Date: Tue, 20 Jul 99 15:55:00 +0900
From: Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow <onogerow@angel.ne.jp>
To: “KineJapan” <kinejapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Satchi
Message-ID: <199907200646.PAA19443@mail.angel.ne.jp>
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This is an issue that touches not only on televisual culture, but also on
the nature of personality in modern Japanese culture, but what do people
think of the hubbub over Nomura Sachiyo? The whole thing, which started
over complaints that Nomura Sachio, the wife of the Hanshin Tigers
manager and a “jukujo” (mature woman) talento in her own right, was rude,
not paying back debts, and fond of borrowing things without giving them
back, has utterly dominated the wide shows and the weekly magazines for
over three and a half months and has progressed, with accusations that
she falsified her educational credentials when she ran for the Diet a few
years ago, into a criminal investigation and a debate in the Diet.
True, there may be some “truth” behind all the accusations, but factual
reality does little to explain how the topic has completely dominated the
media for such a long time, escalating into what some fear is a witchhunt
or at least a coordinated and violent (in the sense that the TV camera is
always violent) attack on an individual person. I have read articles in
the paper speculating that the fact the Satchi affair has dominated the
media just as the Diet is dealing with legislation that significantly
changes postwar Japanese society such as the guidelines law, the flag and
national anthem designation, etc., with little media attention is not a
coincidence. Even if we don’t accept such conspiracy theories, why is
the media so interested in this topic at this time? Why are viewers?
How is the Satchi affair functioning ideologically in contemporary media
culture?
Clearly some of it has to do with the circulation of personality within
the mass media. The media destruction of Nomura Sachio, who herself was
purely a creation of the media (with no “talent” per se), is proof of the
power of the media, as well as indication that the content of mass media
is merely a circulation of signs that only refer to one another and not
to any “reality” (the “news” reported is only the “news subjects” the
media itself creates and makes important). But there is obviously a lot
of other things going on involving the definition of motherhood (Satchi
came to fame as a hardnosed older woman who told off the younger
generation), wifehood (why isn’t her husband getting dragged down in this
affair?), “normal” behavior, privacy, media violence, voyeurism, etc.
Any thoughts?
Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
KineJapan list owner
For list commands: send “information kinejapan” to
listserver@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
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Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 18:00:15 PDT
From: “Julie Turnock” <jturnock@hotmail.com>
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <19990721010016.55017.qmail@hotmail.com>
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I’m glad this has been brought up, because the intense interest in the whole
Satchi affair has mystified me. I hope that others have insight on this.
Since I have been in Japan, I’ve been intersted in the love/hate fascination
Japanese women have for “pushy women,” both in the workplace (including
mine) and in the media. While men often dismiss (or worse) this outspoken
kind of woman, many women I know are at the same time provoked by and
envious of pushy womens’ willingness to speak their minds strongly and
without equivocation. Since most TV media coverage of Satchi I’ve seen is
on afternoon shows, it seems that the story plays most strongly to the
middle-aged and older, non-working woman. Perhaps the most interested
people in this affair are those who don’t feel able to exercise such
strong-willed behavior, and are deeply interested in those who do and the
consequences visited upon them.
Also what to think about the Satchi merchandising that goes along with this?
She’s appearing as mobile phone mascots and stickers, along with other
totems of high school girl life. In what way are people buying these things
identifying with her?
What has also surprised me, since I can’t read Japanese well enough to
follow it very well in Japanese papers myself, is how absent the issue has
been in the English-language press. From TV and Japanese friends, I
understand how prevalent Japanese media coverage has been, but I’ve seen
almost nothing in English about it. Granted, I primarily read the Yomiuri,
but why is it assumed that English-language readers will have NO interest in
this issue?
Any other thoughts?
Julie Turnock
Hamamatsu, Japan
From: Eija Margit Niskanen <eija@tkf.att.ne.jp>
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.19990721101542.0098670c@tkf.att.ne.jp>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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I think it was also primaraly set as a “war between women”, since for a
couple of months the programs were always titled as Satchi vs. Mitchi
(Channel 4 morning show) , their photos side by side, underlying the
“common knowledge” that women always fight with other women. Since the
media, I guess, could not get enough out of this war angle in the long run
( as I have understood, Satchi has refused to discuss the matter with the
press -am I right?), the media turned to other people and issues in order
to keep the show running. I guess it has been going on for 3 months now….
eija
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 00:15:50 EDT
From: GavinRees@aol.com
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Satchi, the media, and the Tokyo film festival
Message-ID: <4fee7300.24c7f4f6@aol.com>
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It has been interesting to read the recent thread on Satchi san.
Julie Turnock wrote:
>What has also surprised me, since I can’t read Japanese well enough to
>follow it very well in Japanese papers myself, is how absent the issue has
>been in the English-language press. From TV and Japanese friends, I
>understand how prevalent Japanese media coverage has been, but I’ve seen
>almost nothing in English about it. Granted, I primarily read the Yomiuri,
>but why is it assumed that English-language readers will have NO interest in
>this issue?
I have to admit that I have been caught by surprise by the whole issue too.
Several months ago I disconected my tv set from the aerial and plugged it
into my editing deck. And resultingly for that period I became blissfully
unaware of everhthing that was going on on Japanese television. The first I
got wind of the Satchi issue, was a month ago, talking to the regulars in a
local bar. One woman in the bar asked me what kind of women I found
attractive, and so I said strong women who know what they want in life. She
looked at me slightly disapprovinly, and said that nice Japanese women don’t
ever speak their minds until they get married. The other people at the table
also looked mildly perplexed. Then a thought occured to her: “Perhaps
Satchi-san is your type then.” Everybody laughed, except, that is, for me.
When I heard Satchi san, I was convinced she wasÅ@actually talking about
Margeret “Thatcher” the former, (and in my neck of the woods), much
disliked UK primeminister. And so for a good 3 minutes, before the confusion
was sorted out, I too defamed poor Satchi-san with the most virulent Japanese
I knew how to muster.
Obviously, as Mark wroteÅAthe Satchi coverage points at all sorts of
half-submerged issues connected to gender, which even after a year here I am
still totally baffled by. And if anybody has any thoughts on it, i would
love to hear more.
More importantly, I think there is a connection between Kaminsky’s article on
the Tokyo film festival, English Language Newspapers in Japan, and the
Japanese media. They are all institutions run from the top down and the
people working in them are primarily interested in reproducing news as a form
of currency which represents the interests and concerns of their own dominant
group. All the English Newspapers here, (apologies to Mark Schilling, whose
reviews I do enjoy reading.) are absolutely awful. News is not really about
the outside world. Truth and analysis don’t seem to be really that important;
what matters if you are a newspaper man here is going through the motions,
and having “copy” that you can ceremoniously circulate rather like the tribal
exchange systems that link some pacific Islands. The act of printing seems to
be more important than the aim of conveying information. I am sure that
this is an incredibly contentious thing to say, but the more I read the
papers here, the more I suspect that they are a very expensive form of vanity
publishing.
Anybody who needs accurate information about developments in foreign countries
ÅAor indeed Japan itself, must be reading the Tokyo edition of the FT. And if
anybody who doesnot read Japanese wants to know more about pop culture, well
tough! (However, most of the gaijin here which the newspapers seem to be
aimed at, are financial types who probably have no interest in contemporay
Japan anyway!)
Tv here is obviously different, in that most of the wide shows, and comedy
shows are produced by young, and often aggresively innovative producers.
(Mostly male of course.) And some Japanese tv, the stuff which is often
lampooned in the West as trash, is trash of a very high degree of
sophistication. My personal perception that disposabe Japanese tv is a lot
better, and more interesting than disposable tv elsewhere. However, the
bounds of what people can talk about and write about are clearly delineated
from above.
I spent a very depressing afternoon talking to my Japanese boss at a small
Tokyo based production company, when he listed all the programmes he wanted
to make when he was young that he knew he would never be able to broadcast.
If you want to make a programme about religious spiritualists in India ,
forget it. If you want to make a programme about the prison system, forget
that too. In fact don’t even dream of making any indepth analytical programme
about the workings of the Judiciary or the funding of political parties. You
can make any programme you like about prostitution, as long as you dont ask
any questions about the working conditions of the women involved. Titillation
is fine, but analysis is forbidden.
In other words you cant make the sorts of programmes that would constitute a
good 30 percent or more of the current affairs / documentary output in the
UK.
The problem with the Tokyo film festival, too, I think is that everybody is
very “tight at the top”, and it is largely about the institutions that
sponser it then the people who want to participate. Thankfully, though, there
are different kinds of festivals here, which give great oppurtunities for
young people and people living in local communities to participate in.
I hope I am not the only person out there who holds these views. I am not
trying to burden other list members with a solipsistic rant.
All the best,
Gavin Rees
—-__ListProc__NextPart____KINEJAPAN__digest_666
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 14:15:05 +0900 (JST)
From: Peter Durfee <durfee@japanecho.co.jp>
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Satchi, the media, and the Tokyo film festival
Message-ID: <199907220515.OAA15786@sepia.ocn.ne.jp>
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At 00:15 -0400 99.7.22, GavinRees@aol.com wrote:
>I hope I am not the only person out there who holds these views. I am not
>trying to burden other list members with a solipsistic rant.
