It's so nice to be a beautiful girl

[imomus]

Yesterday I celebrated Japan's "mukokuseki diaspora" -- that wonderful, synthetic, portable state, or state of mind, where Japanese and gaijin interact. In reality, of course, the synthetic "third culture" produced by that fusion can be as ugly as downtown Roppongi on a Friday night. Today, as a sort of riposte to that statement, I want to celebrate something domestically Japanese, and yet also universal.

Qooqle Clippers is one of my daily glimpses into the Japanese mind, and, not very surprisingly, when the Japanese mind isn't thinking about food, it's thinking about sex. Yesterday I found the YouTube clip site framing Hime, a clip of an ordinary girl waking up, brushing her teeth, and putting on her make-up. The girl's "way of being in the world" struck me as very Japanese, and very domestically Japanese; this couldn't be an American; it couldn't even be a diasporan Japanese making a tape for an American boyfriend. The clip seems to me to be full of the kind of implicit semantic and philosophical agreements that only parties raised in the same country can really share, the kind of agreements you don't even have to agree on or specify, yet which infuse every action on screen. As such, Hime is a perfect way to put the case for the beauty of the complementary opposite of what I was advocating yesterday. If Exhibit A was the relaunched Tokion, Exhibit B is a short, home-produced "charm video" -- but also a glimpse into a whole way of being, thinking and feeling.

Hime acts like the air hostess of her own life. Her face is pretty, if not quite model-like. Her voice is light and sensual, with charming, cutely clipped rhythms and a caressing, intimate style. She's attractive enough to be quietly confident, yet remains sweetly unaffected, and this gives her a "girl next door" quality. And Hime seems to embrace rather than reject her generic interchangability with every other normally pretty girl.

Her film, though sexy, isn't structured like porn. The most sexually exciting things -- a glimpse of Hime's sex, her long, slow wriggle into her underwear, and the hamigaki section, in which she lingers on a view of herself brushing her teeth -- all come at the beginning rather than the end, defying the cast-iron "more and more exciting" law of professional porn. Above all, the logic of porn ("it's so nice to get excited and have an orgasm") is replaced by quite another logic. To quote my own lyric for Kahimi Karie's "Good Morning World" (my biggest-selling song ever, by the way, and, some would say, my stupidest as well as my wisest composition): "It's so nice to be a beautiful girl".

There's no semantic stress here, no battle with stereotypes to be symbolically fought, no jumping through hoops, no contradiction or denial of Hime's essential femininity. She's not "putting on war paint" before going out onto some sexual battlefield to meet jerks, losers, abusers. Instead, she's about to go out into a world which is sensual and consensual, not conflictual. Certainly there might be perversion out there in the floating world of milky fluorescence, but it seems most likely to be a sort of pitiful otaku fetishism or incest, and Hime understands that; in fact, she incorporates it kindly into her performance. She's almost sisterly or daughterly as she adjusts her panties, and she certainly understands the male fetish for these details, while never dispensing with her ingenue manner. There's an assumed hunger which is calmly and kindly understood, and accommodated. Why isn't there an English word for ingenue? Perhaps because Anglos don't have much use for the concept; our alluring women are forever wearing invisible devil's horns. In Hime's world the devil is absent (although a cute small dog is present).

No malicious envy is assumed on the part of the viewer, and defused defensively. Instead there's a welcoming kindness. Hime's delight in being a girl corresponds with ours in watching her becoming a girl, letting us in on her make-up secrets, giving us a behind-the-scenes look at her life, her apartment, her body, her routines. Her lack of insecurity almost makes us see her as "spoilt", but there's nothing brattily spoilt, nothing Britney-ish here. Her security puts us at ease.

With her light, solicitous gestures, Hime is part-pierrot, part-courtesan. In her performance there's no assumed hatred of women, no sex neurosis, and nothing is relegated to the unconscious. Hime doesn't sublimate the sexual meaning of brushing her teeth; it's there on the surface. And yet there's no hint of the lascivious in her performance. Hime's implied (constructed) Japanese viewer doesn't like lascivious girls who think they -- and we -- are evil for enjoying her enjoyment of her girlness. They prefer an ingenue sexuality which is nevertheless completely aware of itself, and completely in control. They don't want to have to go to "bad girls" on the fringes of society, beyond the pale, for their sexual excitement. It comes from everygirl. It could come from their daughter, their mother or their sister too. But foreign girls... well, they're different. A bit scary. They don't really go for foreigners.

