My first image – “The Fountain of the Skull”, by Aoshima Chiho. So, now for a “short description in the visual culture style”. Huh. What exactly is short?
The skull is massive and the jaw, instead of protruding downward becomes part of the oval shape of the vast skull. The eyes are spread far apart, unrealistically, and are huge in comparison to the nasal cavity. The teeth are very tiny. These details fuse together to connect a skull, an image most often associated with death, with “cute”, a word not very often associated with death. Trees and vines and blossoms grow out of the skull, and small “kawaii” figures reside in the eyes, slightly glowing. It’s hard to tell, but the other shapes in the eyes may be fungi or representative of lichen. Apart from the shadows in the cavities, the color scheme is bright and cheerful, comprised of mainly yellowish blues and greens. The purplish blues of the shadows on the skull do not diminish the cheery color scheme because they are quite light tonally. The skull overpowers the landscape and its namesake, the water dribbling from the teeth.
The image seems filled with life to me – the various plant life thriving around and on the skull may be there because of its function as a fountain, a function which the artist marks as important by directly referencing it in the title, despite the enormity of the skull distracting viewers from the water. Drawing from Murakami’s ideas about Japan’s pop culture representing a national feeling of impotency, the artist may be illustrating that death of masculine potency and the birth of the impotent lifestyle, of “kawaii” and anime. The defeat that they can’t forget may be the water that nourishes the new life growing in the skull. Of course, she could be taking a more optimistic view than Murakami, that Japan, by having undergone death and total defeat had a chance at rebirth. “Cute” and “adorable” connote innocence and goodness, which are also associated with children and infants. The small figures in the eyes may represent good spirits watching over the Japan’s rebirth.
My non-art image is of a pretty useless commodity - "cute" rings. So what is cute about these rings? They are quite flat. They are either animals or food. Or a wing. They have faces. The eyes are big and round and the mouth is about the same size as the eyes, and lies almost along the same axis. Some of the rings have twin spots of rouge under the eyes.
Alright, so I know this is course about Japan, so I'm going to apologize in advance, but there's just something I wanted to discuss. After further investigating the image (by that I mean, I actually went to the webpage it advertises), I found out that google search failed me and it is not a Japanese image. The items it sells are in fact only "inspired by Japan". Which brings me to my question: What is it about the kawaii culture that appeals to people outside of Japan?
See, a lot of what we read about about Murakami and his views on kawaii focus on WWII and Japan's subsequent defeat. He posits that kawaii culture and anime grew out of the defeat and the feelings of inadequacy and weakness that accompanied it. These subcultures are ones of "impotency" and regression. And while I don't know much about anime and kawaii subculture in other countries, it seems to me that in the US the kawaii subculture has grown very much. I've actually bought or been given Chinese and Korean products that appear very "kawaii" in design. And last class, when Mizenko-sensei ran that search for "Japan"+"cute", he found of picture of a "cute" Korean guy.
So what I'm getting at is that kawaii might be a Japanese aesthetic that people cling to if they have these feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, nostalgia for childhood, and in this way, kawaii subculture has spread globally. At least, that's how I saw this image.
Now, just for fun, please enjoy...
Mr. SadBoxman
He was sent to me in an email, from the lighting designer of an upcoming show, Raised in Captivity (everyone should go see it, April 8-11 at 7:30 in the Black Box!). I'm not sure if Jim took the picture or just found it. He just seemed pretty kawaii, so I thought I'd share him with you all.
The image of the skull interested me mainly because of the color scheme, it seems the artist put together a very simple array of colors in the construction of this image. Also the roundness of the skull and slight shading by the eye crevices make it more cute than anything else. The skull lacks any form of detail that would make it anything but cute and for me doesn't seem to draw any feelings of uncertainty or awkwardness that may be associated with an uncanny image. The second image also utilizes color to get its theme of cute across...these colors are all light tones and frankly colors that would be most appealing to females. The image succeeds in being cute while also being an efficient marketing tool.
ReplyDelete-Michael T.
Is it just me, or does the mushroom in the left eye socket in the first picture have eyes? I can't get the image to load any bigger, so I can't tell...
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I like the first picture and its commentary on kawaii. But, I want to focus on the argument you brought up in the second picture: the image of kawaii overseas...
Whenever I talk to somebody who isn't actively studying the Japanese language or Japanese culture, they say that Japan seems weird. This is understandable considering how different their aesthetics are compared to the rest of the world. I think that a lot of the West sees Japan as weird, and the kawaii aesthetic just helps to fortify this belief. Maybe the appeal is that Westerners like the Japanese kawaii image because it reinforces their belief of Western superiority. I can imagine jaded Westerners thinking that the Japanese are emotionally stunted in order to protect themselves from the idea that they might be technologically superior.
The threat of the Japanese auto industry taking over the automobile market seems less threatening when your image of the Japanese has them squealing over the latest Hello! Kitty figurines...
I don't know...
Mizenko-sensei, care to weigh in?
The softness of the skull conveys the image of "kawaii" really well--both in colors,and the softness of the rounds shapes and wide-spaced lines. The big head and small teeth also make it seem very childlike, which adds to the cuteness. The rings also have very childlike imagery, which would make the people wearing them seem childlike and cute. ちょうかわいい！
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, guys.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I want to address really is Nate's comment about Western appeal to Japanese aesthetics as fortifying a belief of superiority. I don't read it that way at all. I'd like to think that we can find commonalities despite divisive discourses, and maybe the global appeal of kawaii reflects that. Maybe in this modern world, where we can reach out and really talk and exchange ideas and influence each other, we can discover how similar we really are, instead of focusing on difference and superiority and inferiority.