No, I don’t think these are your views alone, and even if this was a rant,
at least it was a fun one to read : ). I did want to comment on the
following, though:
>Anybody who needs accurate information about developments in foreign countries
>ÅAor indeed Japan itself, must be reading the Tokyo edition of the FT. And if
>anybody who doesnot read Japanese wants to know more about pop culture, well
>tough! (However, most of the gaijin here which the newspapers seem to be
>aimed at, are financial types who probably have no interest in contemporay
>Japan anyway!)
First of all, I think that anyone relying on overseas papers for news on
Japan will have their information limited to sparse, spotty stories; often
sensationalistic (not to the extent that Zipangu would have us believe, but
certainly less than balanced) and all too often reported by people who
cannot read or speak the language. I get the sense that Japan is a plum
assignment on the foreign correspondents’ circuit, and the people who get
posted here are quite accomplished as reporters, but this has little to do
with their familiarity with Japan’s language or culture. Nicholas Kristof at
the New York Times is one example.
I do think many of your comments on the nature of newspapers in this country
were spot-on, but I would recommend against giving up on them as a source of
information. Whether or not they adhere to the same journalistic standards
as the top papers in the West, they are realistically the only game in town
if you need to keep up with a broad range of domestic issues–as well as the
Japanese take on foreign affairs. An inability to read Japanese will cause a
Japan observer to miss out on much more than just pop culture.
I am unsure about the “gaijin whom the papers are aimed at” statement–does
this refer to international papers like the FT and IHT, or the domestic
English rags? I have heard (rumor alert) that the Japan Times has more
Japanese subscribers than non-Japanese. And I know plenty of people–myself
included–who read the English dailies for information to be put to use in
communications or education, not the financial sector. (I also know that any
worker in the financial field with “no interest in contemporary Japan” will
very quickly be out of the know, and thus out of a job.)
Yours,
Peter Durfee
P.S. All I know about Satchii is that some angry, noisy men in gray buses
are unhappy with NTV’s treatment of her story … My ears are still
ringing from my walk this afternoon in Kojimachi.
—-__ListProc__NextPart____KINEJAPAN__digest_666
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 99 10:47:22 +0900
From: Aaron Gerow <gerow@ynu.ac.jp>
To: “KineJapan” <KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <199907230138.KAA02545@app2.ipch.ynu.ac.jp>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”US-ASCII”
Yesterday, the Hinomaru/Kimigayo bill passed the Lower Diet and Eto Jun
committed suicide, and still the morning wide shows all opened with
Satchi…
>What has also surprised me, since I can’t read Japanese well enough to
>follow it very well in Japanese papers myself, is how absent the issue has
>been in the English-language press. From TV and Japanese friends, I
>understand how prevalent Japanese media coverage has been, but I’ve seen
>almost nothing in English about it. Granted, I primarily read the Yomiuri,
>but why is it assumed that English-language readers will have NO interest in
>this issue?
I think part of the issue is not simply English language press vs.
Japanese language press, but rather the definition of “news” that
operates within different media organizations. The major papers and TV
news orgnizations like NHK as a rule do not consider celebrity news and
gossip as news and frequently ignore stories that fill up space and time
in weekly magazines and wideshows. There are some differences (the
Mainichi tends to cover geino news more often than the Asahi), but there
is still a hierarchy within journalism over what is “really news.”
Satchi is one of the few cases (Aum and the Miura/LA jiken are others)
where stories that originated in the wideshows and weeklies made their
way into “respectable” journalism, but even then, the reporting on the
Satchi affair in the major papers has still been very minimal.
This does raise issues of gender and audience. Since wideshows mostly
have a female viewership, it is as if “news” for them is defined as
Satchi, while “real news” is reserved for evening shows when the men come
home (shows which don’t cover Satchi (especially if it’s NHK))–as if
women would have no interest in learning about the Hinomaru issue in an
afternoon show. How is celebrity culture as a whole in fact “feminized”
through such standards? How does this relate to the “male” version of
gossip found in weekly magazines like Asahi Geino, which are tied into
late night TV culture of sexy idols (which we could call male celebrity
culture). Since this also revolves around issues of citizenship (the
press and the public sphere), how does TV celebrity culture define
Japanese citizenship and thus the nation across gender lines? (Satchi is
interesting in this regard since the issue directly involves political
qualifications.)
Just some more questions.
Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
KineJapan list owner
For list commands: send “information kinejapan” to
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Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 15:36:56 +0900
From: David Hopkins <hopkat@sa2.so-net.ne.jp>
To: “’KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu’”
<KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Satchi and “Female”
Message-ID: <01BED521.4360B180@p8bae02.nara.ap.so-net.ne.jp>
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I think you know the basic contempt I have for (Japanese) TV in general. I
have even greater contempt for the whole wide show scene (I can’t believe an
intellectual like you-know-who would admit to watching “all the morning wide
shows”!). However, gender issues are very interesting and important, so I
can only offer an interesting observation from the Asahi Shinbun, which is
generally considered to be the left limit of dominant ideology. I didn’t
clip it, unfortunately, but they recently announced a new e-magazine to be
called Female, with the information that it would feature news about fashion
and dieting. That really burned me up. Obviously, in this society, education
issues and investments should be the “serious” issues for women, even if
they also imply some stereotyping.
David Hopkins
Tenri University
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 99 15:59:56 +0900
From: Aaron Gerow <gerow@ynu.ac.jp>
To: “KineJapan” <KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: Satchi and “Female”
Message-ID: <199907230651.PAA14527@app2.ipch.ynu.ac.jp>
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>(I can’t believe an
>intellectual like you-know-who would admit to watching “all the morning wide
>shows”!)
Aaargh! I have been unmasked!
But no, I actually don’t watch all the morning wide shows. (I have
morning classes to teach and a son to take to day care). But on some
mornings when I’m not taking Ian the Norimono Hakase off to day care, I
have about 10 or 15 minutes after 8:30 (the start of some of the morning
wide shows) to flip through the channels and check out what’s going on.
The show I actually prefer is Hanamaru Market (TBS’s alternative to the
wideshow), but then that depends on their topic of the day….
But it is interesting I feel like I have to defend myself. Has my
masculinity been challenged? My status as an intellectual?
Ah, there are so many meanings attached to involvement in popular
culture….
Aaron
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:17:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kevin Alan Martin <martink@umich.edu>
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Prosecutors accept complaint against Sachi (Sachiyo Nomura) (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.4.10.9907230914430.13661-100000@frogger.rs.itd.umich.edu>
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This is *greatly* off topic, but for those of you shaking your head and
wondering what all of the fuss is about, read on.
Again, apologies to those who are fed up with this.
Kevin
———- Forwarded message ———-
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:19:46 +0900
From: Ken-chan <ken-chan@mui.biglobe.ne.jp>
Reply-To: geinou@mla.nifty.ne.jp
To: Geinou ML <geinou@mla.nifty.ne.jp>
Subject: [geinou] #458: Prosecutors accept complaint against Sachi (Sachiyo
Nomura)
——————————————————–
CAUTION:
If you’re not interested in Sachiyo Nomura, please skip
this news mail. Since the news mail could make you feel
unpleasant, you’d better avoid reading unless you’re
patient. Ken (me) and Mainichi Daily News do not
guarantee the accuracy of the original articles.
——————————————————–
brief description of Sachiyo Nomura bashing by the press:
As you may know, since 3 months ago,
Sachiyo Nomura (aka Sachi), a 67-year-old arrogant woman TV personality
and wife of Katsuya Nomura, has been criticized by the media for
her rude behaviors and a lie. Many entertaiment news programs feature
the arrogant woman almost everyday, and are investigating what she has
been doing during the past few years.
Sachiyo Nomura has been criticized in several points:
– Vainglorious woman Nomura told a lie when runing in the 1996 House of
Representatives election. She insists she graduated from Columbia University
in the United States about 45 years ago, but many people believe it’s
highly doubtful.
– Nomura hasn’t returned money she has to pay yet. A travel agency
staff asked her to pay the money, but she still ignores it.
– Nomura carelessly described clebrity actress Mitsuyo Asaka as a person
who won fame for the name of Sachiyo Nomura. Asaka got very angry,
and filed a complaint to The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office (see
below).
– Nomura carelessly described ex-Olympic figure skater Emi Watanabe as
an ugly pig woman. The former figure skater is very angry now.
– Actress Hanako Tokachi pointed out she was given a card in the 1996
election, adding Nomura wrote there wrong educational background.
Tokachi wanted to file a complaint to a prosecutors office to accuse
Nomura of telling a lie, but gave up doing it because a lawyer advised
Tokachi not to do it in order to avoid being involved in a big trouble.
– Nomura beated and bullied boys of her baseball team, and even
beating their parents.