And what about us? Do we want to educate Hime, raise her consciousness, help her to "empower herself by questioning her social role"? Do we want to sit her down and tell her about Western feminism, and how it's still ahead of her? Don't be silly. Hime already clearly has amazing power. Her power comes from society. She's there at the centre of society, and we're lucky to be peripheral to her, close enough to glimpse the social power of being a pretty girl. What's more, if we thought about it we'd see there really is nowhere outside society for her to step, should she question her role. Nowhere in Japan, and nowhere in the West either. Nowhere that would make her stronger than she is right now, anyway.

And so, switching off the denki, Hime goes out into the ultimate gentleness of the nocturnal world we know waits outside, the "isn't it delightful" breeziness of Japanese life. She'll be safe out there in the light, sensual, tropical calm of a summer evening. But there's a tiny hint of racism in the idea that she can only enjoy that safety because Japan is insular, protected against harsher outside manners. There's only us here, Hime, your brother and your father and your uncle. You know us, and we know you. We hardly even need the police or the army, so smoothly does everything go out there in the world of milky fluorescence.

The same evening I watched the Qooqle clip of Hime, I happened to see a trailer for a new Hollywood film called My Super Ex-Girlfriend. It's a romantic comedy about "breaking up with a superhero". The trailer shows lots of knockabout stuff as Uma Thurman -- a geeky librarian by day, Superwoman by night -- throws her half-hearted date against walls with superhuman physical strength. Although it's all played for laughs, the film presents a rather sad picture of gender relations. Here power can only be thought of as masculine; you get it by having superior physical strength and being prepared to use violence. You get it by stepping into, and superficially feminizing, the ultra-male archetype of Superman.

I find Hime's message much more positive than Uma's. To be a girl is, in itself, to be a superhero.

Comments

[polychromatica.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. You exspouse that girls should be feminine and cute and charming, yet still sexual and let's just say that I'm totally with you on that as ideal. But how does a girl like that act when she gets dumped? What does Hime do with her broken heart? Cutely pout? Or more broadly, what how should a girl like that handle the deceit and carelessness and sometimes downright meaness that other other people can bring? If she doesn't assert herself in one way or another she's always going to lose to more forceful people and that's a pretty terrible fate for what is supposedly the female ideal.

Being feminine and soft is fine, but it needs to be backed by some cunning fire to ensure it doesn't get trampled. I'm not advocating an 'Uma approach' per se, but there has got to be more dimentions to a girl than what you are describing here. There needs to be a mechanism for resiliance.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

how should a girl like that handle the deceit and carelessness and sometimes downright meaness that other other people can bring? If she doesn't assert herself in one way or another she's always going to lose to more forceful people and that's a pretty terrible fate for what is supposedly the female ideal.

But you're assuming that the assertive and the forceful get what they want at the end of the day. It may happen in the Uma Superwoman film -- but the despairing look her man gives the camera makes being forceful look about as successful a strategy, in the long run, as invading Iraq.

But "a mechanism for resilience", sure. It's called "rebound", and good make-up helps; it covers up the tracks of your tears.

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps your style of sexual politics works OK for sexy, simpering seventeen-year-olds. For the rest of us, I fear, it just sounds like solipsistically wanting to make an ideology out of your own wet dreams.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think the important question you have to ask yourself is not "Is Momus writing this stuff with one hand?" It's "Does society work better with a consensual or a conflictual template?"

[(Anonymous)]

It's just as important to know what motivates a given ideology. Surely it's no coincidence that the female model Momus proposes = the female model Momus finds most sexually appealing.

As for conflict and consensus: history, culture, sociology and anthropology have taught us that both are fundamental to intersexual relations.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

the female model Momus proposes = the female model Momus finds most sexually appealing

Sure, but considering that as mammals we do tend to structure a lot of our society around sexual attractiveness and reproductive bonds, surely this is neither surprising nor undesireable?

[(Anonymous)]

Sexual attractiveness is a massive variable. A man with a dominatrix fetish could just as easily contruct his model of femininity around the Uma Thurman character you cite. In any case, forgive me if I don't want to construct my gender purely on some male fantasy.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know who you are, but it's safe to say that

a) you may not have as much control over "constucting your gender" as you believe

and

b) you probably do correspond to someone's fantasy.

[polychromatica.livejournal.com]

It's totally undesireable because it marginalizes any other way of being female. It takes the attitude of "I'm not going to respect you because you aren't trying to make yourself sexually appealing to me."

