Quote:
Originally Posted by orbitalaspect
We have a larger segment of the population enduring obesity, yes. But being an "obesity denialist" and generalizing American women as obese are two very different contexts. One is an extrapolation of my character from what I said and the other is what I wrote.
Japan has an odd perspective of American culture. Some really value and look up to Westerners, and others tend to generalize and parody Westerners. What I mean when I say I feel this video plays off the stereotypes a bit too much is saying that Katy Perry cannot even dress up in traditional Geisha garments for a performance at the AMAs without being accused of racism, promotion of Japanese women's oppression, and promotion of prostitution. How do you think Asian stereotyping would go in a music video in the US? So, from my cultural standpoint, even as a skinny white American boy, I find the video offensive.
A fat girl gluing cutouts of herself onto pictures of hot guys? Check. A fat girl munching on a drumstick while working out? Check. A fat girl that falls on a treadmill, rolls around, and can't get up? Check. A fat girl who gets one-upped by a slim, attractive woman while trying to get the hot guy? Check. A fat girl cartoonized as a crotchety, stark-faced beast? Check. It's all a bit much. For someone who literally had a gay man sing half of her 13th album, seduce other men with her in an alley in one of her PVs, and perform in a skirt/kilt on an entire tour, this is way off from the messages Ayumi has sent, even as a parody.
I think the reality that half of us saw the video, and before even logging into AHS, felt it patronized American women as fat slobs says that the video is offensive to quite a few people. God bless Ayumi, but I think the statistics we should be paying attention to are the 20 pages of this thread where half of us clearly feel the video is offensive and the other half clearly feel the video is not. Often we have a split on whether people like something or not. This is a completely different beast of a discussion, honey.
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I respect your right to be offended, but to me it seems like you're grasping at as many straws as some of the people in this thread looking for alternate interpretations.
As the most powerful and important country in the world, and with a long history of pillaging, plundering, raping, colonizing, and exploiting other nations, why the hell should
we all of a sudden care about how we're portrayed to Japanese people? As someone who was born in the most privileged nation in the world, it feels almost strange to have a knee-jerk reaction like that unless I'm actively looking for something to be offended about.
I feel like people are implying that Ayu or her Japanese team "should know better," when in fact... no, they probably shouldn't.
Unless you send tons of gender studies majors/Tumblr SJW's over to these East Asian countries as 'missionaries', they're not going to understand anything about intersectionality theory as it applies to developed nations in the West. No one is checking Japanese people's "privilege" when they "oppress" Americans and/or Caucasians.