To our great surprise, Nomura released on July 20 a rap-oriented new
CD single titled “Such a Beautiful Woman.” In this song, she insists,
“Everyone has to follow social rules.” and “I don’t mind if it’s a pig
or something.” When hearing the song, Emi Watanabe, the TV personality
described as a pig, lost her words. For more, see below.
————————————————————————
Data Source: Mainichi Daily News
July 23, 1999
(c) Mainichi Shimbun
Entered manually by Ken
————————————————————————
Prosecutors have accepted a complaint filed by actress Mitsuyo
Asaka against television personality Sachiyo Nomura on suspision
of violation of the Public Offices Election Law by falsifying
her educational background, Asaka official said.
The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office told a lawyer for
Asaka on Wednesday that they accepted the complaint.
Asaka is ready to coorporate if requested to by prosecutors.
Asaka alleges that Nomura falsely stated she studied at
Columbia University in the United States, when she ran in the 1996
House of Representatives election on a ticket for the now-defunct
Shinshin-to.
————————————————————————
memo:
Shinshin-to = a policitians party
[reference article on Sachiyo Nomura]
In order to understand the background of the Sachiyo Nomura bashing,
you need to read the article shown below.
————————————————————————
Data Source: Mainichi Daily News
May 30, 1999
(c) Mainichi Shimbun
written by Michael Hoffman
downloaded by Ken-chan from a pay-database of NIFTY-Serve
————————————————————————
67 05/31 13:06 WAIWAI
Face of the Weeklies
If you had chanced to drop into a certain Osaka sushi restaurant
during the early evening of May 15, you would have seen, says Shukan
Gendai (6/5), a well-dressed elderly woman sitting at the counter and
directing passionate imprecations at the TV screen. The broadcast was
a baseball game, Chunichi Dragons vs. Hanshin Tigers. “Go, go!” she
cried when the Tigers were at bat. “Damn!” she muttered whenever
Chunichi scored a run, her face turning positively frightening in
its anger.
Meet (though surely you already have) Sachiyo Nomura, wife of
Tigers manager Katsuya Nomura – which domestic detail is only a
very small part of her notoriety.
Who is Sachiyo Nomura? Lecturer, actress, personality – better
ask who she is not, for of late she is, at 67, ubiquitous, spoken of
when not seen, bashed when not bashing. You don’t like her? She can
live with that. “I am the notorious Sachiyo Nomura,” was how she
introduced herself at a recent lecture, according to Shukan Taishu (6/7).
The audience ate it up. Her schedule is booked till autumn. No sooner
does one sponsor drop her like a hot potato than another one picks her
up like a diamond in the rough.
It’s all trivia, huffs Shukan Post (6/4), nonetheless devoting
a page and a half to “Sachi.” Her enemies call her a bully and a
loudmouth. Those and similar epithets have swirled about her since
actress Mitsuyo Asaka, with whom Nomura was to appear in a historical
TV drama series last year, bowed out of the project, publicly
complaining that her co-star was impossible to work with. Was that
the first episode of “Sachi-bashing”? Not really. That just got it
onto the TV Waido shows. The subterranean grumbling has been there
all along. Shukan Gendai quotes a Hanshin Tigers source as saying
that when it comes to team management, “She does the talking, while
her husband goes ‘Mm, right.’ “
For the famous, hatred is a kind of love. A TBS program on which
Sachiyo is a regular panelist maintains audience ratings in the 15
percent range. At the latest outburst of Sachi-bashing, over her
abrupt cancellation on May 16 of a scheduled phone-in appearance
on a TV show hosted by moderator Akiko Wada, TBS was inundated,
says Shukan Taishu, with 6,000 phone calls saying, in effect, Leave
Sachiyo Alone!
Bet on it that that’s exactly what they will do. (MH)
[Mainichi Daily News/May 30]
[1999-05-31-13:06]
Date: 23 Jul 99 20:35:32 -0700
From: “Michael Badzik” <mike@vena.com>
To: “KineJapan” <KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <B3BE829A-25EEE7@205.158.33.85>
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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This thread really has generated a lot of interesting words, hasn’t it?
There is a lot that I would like to comment on but for now will keep it
to two things:
Aaron wrote:
> Satchi is one of the few cases (Aum and the Miura/LA jiken are others)
> where stories that originated in the wideshows and weeklies made their
> way into “respectable” journalism, but even then, the reporting on the
> Satchi affair in the major papers has still been very minimal.
Could this come from, at least in part, a belief that their hands would
be dirtied by touching something that the “gossip hounds” and “scandal
mongers” first handled? It does seem, also, that the “hard news” people
are a bit more willing to report on hanky-panky in the political arena,
so perhaps there is a feeling that lax morals in its public servants is a
matter of public concern, but that the privacy of ordinary citizens is
something to be respected. Or perhaps not.
> Since wideshows mostly have a female viewership, it is as if “news”
> for them is defined as Satchi, while “real news” is reserved for evening
> shows when the men come home (shows which don’t cover Satchi
>(especially if it’s NHK))–as if women would have no interest in
>learning about the Hinomaru issue in an afternoon show.
You are going to need better evidence to convince me. There are “real
news” shows on during the day so any housewife who wishes to can keep
up with the “important” events. But then who am I to say what is
important for the largely female daytime audience, the spirited
discussions inspired by the Satchi affair often seem to be fueled by
issues of morality, proper behavior of a Japanese woman, privacy, and
the conduct of the press. These may be far more important subjects to a
wideshow audience than much of what is on the respectable news
programs, and I will bet that a lot of them will tell you that these are
issues with much greater impact on their lives than, say, the suicide of
Eto Jun.
I’m sure Aaron already knows this, but for the benefit of others I will
close with my first rule of Japanese television: Never underestimate the
intelligence of the audience - no matter how simple-minded the
programming may look to you. Come to think of it, Aaron has to agree with
this, given some of the shows he admits to watching!
Michael Badzik
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:38:17 +1000
From: “Barbara Hartley” <hartleyb@jedi.cqu.edu.au>
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <9907250253.AA09318@jedi.cqu.edu.au>
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It seems to me that the whole Satchi thing is comparable to the press
coverage of Hayashi Mayumi after the curry jiken last year.
Bizarre though the incident was it was nothing like the press coverage that
followed. I was travelling in Japan on work at the time and can’t actually
recall any other current event that occurred since every time I turned the
tv on there was nothing but saturation coverage of Mayumi higaisha on
absolutely every station. There’s undoubtedly a gender factor at work - and
a certain glee in dealing brutally with women who have stepped outside
defined parameters. The political demonisation is confirmed by candid shots
of the women looking stressed and tired and generally pretty dreadful, thus
‘legitimising’ the manner in which they are dealt with by the media as
deviant.
Not that I’m, advocating in any way for bumping off people who give you the
cold shoulder with a bowl of pesticided curry, or for not paying your bills
or whatever. But compare the press treatment of both Mayumi and Satchi with
the piddling little bit of coverage given to all those blokes who have been
involved in mega frauds and other scandals over the past few years. A bit of
a glimpse of them looking vaguely remorseful sandwiched in between two other
blokes in the back of a police car and that’s about it. And with respect to
the unfortunate Satchi, how much more worthwhile had the media decided to
have a closer look at the bewigged chappy raking in a bucket by doing nips
and tucks, to say nothing of the whole cosmetic surgery industry in general.
By the way we’ve just had an incident in Australian where a prominent woman
politician, Carmen Lawrence - touted in the early nineties as a future prime
minister - has been the subject of a political witchhunt which resulted in
her being prosecuted for perjury. She was acquitted on Friday by a jury
which took less than an hour to make its decision. However, much of the
mainstream press (media and print) ran stories about her being ‘let off’ by
the judicial system and implying that she was undoubtedly guilty. The
hysteria is of a different tenor to that associated with Satchi. But the
message is the same. Beware if you’re a women who is perceived as
transgressing.
And with regard to the boredom factor. You might get bored the with hard
sell coverage, but the manner in which that coverage is being orchestrated
is surely a topic that calls for inquiry and comment.
Barbara Hartley
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 05:33:07 +0900
From: shh@gol.com
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Satchi
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To loop back into film a bit, as for how stong-willed and outspoken
women are covered in the Japanese press, does anyone have any ideas of
how femme fatale Matsuda Seiko has been treated over the years?
Sharon Hayashi
University of Chicago
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 01:45:55 +0900
From: “Peter B. High” <j45843a@nucc.cc.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Satchi
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Carole and Sharon’s invocations of Akutagawa’s pre-war suicide as a potential
context/contrast for considering the significance of Eto’s suicide reminds me that we
can find similar antecedants to the “Satchi affair” in that period as well.
Three examples spring immediately to mind (and off the top of my head, I might
add–meaning that I may have some of my details muddled). All three examples feature
prominent women who were pilloried in their era’s press as sexual adventuresses (or
ogresses) and yet, after burning for a time in journalistic perdition, were then
redeemed by having the nature of their “crimes” transformed into something
…”allegorical.” Exploring these examples might just conceivably provide a
prognostication as to if and how Satchi will be redeemed for her own “crimes.”