Maybe I'm too much of a kid to know what's really up, but I really would rather believe there are a bunch of different ways to be a super awesome girl, even if maybe you personally don't want to bang them all the same amount.

...or is that (bangability) the only factor that really matters when evaluating women?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

What if we say "mammalian" rather than "bangable"? It doesn't sound so bad then, does it, because it includes all sorts of other familial relationships which do, originally, flow from sexuality. There aren't just spouses, but mothers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, nieces, and so on.

I tried to emphasize this in the piece when I talked about incest: it's really my impression that Japan is an incestuous society. The lack of racial others makes it feel that way to someone used to London or New York. But there's something to be said for the sense of family that results. For me, it's worth making an incestuous argument like today's right after an exogamous argument like yesterday's.

[polychromatica.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to limit this just to being dumped or romantic endeavors, though I wasn't very clear about that.

I really am looking at how this kind of girl would fair in the world at large. Sure the assertive don't always get what they want, but people who are only passive have to hope that they don't overlooked or screwed over by other people all the time. It forces them to be dependent on the kindness of others and while that's a nice idea... well, it's hardly practical. It as said before by others, it is probably much easier for the young and hot to do this than the less golden.

I'm not saying one has to be aggressive all the time, but to give up a little sassiness is to turn over large parts of control one's life to others. It shouldn’t be considered unattractive for a woman to stand up for herself sometimes.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on that. But I get a very different impression of Hime than you seem to when you say

people who are only passive have to hope that they don't overlooked or screwed over by other people all the time

That implies a Western-type society where everyone's looking out for number one; the conflictual individualist model. Asian societies are much more consensual and collectivist. Freedom in the Western type of society means being able to pursue your own interests without constraint. Freedom in the Asian type of society means gaining power by being completely, delightedly identified with your social role; I talk about this more in my Superlegitimacy (http://imomus.livejournal.com/36990.html) piece.

I also like to compare it to Aesop's fable of the wind and the sun. The wind can blow all he likes, but it's the sun's generous rays that persuade the traveller to take his coat off. Only losers are fighters.

[polychromatica.livejournal.com]

Haaa, oh yes, I know what you mean, I have lived in Japan myself, but I found that not every person in Japanese society plays by the rules like they should, so the manipulative jerks can work that social contract and climb their way up the ranks (and somehow end up in charge of things). This is not at all unique to Japan, but it gives people the choice to accept the tyrant above them or to buck the system. Japan prefers the first option. That solves some problems, but it causes others, but every society has issues and I'll leave it to people much more knowledgeable than me to take those on.

Back on course though, what happens to Hime outside of Japan where the Japanese system has no relevance? You yourself don't permanently reside in Japan, so how do your expectations of behavior apply to Western women? Or even Asian women in the West? Surely all Western women aren't shrieking harpies by default?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Surely all Western women aren't shrieking harpies by default?

Absolutely not, which is why I find Hollywood depictions of "the magic woman" (like Uma in this film) as sexist as depictions of the magic negro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Negro) are racist.

[polychromatica.livejournal.com]

Come on, and how is Hime not "the magic Asian girl"? I don't see how your portrayal and support of these stereotypes really differs from those of Hollywood, only that the values used are very different.

I think my issue is not with the kind of woman you are celebrating here, but just how narrow your threshold for acceptability seems to be. I mean, that’s ok for your personal tastes, but again, it marginalizes everybody else. Are you so exclusive in your taste in men too? (Hollywood certainly is not.)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Come on, and how is Hime not "the magic Asian girl"?

She doesn't appear either in her own film or here on Click Opera as "magic" in any way. She's "the girl next door", interchangeable, and so on. She has no magic powers -- in fact, she demystifies even her cosmetic routines by showing us how it's done. No wires on her back, no CGI requried.

Are you so exclusive in your taste in men too? (Hollywood certainly is not.)

By using Hime as a way to write about Japanese culture (and food and sex do seem like better ways in than, for instance, talking about money, which tends to follow its own money logic wherever you are) I don't think I'm dismissing everyone else in the world. I have dated girls very like her, but the one I'm currently with is more like the stuff I was talking about yesterday, mukokuseki etc.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

wanna bird-swap?...venetian setting crete fantastique...gorgeous my son, i'm telling you, life on the gartside. we sort something out...dzima and obelia can come as well...ray and blue...and zz berlin (NOT!!!!!)
whimsy and missus, jon and vangelis. oh yeah, kate and pete can come 2.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

joopy and dead batteries and sparky can come 2. and all the other ones on my friends list.