Here’s this week’s Media Mix about the new single by the female idol collective HKT48. The column discusses media charges of sexism against the song and its writer-producer, Yasushi Akimoto, but another topic that has come to the fore in the talk about “Einstein yori Dianna Agron” is that old complaint about how idols are not allowed to have love lives because it would dilute their appeal and thus damage the brand. In the Shukan Asahi column I cited in the piece, Minori Kitahara talked about a male acquaintance who is obsessed with girl idols, in particular the AKB48 type. He’s in his 40s and married with a daughter in elementary school. In fact, he agrees that he is probably the typical “fan” of groups like AKB48. Kitahara asked him bluntly if he is sexually attracted to girls who are the same age as his daughter, and he answered that the attraction isn’t easy to explain, but gives an interesting example of how it is manifested. He told her that if an idol he admires writes on her blog that she went to Disneyland, he and others like him will wonder if she went there on a date with a man. He was quick to add that it isn’t as if he wants to go on a date with the idol himself, but he is nevertheless jealous if another man is going with her. The idea of there being a “shadow of a boyfriend” behind an idol disturbs him.
Kitahara explains that this feeling represents a kind of contract, which is why when girl idols are caught out on dates by the tabloid press, they have to apologize to their fans, who may feel betrayed. However, when Akimoto was asked about this aspect of the idol dynamic in the Aera interview, he said something slightly different: “I never said they couldn’t have [romantic] relationships. Once that happens, you can’t stop it. But if you’re playing high school baseball and have a girlfriend, it’s hard to do two things at once.” In other words, just as high school baseball players and other amateur athletes are told by their coaches that lovers will distract them from what’s really important–helping the team win–idols won’t put their all into entertaining their fans if they’re mooning over a boyfriend. Though it sounds like a different justification than the one Kitahara described, it comes down to the same thing: idols aren’t idols unless they ostensibly dedicate their souls to their fans and their fans only.
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The Catastrophist
The Big Short
As has been well documented, at least by the non-Japanese press, Angelina Jolie’s epic Hollywood retelling of the life of Olympic runner Louie Zamperini was not picked up by the usual Japanese distributor for Universal Studios product due to fears that right wing elements would make a stink about the film’s purported “anti-Japanese” slant. If the negative light this story shed on the Japanese movie industry was dimmed somewhat, it probably had more to do with the fact that foreign critics, not to mention American audiences, were cool about the movie. To a certain extent, the publicity stems from Jolie’s celebrity status and its somewhat paradoxical relationship with her intentions as a director. Her first film, after all, was set during the Bosnian conflict and featured unknown actors speaking in languages other than English. Unbroken isn’t quite as pure-of-purpose. It’s very much a big budget production, and while there are no famous faces on the screen, it has the melodramatic heft of a Tinseltown biopic. In that regard, and given Jolie’s popularity in Japan, it could have been a moderate money maker here, though I’m not sure if that explains why a distributor normally associated with European and Japanese art films took the risk of releasing it. 
Ben Cotner and Ryan White’s documentary, produced for HBO, immediately sets its priorities and its outlook. As the title forcefully suggests, the movie is a polemic against Proposition 8, the California state initiative to repeal legal same sex marriages, and which won in a 2008 referendum. That was the same election, the film notes, that brought Barack Obama to the highest office in the land. As journalism, the movie’s steadfast position in opposition to the particulars of the proposition would seem to make it less than objective, but Cotner and White gave themselves the luxury of covering the lawsuit that eventually annulled the election results, and which took five years. In that regard, the film is an invaluable investigation into how the American consensus on same sex marriages changed over time.
In Japan, real estate agents are by law required to inform potential renters or buyers of murders or suicides that occurred in properties under consideration, though if someone died there of natural causes no one has to say anything. In any event, if you look at an apartment that seems unusually cheap, it might mean the last tenant threw himself out the window—or worse.
philipbrasor.com 