The first example is the public uproar and wide commentary on the open “furin”
relationship between Shimamura Hogetsu and the legendary actress Matsui Sumako at the
end of the Meiji period. Both were married elsewhere and while for men extramarital
affairs were de rigeur, for women it was seen as a sacramental desecration challenging
the very foundations of society. Some time after Hogetsu’s death and an unsuccessful
attempt to keep together the theatre troup she had started with Hogetsu, Sumako
committed suicide. The conservative press at the time commented that her death was a
natural atonement for her “sinfulness,” but subsequently it became (indeed, has become)
seen as the affirmation of a brave and true love transcending social taboo. Both
Kinugasa and Mizoguchi played on this moral theme in their 1947 films about her.
The second example is the Abe Sada murder incident, which also has received several
cinematic treatments (at least three, I think), including Oshima’s pornographic *Realm
of the Senses*. Unlike Sumako, Abe had been a “nobody,” a hotel maid, before
accidentally strangling here lover in bed and then making off with his severed penis in
1938. This last horrific detail, the castration, put her on the front page, and kept
her in the public eye for months. From early on, the press demonstrated awareness of
the dual significance of the incident and the its coverage had a distinctly Janus-faced
quality.On the one hand, the press played up the inevitable fear and repulsion of a
large section of its male redership. Compounding matters was–as it continues to be–a
kind of Queen Bee Complex, involving fear of and erotic attraction to the (potentially
lethal) sexual domination of women–a favorite topic,incidentally, of Shindo Kaneto
throughout most of the fifties and then of Imamura Shohei in the sixties and seventies.
Contemporary accounts of Abe’s ultimate arrest, meanwhile, introduced the second
perspective. Standing in the doorway of her hotel hide-away, she meekly surrendered to
the arresting officers amid a crowd of flashbulb popping reporters. In her hand, still
carefully wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, was her lover’s severed penis. The
photograph of her kimono-clad figure and bewildered, sad and vulnerable-looking
expression became a much reprinted icon of the era. Needless to say, the photographs
were sans the grisly artifact. Within this other perspective, the Abe incident opened
the profoundly a-moral dimension of sexual passion to public meditation. Part of the
problem had to do with the manner in which the press had to report (and thereby publicy
acknowledge) the “porno”-graphic details, including the titillating issue of finding an
appropriate expression for “male member.” In other words, the sensational impact of the
scandal came from its revelation, along with the details, of hithertop repressed
subject material. Significantly, all of this came amidst the aftermath of the “2-26”
Incident (the attempted coup-d’etat by young army officers in Feb. 1938)–in an era
characterized by “thought police” and the repression of public discourse on social and
political matters. In his book of essays about Abe Sada, the incident and his movie,
Oshima makes the point that in times of political crisis, the (Japanese) government
encourages the “liberation” of the sexual as a means of diverting attention from the
political arena. I am not sure that the government–even that of the thirties–was
ruled by the kind of monolithic logos Oshima posits or had this kind of immediate
access to the switches of such subtle and yet direct psychological/political
manipulation. However, if we can find such a tendency in history–and I think we
can–more than likely it was a sudden, independent eruption which took the bureaucratic
“control” officials by surprise and toward which they intinctively turned a blind eye.
The third “case” is that of the actress Okada Yoshiko, who “defected” to the Soviet
Union that same year. Since it had strong political overtones, the authorities of the
time made sure that little more than the bare details of the incident reached the
public. On January 3, 1938, stage and screen favorite Okada crossed the border on
Karafuto (Sakhalin) into Soviet teritory in the company of her lover, left-wing
dramatist Sugimoto Kenkichi. To this day, the issue of “Why Did She Do It?” continues
to intrigue Japanese film and social historians (in fact, recent years have seen the a
modest “Okada Yoshiko” boom, with the publication of articles and even a few books
about her). From the beginning of her stage career in the pre-Quake era of the
twenties, Yoshiko had developed a reputation for herself as a “flaming woman” who took
new bed partners before discarding old husbands. The press’ discovery of her in one of
her “love nests” with an illicit paramour led to a much-publicized cancellation of her
contract with one film coimpany and her being temporarily banned from appearances in
other pictures. Still, she managed to continue a prominent stage and screen career
despite the pungent smell of sexual scandal which persistently surrounded her. Okada’s
“defection” therefore came as a major shock/sensation and dominated the press during
the entire 1938 New Years season. Thereafter, however, the subject was allowed to lapse
into obscurity–in terms of direct press treatment, in any case. Reading various film
articles and round-table discussions of the era one gets the impression that the
incident had struck deep into the sensibilities of the film community (and presumably
the “public mind” as well). Oblique references to the incident (such as references to
“the one who ran away”) tended to emerge for years afterward.
In probing the psychological effect of the Okada/Sugimoto defection, one need only
recall the oft-invoked cliche of the era–“Japan has no Switzerland”–meaning that
since there was no convenient foreign country capable of providing political asylum,
one had best stay at home, cope, and where necessary compromise and collaborate. While
the official line was that Okada had violated the sacred national boundary and had
engaged in an act of treason, one gets the feeling that in the popular mind her act had
stirred a certain amount of envy and even “respect”–this, despite the fact that even
today social and film historians regularly refer to it as an act of “folly.”The first
in-depth treatment of the incident was done by Kishi Matsuo in his 1960s volume NIHON
EIGAJIN-DEN, where the defection is explained (away) as the result of sexual
infatuation. Okada had no political opinions, Kishi holds, and it was a spur of the
moment decision, apparently an act of “affirmation” of the opinions of her lover. As
far as I know, Okada herself has never really explained the reason for her defection.
Therefore, unlike either Matsui Sumako or Abe Sada, the enduring meaning of the Okada
Yoshiko incident has remained inchoate–reflected perhaps in the fact that there have
appeared no Okada Yoshiko movies.
In the late 1980s, the prelude period to Okada’s much-publicized nostalgic journey home
from the USSR was characterized by an outpouring of sentimentalism and “forgiveness.”
Part of it was clearly the sense of closure implied by her return after so many years
to the homeland. The defection was coming full circle, the final development in an
incident spanning the fifty years of the wartime and postwar eras. Now, ten years on,
however, one gets the feeling that it also marked the beginning of the present era in
which significant sectors of Japan are unilaterally “forgiving” and absolving the
wartime generation for excesses on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
The element linking the “heroines” of the three incidents was the unselfconsciousness
with which they transgressed the boundaries which hemmed in other, more ordinary women
of their era. In the cases of Matsui Sumako and Okada Yoshiko, at least, we see the
peculiar phenomenon of women of great daring, talent and audacity positioning
themselves in opposition to a male-dominant social context and thrusting upon that
society the responsibility of finding a means to accomodate them. In all three
instances, too, we see how flexibly and subtly Japanese society can move to create a
space to accomodate such unique individuals and their iconoclasm. All three ultimately
achieved acceptance and even a certain amount of esteem from their contemporaries and
their posterity. The rule seems to be that truly outrageous individuals, as long as
they have the perseverence to tough it out, will eventually be awarded a niche–often
a prominent one–of their own. This quality is equally apparent today, as in the case
of Mikawa Ken’ichi, who is regularly featured as “one of the women” in panel discussion
shows today, neatly eliding all (or most) references to his/her real identity as a
transvestite male.
Although the phrase seems now to have gone out of currency, “pushy” and/or unattractive
upper-middle aged women were were for a time regularly referred to as “obatarion”–a
uniqely Japanese neologism compounded from “oba” (aunt) and the title of the cult
horror movie *Battalion* in which dead flesh is revived v (via a gas, was it?). The
almost violent disgust implied in the phrase continues to be reflected in such tv ads
as the one in which a young man recoils in horror as he is about to acidentally kiss
one of these “obatarion.” A couple of years ago, Tonneruzu tv star Ishibashi Takaaki
(whom I heartily detest) was almost embroiled in a law suit when he lured another such
woman out on stage dressed only in bra and panties and then began to revile her for her
ugly body. This is the hostile context in which Nomura “Satchi” emerged as a
sharp-tongued, admittedly talentless “tarento.” For a time, this brassy (and, frankly,
utterly UTTERLY unattractive) woman seemed successful in her out bid to stake out her
own niche in the brutal world of “geinokai” television. Somehow, by pushing her own
“obatarion” pugnacity into the face of viewers and fellow-panelists alike, she actually
gained a certain amount of authority–MORAL authority, as shown in the shows where she
appeared as a panmelist lecturing frivolous young couples on the errors of their ways.
As in the case of the three women depicted above, the oppressive walls of social
opprobrium seemed to be moving back to accomodate this one outrageous “exception.” Such
as we now see was not to be the case.
The ingredient to be found in the cases of three pre-war woman but missing in that of
Satchi was catastrophe, tragedy, the completely unremediable screw-up. They had to
descend into the cauldron of infamy and then be resurrected, not through their own
efforts but through a reinterpretation (or universalization) of the significance of
their folly. Even Mikawa Ken’ichi had to drop into oblivion before being resurrected as
a “lovable” sage of popular tv.
