fandom. One thing that I find interesting; Justin wrote the following:
Emphasis mine. Many years ago when I was attending college I read & reported on a book called Pink Samurai, which was about sexuality and its related culture in Japan. That book discussed a variety of topics, but Justin's article jogged my memory of one in particular. The book discussed Japan's famous Geisha, which foreigners often mistake for prostitutes. While explaining that geisha are not prostitutes, the book mentioned that one of the hallmarks of a skilled geisha was to fool every male at a party into thinking that he was her chosen one and thus the men might think that she had the hots for them and would end up sleeping with them at the end of the night, while in reality nobody was slept with. While geisha and idols are obviously at very different ends of the spectrum, that idea remains the same. |
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EricJ2
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THIS, um, pretty much. In the US, we're proud that our rockstars built their own songs and playing out of fifty years of music history, and any star who's "Packaged" by some entrepreneur for his looks and tween demographic appeal--like Justin Bieber, or Britney Spears--we immediately smell for a big fat swindle, and pelt the stars with rocks and garbage. Or at least the fans, for not knowing any better. As our Justin points out, J-idol culture treads some dangerous lines trying to sell the "I'm singing just for YOU!" image, with personal appearances and Tiger Beat updates on their personal lives. We're just not as dependent on them for our Imaginary Girl image as younger and older Japanese fans are. Also, our rock girls, even if they do go out with boys, are too smitten by the angry narcissistic boy-eating "Bad grrl!" fantasy in their stage personas to ever dream of appearing in frilly quasi-wedding-dress outfits onstage, or constantly eaching out a willing hand for the audience to "take". Even the most tsundere-smitten J-fan, who dreams of girls who live to insult him, would have a hard time getting through three Spice Girls songs, let alone a "real" Western girl-group. There is also the language barrier, which is why Hatsune Miku can sell out US appearances, but mostly with anime fans who already know the words to the songs from game and YouTube. A mainstream David Letterman, OTOH, was rendered speechless. 
We still smell those "stars" for being the packaged star-maker product of Disney Channel, who cross-perpetuates Disney's own industries by grooming the next Radio Disney stars in their own Lizzie McGuire-clone cable sitcoms--even Hillary Duff turned rock idol when Lizzie got her Movie--and grinding out generically near-identical buzzy-vocoded Britney-clone "Diva" songs to instantly appeal to their tween-girl base like the independent stars do. The Monkees were almost laughed out of the industry for doing the exact same thing, back in the post-Beatles bubble-gum late 60's/early 70's when Don Kirschner TV-groups like the Partridge Family were king (Bob Rafelson still self-loathes over "Head" fifty years later, saying that the Saturday-morning created Monkees were "the Justin Biebers of their day")-- But at least they had a catchily unique enough musical style that you can still do a rockin' cover of "Pleasant Valley Sunday" today. Go on, name another Archies song besides "Sugar Sugar".
Some of the 90's Boy-Band Plague, like N'Sync, came from the same star-maker packaging agent in Orlando, FL--who was later busted for shady business--but some of the early 90's boy groups, like Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block, were actually revived grown-up survivors of mid-80's attempts to find the US packaged "Imitation Menudo" band of 12-yo. boys, to appeal to 10-yo. girls. Which never quite caught on when the real Latin Menudo never quite caught on over here either. (Again, because of the language barrier, and because we thought they were big fat fakes. Their theme for "Cannonball Run II" was catchy, though.) |
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Juno016
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I don't think Perfect Blue represents the common reality of idols. It explores a realistic possibility in the industry (minus the surreal plot/characters), and an issue for some aspects of idol culture, but for the most part, the idol industry is just a product being sold to fans and the idols themselves are given a lot of freedom (as long as they don't ruin their public image). While it's true that a lot of them aren't up to snuff in terms of overall talent, there's still a cut-off mark of quality in their work that does matter, and the idols themselves, talented or not, spend a LOT of time working their butts off for their concerts and PR.
Personally, I've only recently come to enjoy a few idol series, and I've done so a biiiiiiit obsessively, but they're often due to the quality of their productions. Love Live does have weird dancing animations sometimes, but their music is fun and the anime is unique and well-made in its directing, even if the content caters strongly to a status quo. More so than LL, I find myself attracted to Idolmaster's various anime (both for the girls and guys) because of their quality and character depth. Aikatsu! is also a lot of fun for a kid's anime (PriPara just doesn't feel... good enough). Real idols just don't capture the same feeling for me, even if I have respect for what they do. |
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Lord Oink
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Yeah.. about that... look up the music video Nickelodeon Girls by Filthy Frank. It's a pretty common mentality on the internet.
Funnily enough, it would be Twitch streamers. The girls who treat every donation as their boyfriend and whoever donates the most is their "biggest D". There's been a few scandals when it's found out they're actually married or have a boyfriend IRL, and they often get upset if people find out because their donations tend to slow down once guys realize they're taken and throwing money at them isn't going to get them laid. |
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1113 Location: Puget Sound |
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That quote first appears (AFAIK) in the first ep of Wake Up Girls!, it's not original with the event. (And WUG remains pretty much the only idol anime that looks at the darker side.) |
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