Well, Satchi now has her seemingly unremediable screw-up. (As I write this, late night
television is reporting that her case has now come out onto the floor of the Diet!)
Satchi herself alternates between silence and defiance, just the right attitude to
stimulate the pundits. Will she be consigned forever to popular odium? Somehow I think
not. The dramatic structure seems to be in place for some sort of reversal–although
just how this would be achieved I have no idea. The game is afoot. Or, to use another
metaphor, the concentrics are spreading out across the surface of national
consciousness. We must wait and watch to see what they ultimately configure.
Peter B. High
Nagoya University
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 99 16:10:53 +0900
From: Aaron Gerow <gerow@ynu.ac.jp>
To: “KineJapan” <KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <199907260701.QAA25860@app2.ipch.ynu.ac.jp>
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Michael wrote,
>There are “real
>news” shows on during the day so any housewife who wishes to can keep
>up with the “important” events. But then who am I to say what is
>important for the largely female daytime audience, the spirited
>discussions inspired by the Satchi affair often seem to be fueled by
>issues of morality, proper behavior of a Japanese woman, privacy, and
>the conduct of the press. These may be far more important subjects to a
>wideshow audience than much of what is on the respectable news
>programs, and I will bet that a lot of them will tell you that these are
>issues with much greater impact on their lives than, say, the suicide of
>Eto Jun.
Trying to be neutral yet provoke discussion, I haven’t really put forward
my views of wideshows, but the general tone of my language probably
belies a general dislike of the format. While I can watch them and not
infrequently see interesting stories (if not intellectually interesting
cultural problems), stories like the Satchi affair still make me worried
about the power of the media, their definition of privacy, the morality
of journalism, and the construction of subjectivity. Frankly, I found
the scenes of reporters hounding Satchi around the train station
offensive and repulsive and a clear demonstration of the dangers of the
violence of the camera (which any good documentarist from Hara to Koreeda
is conscious of). I question the morality of anyone who makes such
things and who likes watching it. Koreeda and others on the production
side have been trying to warn people a lot lately about the complete lack
of action on media ethics within the TV industry in Japan (as Koreeda
said in a Doc Box interview I did with him, every time a scandal occurs,
nothing is solved), but we also have to wonder about the viewer culture
that supports these problems.
This is my emotional response, and feel free to analyze it if you want,
but Michael thankfully does remind me that both the situation and my
reaction to it are more complex. There are actually features to the
wideshows which I actually liked. Before the demise of the TBS
wideshows, the morning show reserved from 30 minutes to an hour on
Fridays just to discuss contemporary issues in often interesting ways.
Wideshows, I should remind people, did some of the better and earlier
reporting on the AIDS scandal. And as Michael emphasizes, quite a few
still devote a lot of time to discussions of social, famialial, and moral
issues.
But there are still many problems worthy of discussion. First, while it
is clear we cannot easily divide TV news into afternoon and evening
formats, there nonetheless are distinctions in the way news is defined
and delivered on TV. While in the afternoon, hard news is offered on NHK
and the 11:30 news sports and in market news on TV Tokyo, the way these
programs are constructed, their tone, point of view and content all
differ from the news breaks seen on some of the afternoon shows, or on
the actual programming of the wideshows. Not all can be reduced to a
male vs. female audience, but many shows very literally present their
news as “okusama no tame ni” and construct it according to their views of
what this audience is and wants. As I discuss below, the problem arises
when these definitions of viewership are not merely passive responses to
actualy viewer desires, but serve to shape those desires–and
subjectitivites–themselves.
Second, as we can tell from the kind of responses to the Satchi affair
seen on this list, there is the fear that whatever issues are discussed
on the wideshows are often presented in a conservative way which
reinforces dominant ideologies. Much of the time the discussions reveal
major fissures in such ideology (e.g., the simultaneous love and hate of
bossy women), but there is the fear that the “consensus” over what is
“natural” and “common sense” (something very evident in the Satchi
affair) is a mode of power and social control.
>I’m sure Aaron already knows this, but for the benefit of others I will
>close with my first rule of Japanese television: Never underestimate the
>intelligence of the audience - no matter how simple-minded the
>programming may look to you. Come to think of it, Aaron has to agree with
>this, given some of the shows he admits to watching!
Actually, Michael, I’ve said the same things many times on this list.
But I do think we in Japanese TV and film studies still have a lot of
work to do on audiences, industry, and ideology. We are all aware of the
Fiskean, cultural studies point of view which emphasizes how audiences
appropriate and use popular cultural texts for their own ends. There are
clear cases where audiences do take “dominant ideological” texts and
effectively rework them according to their needs, making them important
to their lives. There is more than a strong possibility many wideshow
viewers are critically working with the texts in ways we should not
desparage.
But at the same time, there are many people in cultural studies who
remind us that texts contain many devices which, if not forcing, at least
encourage “proper” readings. My research on prewar film reception
indicates that there is a long history of efforts to promote, control,
and regulate the kinds of meanings people produce from movies. Without
having to follow Adorno precisely, we also have to recognize there are
industrial factors which encourage companies to find means to prevent
alternative readings and uses of its cultural products. With this
historical, cultural, and industrial background, we have plenty of
evidence to lead us to conclude that many wideshows (as well as many
shows in general, and many films) are constructed to prevent a critical
response/use on the part of the audience and that most audiences follow
along with that. It is there when the issues of ideology and control
arise.
Clearly neither extreme is right, but there remains a lot of work to be
done in work on popular culture in Japan to understand that culture as
neither liberatory nor oppressive, but as a complex struggle over meaning
and power which involves dominant corporate and state structures as well
as amorphous spectator fields and reception contexts. I’ve only started
thinking about it, but looking at the ease with which the
Kimigayo/Hinomaru, defense guidelines, and wiretapping legislation passed
the Diet without any discussion, I tend towards the skeptical side.
Any comments?
Aaron Gerow
YNU
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 18:49:21 -0400
From: Joseph Murphy <jmurphy@aall.ufl.edu>
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <l03110701b3c20e637c8b@[128.227.20.66]>
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This will eventually get to the question of image-media.
Peter B. High wrote:
>Carole and Sharon’s invocations of Akutagawa’s pre-war suicide as a potential
>context/contrast for considering the significance of Eto’s suicide reminds
>me that we
>can find similar antecedants to the “Satchi affair” in that period as well.
>Three examples spring immediately to mind (and off the top of my head, I
>might
>add–meaning that I may have some of my details muddled). All three
>examples feature
>prominent women who were pilloried in their era’s press as sexual
>adventuresses (or
>ogresses) and yet, after burning for a time in journalistic perdition,
>were then
>redeemed by having the nature of their “crimes” transformed into something
>…”allegorical.”
Barbara Hartley’s juxtaposing the press treatment of the female defendant
in the recent “Karei jiken” to the vilification of Satchi Nomura brings to
mind another antecedent for the way the mass-media siezes on these strong,
transgressive women, and possibly for the wide-show format itself, namely
the “poison woman” genre of serial fiction popular in the 1870’s when
Japan’s mass journalism was just establishing itself . These stories
weren’t really fiction but fictionalized accounts of actual news events
(jitsuroku shosetsu). A single incident would kick off a rash of competing
serials in different newspapers, to be bound and sold as books afterward.
The most popular kind featured as their heroine the “dokufu” or
poison-woman, i.e. a woman who had committed a rash of sensational, usually
violent crimes. To get an idea of the tenor, behind “Takahashi Oden yasha
monogatari” was the true story of a woman who conned her own relatives in a
land scam in the mid-1870’s, wandered the Kanto plain for a while with a
man, then lured another man back to her room and killed him for his money.
She was sentenced to death January 31st, 1879. As soon as the sentence was
handed down at least fournewspapers rushed out competing serializations of
the story, mixing fictionalized accounts of her exploits as well as
transcripts of Oden’s own self-defense plea, etc. This is by no means the
most lurid.
It’s not such a stretch to the current discussion both for the similarity
in mass-media format and the consistent content of the fantasies being
circulated. The phenomenon (of the “true-account” genre) occurs during
the initial sorting out period for Japan’s mass journalism. They were
consumed in intallments each day like the wideshow, and competing versions
appeared in different newspapers (channels). Fiction is still serialized
in Japanese newspapers today, but as newspapers gained in respectability,
the basis in factual events and unseemly scramble to get out the quickest
account was expunged, and by the 1890’s newspaper serial were “pure”
fiction. Where you have to go these days to get the jitsuroku presentation
of the latest sensational real news event is the despised genre of the
wideshow. Its like within the phenomenon of mass-media, the general format
switched from print to visual media . Second, the hybridity and free
combination of fact and fiction in the jitsuroku shosetsu (What I know
about this I learned from the work of the early-Meiji scholar Kamei Hideo,
from his book Kansei no henkaku and from talks he has given here) was
instrumental in establishing conventions of realism, and not coincidentally
conventions for image-ing women that made possible the “birth” of the
modern novel a decade later and clearly the fantasy of the woman who “won’t
give way on her desire” still circulates meaningfully today.
For those who haven’t followed it (you couldn’t help be exposed if you’ve
been in Japan anytime in the last two years), the “curry incident” was a
spectacular mass- poisoning where several people died after eating the
curry rice from a stand at a neighborhood festival in Wakayama ken (correct
me on the details, please„ those who’ve followed it more closely). The
incident unraveled in a fascinating way over its first few days, beginning
with the mysterious deaths, the pinpointing of the curry-rice as the
source, the identification of quantities of arsenic in the curry, the
arsenic traced circumstantially to Hayashi Masumi, a local housewife who it
was found in the last several years had taken out large insurance policies
on other people who had “accidents” and whose husband showed clear symptoms
of long-term, low-level arsenic poisoning. The police had no witnesses or
hard evidence linking the suspect to the poisoning, hence they had to
release Ms. Hayashi to her home, presumably waiting for her to crack under
the pressure. We know that’s what the police are doing because we’ve all
read Dostoyevsky and seen it a dozen times in detective novels and at the
movies. However, Hayashi (yogisha?) did not crack, and what elevated it
from a good summer read to wide-show media frenzy seemed to be the repeated
images of her “hansei-free” comings and goings from her rather
well-appointed suburban house.
This brings up the question of whether the representation of these women is
“attractive” or not. It seems like a presumption of the commentary that
the Japanese media presents these women as “unattractive,” to coincide
with the moral case, but I wonder if that’s how it works. Those sorts of
judgements of course involve projection on the part of the beholder, but
with the proviso that they can be organized and manipulated, insofar as the
production of Hayashi is going to follow this well-established “poison
woman” schema she has to be allowed the same kind of magnetism (of the
woman who refuses to give way on her desire, and will not back down).
Hayashi is full-figured, with a no-nonsense contemporary hairstyle and a
warm, open face, and shows remarkable composure in the face of the camera
onslaught. One of the most repeated images on the wideshows is of Hayashi
out washing her car and then turning her garden hose on the phalanx of
photographers catcalling her, literally hosing one especially persistent
cameraman off of his perch on her fence. Its a beautiful image (sun
shining, just a hint of a rainbow in the spray) and a truly elegant
response to the media frenzy. Aaron’s term “violent” is probably a good
description of the way the wideshow paparazzi pursue their subjects, its
too invasive to be voyeuristic, and anyone who watches the wideshows
probably experiences a sense of guilt about their complicity in these
invasions of privacy. Yet the US testosterone-driven celebrity response of
punching the camera simply reverses the violence. This image of Hayashi
sprinkling these intrusive photographers with a sudden shower, a gentle
baptism that ruins their cameras allows a very easy identification on the
part of the guilty viewer, and if one isn’t careful this might then just
slide to some fantasies about what you’d like to do to those nosy neighbors
of yours, or how you might like to get that aging, belching beer-drinking
spouse of yours out of the way…
What is ugly about the Satchi affair is that it entirely lacks the
novelistic element of the “Wakayama Curry Incident.” It’s just an ugly,
pointless story. Hence where Hayashi is shown hosing off the scum of the
earth on a sunny day, we are treated to daily, mean-spirited and very
unattractive pictures of Satchi Nomura rummaging around the trash in front
of her house, or cleaning up behind her dog on a walk.
There were personal tragedies in the Wakayama curry incident, many of the
victims who did not die are still suffering debilitating effects from the
poison, but the question is of why and how the media fixes on certain
events and not others, and the “literary” expectations the viewers bring to
these media events seems to really shape the spectacle.
J. Murphy
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 13:55:13 +0900
From: “Peter B. High” <j45843a@nucc.cc.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <199907270501.OAA00703@nucc.cc.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
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<
Joseph Murphy wrote:
> Barbara Hartley’s juxtaposing the press treatment of the female defendant
> in the recent “Karei jiken” to the vilification of Satchi Nomura brings to
> mind another antecedent for the way the mass-media siezes on these strong,
> transgressive women, and possibly for the wide-show format itself, namely
> the “poison woman” genre of serial fiction popular in the 1870’s when
> Japan’s mass journalism was just establishing itself .
> It’s not such a stretch to the current discussion both for the similarity
> in mass-media format and the consistent content of the fantasies being
> circulated…
In our two postings, I think both Joseph and I have been groping toward the realization
that the Japanese media tends to orchestrate its “incidents” according to certain
dramaturgical patterns (“ur-stories” perhaps?) and that it may be possible to track these
patterns back into earlier historical periods. I first came upon this notion when I was
writing an essay abpout the Japanese press during the Manchurian Incident of 1931. In
hindsight at least, reportahge during the “prelude” period leading up to full-scale
intervention–featuring assassinations of Japanese individuals and even a massacre of
Japanese residents in Manchuria–seemed to me to be following the classic plot development
pattern of the *matatabi*-style jidaigeki (samurai film). First there is the the series of
one-sided outrages carried out by a sinister enemy whose “true shape” and motives remain
obscure. The hero (the ronin, the yakuza, or in this case, the Japanese army) stoically
endures the provocations, holding to priniciples of decorum and morality utterly
incomprehensible to the villain(s). Of course, the reader/viewer knows that eventually the
hero’s endurance will snap and that he will launch against the enemy a jihad of righteous
fury (the “*nagurikomi*/i.e. full-scale military action) in which the perfidy is requited
in a bloddbath and the villains abashed.
–Parenthetically and for what its worth, the “co-star” in the Satchi drama, Asaka
Mitsuyo, is known to the Japanese public for her stage work in old-time *Onnna
Kengeki*–samurai dramas enacted by all-women troups. On stage, she presumably played the
righteous samurai doing to death all sorts of villains preying upon the hapless public.
Now, returning to the 1930s–> For the subsequent Shanghai Incident of spring 1932, which
developed into military conflict too quickly for the press to emplot it in the above
manner, the incident was given “transcendent” significance by digging out extraordinary
examples of self-sacrificial valor displayed by individuals or small groups of military
men involved in the fighting there.The narrative category for such exemplary incidents is
as ancient as the medieval era *senki-mono*, such military histories as the *Taiheiki*
etc. This was the BIDAN (lit. “beautiful tale”). Before coming upon the single ideal bidan
for the Incident, we find the press almost daily putting forward various candidates in the
form of little front page accounts of “brave deaths” on the battlefields to the north and
west of the city. The one they finally settled involved three youing men who died while
trying to blow up enemy barbed wire defenses. Tokyo Nichinichi immediately dubbed them
“Our Three Human Bomb Patriots” (Bakudan Sanyushi), while ASsahi used the term “Three
Flesh-bullet Patriots” (Nikudan Sanyushi); it is usually under the latter name that they
are referred to in the history books. Within weeks, the Flesh-bullet Three became the
subject of radio plays, “quickie” (kiwamono) movies, rakugo routines and even full-scale
stage plays.
One of the remarkable aspects of the above incidents was the manner in which the national
press would throw up one real-life “candidate” after another (in the form of
“provocations” and then of valorous deaths in action) in an open attempt to find just the
right material to fit a pre-determined narrative model. This, naturally, would lead to the
impression on on the part of the public spectator of similar incidents “clustering”–in
other words, the instinctive perception of “crisis”. It seems to me that we continue to be
exposed to this sort of serialized reportage today–the North Korea-related stuff, the
scandals in the economic world, etc. etc. Interestingly enough, once the sense of “crisis”
has been set a-brewing in the…”MEGA-sphere,” can I say?–the arenas of politics, high
finance, government and similar areas of High Historico-social Import–the media then sets
to work creating minor key counterpoints, public or personal scandals clearly unrelated
in their details to the “crisis” of the MEGA-sphere and yet, on some virtually
subliminal level, vibrating to the same rythm. This of course is today the dimension
worked by the Wideshow and the shukanshi.
For example, returning to our early thirties parallel, we find the great Lovers’ Suicide
Rage of 1932-34. On May 10, 1932, the newspapers reported the suicide of Chosho Goro, a
Keio University student, and his sweetheart Yaeko. The two had met at a Christian
fellowship meeting and fallen in love, but because of class differences, marriage had been
forbidden by both sets of parents. The means of death they chose was both romantic and
striking. They jumped into the Sakatayama volcano above the beach at Oiso. The day after
the initial news report, all of the national papers published their suicide note, in which
they told (the entire nation, as it turned out) that they had died “pure in body and
spirit.” At Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun, the copy editor had the inspiration to play up the
Christian connection, publishing the note under the headline “A Love That Reached
Heaven”. It was the headline’s brilliant balance of spirituality and barely suppressed
eros, more than the actual event, which created the greatest sensation and set off the
subsequent chain of events. Within days, the suicide was being re-enacted as a play by
various small stage troupes using the headline as their title. Radio too picked up the
story, first in editorial commentary and then as a radio drama. Record producers released
a number of sentimental ballads extolling the pure love of Goro and Yaeko, and Shochiku
film company announced it would produce *A love That Reached Heaven*, with Gosho Heinosuke
as director.By this time, the surge of copy-cat suicides (i.e. the “clustering effect”)
had begun . From mid-May, several couples a day were climbing the slopes of Sakatayama to
throw themselves into the volcano . Now, with the movie, their numbers doubled. At the
movie theaters, usherettes had to patrol the aisles as young couples had taken to drinking
poison during the showing. By the end of the year, there had been hundreds of
suicides.After a brief lull, the Lover`s Suicide Rage flared anew. On January 9 (1933), a
pair of school girls climbed Miharayama volcano on Oshima Island, a short ferry trip from
Tokyo, and, holding hands, jumped in. The first copy-cat suicides began three days later.
As before, the press reacted with sensationalist irresponsibility. Pictures of young
lovers creeping up the slope arm-in-arm were published with syrupy thanatopic
captions.When the rage finally subsided for good in March, a total of 944 young people had
perished in the Miharayama crater ( Kato Hidetoshi’s count).
Certainly, on the surface, the two levels of “incidents”–those of the mega-sphere and the
counter-pointing minor-key Lovers’ Suicide incident–had nothing to do with one another.
Yet, clearly, they were all sagas of death, and were therefore thematically linked. To
recognize this, we need only realize that the issue of Fascism (“fassho”) was just then
dominating public discourse. The connection , I think, was made most apparent in a comment
by German director Karl Ritter a few years later, about the intention of his own
fascist/Nazi films: “I want to impress upon our youth the transcendent value of apparently
meaningless death.”
For those who feel it inappropriate to suddenly drag in evidence from a foreign source,
one could re-explain the issue within a purely “native” context. The Lovers’ Suicide Rage
became a successful minor key counterpoint incident by being “sublimed” (in both the
alchemical and the literal sense) into a parable of surpassing “beauty.” And, to continue
the alchemical metaphor, the Philosopher’s Stone was the early-on Nichinichi Shimbun
headline: “The Love that Reached Heaven”…and that patriotism was seen as another form of
that same vaulting love.
This brings us to Aaron’s repeated query in reference to the Satchi affair–what is its
significance in the context of major events in the mega-sphere (centering on the Diet
resolutions and debate about defense/the flag and the national anthem)? By implication at
least, he is asking whether we can perceive an aspect of direct manipulation or
re-direction of public consciousness away from the truly important to the trivial.
Certainly this appears to be the effect. Personally–and, as with the example I developed
in my previous posting about the Abe Sada affair and its virtual concurrence with the
February 26 Incident of 1938–I find it difficult to locate the subjective (i.e. the
“willing”) element which does the “re-diriecting” of public consciousness. That is also
why I have trouble with Noam Chomsky’s fascinating studies on American politics and the
press. Observations couched in this sort of “anthropomorphizing” mode of expression may
work well as a kind of short-hand, in other words as a means of cutting to direct
observations of the phenomena, but there is a clear tendency for the
anthropomorphized/short-hand unit (the Press, the Government, the Power Elite, Them) to
stand up and begin to walk around by itself.
What I would like to posit here is possibility that there is no subjective or “willing”
element to be found, rather that at some refined meta-level “real” events and their
representation in the media interact according to certain naturally-arising patterns and
that they produce “products” (incidents, scandals etc) which send out ripples through both
dimensions:
Query #1: Cannot these patterns be considered either as a.) universals (i.e. part of the
phenomenon of our present day planet-girdling media news coverage and/or, more distantly,
arising from the ancient structures of human story-telling ) and also as b.) determined by
the narrative modes peculiar to a specific culture, with its roots thrust deep into that
culture’s own sentimental, historical and story-telling traditions? In reference to a.),
we could hypothesize that the CNN format may be a hybrid spawn of the Hollywood narrative
tradition which, since Griffith at leasst, developed techniques for universal transparency
and “reader friendliness.” (So what do we make of CNN’schief rival, BBC?–is it so
substantiallyy different?) Queries about b.) will be covered below.
Standing in the way, I think, is the comparatively recent history of modern media
themselves and the manner in which they tend to compound, interact, and mutually
reinforce–via music, sound (effects), the oral word, written word, the visual image,
etc–to create the illusion of “crises” et al–in Japan, I of course locate its inception
in the early thirties. In the past hundred years, the very sense of a publicly-shared Now
has undergone tremendous change–starting with “recently”/in the past several days or
weeks (via newspapers) to the Now we experience today–“just now”/ a few hours ago/ a few
minutes ago/ “developing on your screen RIGHT NOW!” Another problem is that new dimensions
keep being added to the mass media. For example, I can’t think of a single 1930s example
comparable, in immediacy at least, to the image Joseph Murphy talks about so
eloquently–Hayashi Masumi hosing down the press. Also, I remember a personal conversation
with Markus (Nornes) in which we tried to list up some of the “iconic photo images” which
have encapsulated our impression of impportant moments of the twentieth century–the
explosion of the Arizona at Pearl Harbor, the burned Vietnamese village girl…But even
these have a different, far more limited range of sensibility than that green Bagdad sky
we all saw on CNN the moment the Gulf War began. More striking than its composition and
direect visual impact was the eerie you-are-there/yet-aren’t-there, vicarious immediacy
provided by satellite tv. Its a visual icon of a quite different sort. Photographs are
always “then.”
Query #2: Returning to hypothesis b.)–about media coverage being determined by the native
narrative patterns of a particular culture, I wonder if other readers would agree that the
historical antecedant line opened by Joseph and myself has merit. The idea, as I see it
anyway, is that the culture has, ready-to-hand, a complex set of (what I call) ur-stories
and thayt modern mass media constantly fishes down among these stories, not only to find
an appropriate “shape” for casting an already-unfolding story, but on a more instinctive
level, for types of new stories to pursue (or, maybe, invent?). And, that the
story-tellers–tv, the papers, shukanshi,etc. etc.–are not consciously in conmtrol of
this rummaging.
Sub-query a.) What would these stories be and how could we identifyu them?
In the Japanese context, Japanese historians seem to make the task easy by plotting out
their historical accounts popular culture cultural history along a time line of
consecutively occurring incidents and fads. These latter form the dots of the line. The
spaces between, representing various mini-eras in the life of Japanese mass society, are
given substance by invoking the buzz words, slogans (inspired by the government or
advertising), popular songs and memorable visual images of the period. All of my examples
from the 30s figure large in most such accounts.
Sub-query b.) Okay, this might possibly be true for Japan, but can we say if its equally
true for other cultures? And what of such “international” media as CNN? Should we only
look into American lore for its ur-stories?
Sub-query C.) What, if anything, does this tell us about the Satchi affair? Can we place
it as a projection of one or another of these ur-stories?
Although I feel I have lots more to say about the matter, I think I’ll stop here to see
if there is any reaction. Thqat’s the great thing about lists like this. Its not necessary
to develop a notion in complete isolation.
To quote Sitemaster Aaron, “Any comments?”
Peter B. High
Nagoya University
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 99 15:29:54 +0900
From: Aaron Gerow <gerow@ynu.ac.jp>
To: “KineJapan” <KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <199907270620.PAA25480@app2.ipch.ynu.ac.jp>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”US-ASCII”
Glad to see that the Satchi affair has produced such long, thought-out,
and downright juicy responses. Don’t have time to be juicy myself, but I
think there are some basic issues that need review.
Peter wrote,
>What I would like to posit here is possibility that there is no subjective
>or “willing”
>element to be found, rather that at some refined meta-level “real” events
>and their
>representation in the media interact according to certain
>naturally-arising patterns and
>that they produce “products” (incidents, scandals etc) which send out
>ripples through both
>dimensions:
Actually, this is basically the definition of power we see dominating
much cultural studies since Foucault and, as a postscript, was in some
ways the definition I was trying to invoke when discussing wideshows and
power. It would be amusing to think Obuchi is calling up the wideshow
producers and telling them to attack Satchi, but no one seriously
believes that. We can, however, consider the question of power without
having to think of subjects wielding it for specific purposes. Power can create subjects, mold behavior, etc. through various technologies and
apparatuses, but no one need be at the wheel.
Basically, this is the view of subjectivity since structuralism, and
especially with Peter’s “ur-stories,” it struck me that Peter is offering
us a good and specific example of a structuralist analysis of modern
Japanese culture. Here people do not make (speak) structures, they are
made (“spoken”) by them.
But while I think Peter’s ur-stories have a lot of promise and can be
utilized quite fruitfully, I wonder if we should be wary of such stories
for the same reason there were problems with structuralism. There is the
tendency to see them as “natural,” which often leads to a kind of
functionalism; they become “defined” (often though a central binarism) in
ways that occlude the fissures and deferrences of signification; they
focus on texts and signification at the expense of reading; they tend to
write out the messiness of historical moments in favor of longue durees;
etc. (others can add to the list).
My references to the issue of power in this discussion have mostly been
in relation to a continuing concern of mine: the relation of text and
reception in signification within historical contexts interlaced by power
concerns. A central question of power is whether or not a text like a
wide show has the authority to enforce “its” meanings or ideologies on
its viewers/readers. Much poststructuralist work on reception has
focused on how readers have the power to resist and rewrite the
ideologicical structures contained in the text. This, to put it
simplistically, is the vision of a free and often critical reader. Since
Michael seemed to be invoking such a reader in his note, I cited the
theoretical basis while also warning that we have to recognize that there
are many elements in popular culture which work to train readers/viewers
to receive texts “the way they should.” When they do that, they are in
effect in the power of the text. Of course, no one need be “at the
wheels” controlling the texts for a purpose (though moments like war make
this more possible), but there is still a power relationship being
created (and not just by textual producers: by subjecting themselves to
the power of the text, readers create certain pleasing forms of
entertainment).
My central question then had less to do with who was “using” these texts
for what purpose, but rather with how we should theorize cultural
signification in Japan in terms of power. This does relate to issues of
politics, industry, gender, class, nation, economy, etc., but not always
in direct ways. The Satchi affair is not being used by any to divert the
Japanese people away from the Japanese Diet debates. Rather, what I fear
is that certain historical practices regarding signification,
intersecting with structures of textual power, mold subjects who
precisely don’t have as much “freedom” to read as some scholars hope.
Such subjects also end up being those who are less critical of political
texts, which is one way these issues of signification also relate to the
political field.
Again, these are issues I am still working on, but I still wonder what
people do think of the the intersecting issues of power, signification,
and reception within Japanese popular image culture.
Aaron Gerow
YNU
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 21:06:05 +0900
From: “Peter B. High” <j45843a@nucc.cc.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <199907271211.VAA20478@nucc.cc.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Aaron Gerow wrote:
> But while I think Peter’s ur-stories have a lot of promise and can be
> utilized quite fruitfully, I wonder if we should be wary of such stories
> for the same reason there were problems with structuralism. There is the
> tendency to see them as “natural,” which often leads to a kind of
> functionalism; they become “defined” (often though a central binarism) in
> ways that occlude the fissures and deferrences of signification; they
> focus on texts and signification at the expense of reading; they tend to
> write out the messiness of historical moments in favor of longue durees;
> etc. (others can add to the list).
As often happens among scholars whose point of view and/or area of interest
tend to coincide as closely as Aaron’s and mine, we often feel the need
to interject a “yes, but…” in order to stake out our own territory, and
insights. This I believe is what Aaron is doing in the paragraph above; and
quite rightly so. However, since I feel the above paragraph contains a key
misconstruing of what I said (mea culpa, indoubitably), I want to see if I
can set things right.
I am of course aware of the rebuttal of the structuralist position Aaron
refers to here and believe it is well taken. However I am not aware of how
this very good advice relates directly to what I said. I am also not quite
clear about what he means by “functionalism” and am therefore equally
unclear about why I need to be wary of that frumious bandersnatch. In
other words, while Aaron warns that my idea of “ur-stories” may be caught
up in the Structuralist Fallacy, I must complain that I am being subjected
to the debater’s categorical fallacy (in other words, that I have been
thrust into the wrong “ism” box).
The key element of Aaron’s criticism (of the structuralists) is that “they
tend to write out the messiness of historical moments in favor of longue
durees; etc.” This of course reflects the anti-historical bias of their
discipline and would signify a grave failing in any historian.
The point I want to make here is a tricky one since I have to recycle some
of the very terms Aaron uses, but in a different context. I am suggesting
that these ur-stories represent (archetypical?/traditional?) forms
pre-provided within a specific culture for the casting, as news and/or
entertainment, developments of the day. In fact they do function to “write
out the messiness of historical moments,” since they represent patterned
forms of representation. I would add that they also tend toward an
essentially conservative interpretation of the world and therefore , by
implication at least, have a role to play in signification. However, since
the content is invariably “current events” taking place within the
radically different circumstances of each era, ideology included, they also
completely vulnerable “defferences of signification.” Take for example the
American “Horatio Alger” ur-story. We can find it at work in contemporary
accounts of the life of Thomas Edison, up through the twenties. On the
other hand, it turns into a parodic weapon to be wielded against Dick Nixon
in the late sixties and early seventies. We even find it in the background
sketches of the rise of Apple Computors. Complicating matters is the fact
that ur-stories can intertwine in the same account–Apple was even more
often cast as David in combat with the IBM goliath.
In any case, I don’t think it is any more tenable to hold that ur-stories
characterize any particular era than it is to attempt a similar
characterization by simply invoking its incidents, scandals and what-not.
The latter are indeed “messy,” being subject to constant reinterpretation
as to their facts and significance. But we must also recognize that as
patterned forms of representation purveyed to the public, ur-stories seem
to have a life and career of their own in the real world. Why was America
swept up in grief at the death of JFK,jr.? Why, because he was the last
prince of “Camelot” of course!
Actually, the line of inquiry which fascinates me most is the way in which
the narratives of what I called the MEGA-sphere (of politics and other
events of High Historico-social Import) tend to be “counterpointed” by
stories (scandals, affairs etc) in the minor key, spawned by the popular
media dimension. As I have already pointed out, the Manchurian Incident was
quickly followed by public fascination with the Lovers’ Suicide Rage; the
Feb. 26 coup incident was counterpointed by the Abe Sada Incident. Now, in
the midst of millenialist fears and all the stuff going on in the Diet,
millions seem more concerned with the Satchi affair. My hypothesis is that
the counterpointing (popular press) stories, while clearly unrelated in
their details to the “crisis” of the MEGA-sphere, still, on some
virtually subliminal level, vibrate with an allied significance. Both the
*bidan* tales of valor spewed out on the front page during the Manchurian
Incident and the lovers’ suicides were all sagas of death, and therefore
thematically linked–the region where they interpenetrated being the issue
of Fascism (“fassho”) which was just then dominating public discourse.
So what would be the significance vibration shared by Satchi and the major
domestic news issues of the moment? The flag and anthem issues arise amidst
a wider, and increasingly nationalist, discourse about Japan and the War
(guilt/responsibility/factuality), Japan as an “independent, full-fledged
nation” and the sense that Japan must re-emerge on the international stage
as a full-fledged national entity. At the fringes of this discourse is the
persistent debate about Japan having lost its identity, its old values and
traditonal virtues of straightforwardness. One of the most prominent
incarnations of Satchi herself was as the sharp-tongued moralist, attacking
members of the loose-living younger generation. At the same time, she
represent(ed) a travesty of the old,traditional image of the proper,
selkf-effacing “obasan.” Enter Asaka Mitsuyo, the proxy representive of the
good old (semi-mythical) world of chambara drama (she was an *onna kengeki*
actreess). ASsaka proceeds to publicly prosecute Satchi for her duplicity
(her distortion of factuality) and lack of “common-sense” (she borrowed
things and failed to return them–a nearly unforgivanble sin in the old
moral order). Seen this way, motifs of both the MEGA-sphere and the
counterpoint clearly intertwine, or “vibrate” as I have been putting it.
Quintessentially, we find vaguely analogous issues of identity–who are
you? who are we? Also there is the very Japanese iassue of “midare wo
tadasu” (correcting things out of order/ finding and adopting the correct
forms).
Once again, any comments?
Peter B. High
Nagoya University
Date: 27 Jul 99 20:58:13 -0700
From: “Michael Badzik” <mike@vena.com>
To: “KineJapan” <KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: Satchi
Message-ID: <B3C3CDEA-2963A8@205.158.33.85>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-2022-JP
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
I have been considering all through this discussion how similar the
Satchi affair has been to a number of recent news events (with the
emphasis on “event”, not “news”) here in the US, most recently with
the Clinton/Lewinsky affair. Our televisions screens were continually
filled with every bit of rumor, innuendo and gossip that could be found,
and then repeated a hundred times over. The media seemed to be caught
in a positive feedback loop as the stories fed from one medium to the
next until arriving back at the first, only to repeat the circuit again,
gaining “importance” and “credibility” from each pass. Coverage grew
far more rapidly than public demand for it appeared to. And of course
we heard very little about the real issues that needed addressing in
Washington. There were calls for a return to the (reputed) high morals
of the past. But after all was said and done (or not done), the general
public ended up fully understanding the (in)significance of the whole
affair, showing a much better sense of perspective than the media
pundits. The press, already suffering from a large decline in respect
from the public at large, ended up with even less. It will be interesting
to see if the Satchi affair ends up playing out this way, as I expect it
will (“Never underestimate the Japanese television viewer.(IS)
So now, considering the above in light of Peter High’s intriguing
comments on possible origins of these stories, I would certainly think
that there is then a dominant universal aspect, that these circuses can
and will occur in any sufficiently developed land. There is probably
also a local aspect though, as I am not sure American’s attention could
be held with the not very outrageous surface issues of the Satchi affair.
But I wonder how much of the striking similarity between the Japanese
and US media coverage (ignoring the question of origin, which seems
even more difficult) is rooted in the structure and delivery of modern
media, and how much is in the “ur-stories” which do seem to travel
across cultures quite well, as mythologist Joseph Campbell was always
pointing out. A difficult and complex problem it would seem.
Michael Badzik