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imomusAs 2006 fades, we can wave goodbye to Apple's rather amusing Chiat-Day "Hi, I'm a Mac" ad campaign. According to press reports Justin Long, who plays the Steve-Jobs-looking Mac guy next to John Hodgman's tubby Bill-Gates-looking PC guy, is sick of the role and won't be doing any more after the December ads Goodwill and Gift Exchange.
I've been particularly interested in how the ads draw not just on the Jobs-Gates rivalry, but on hip v. square stereotypes that have floated around in US culture since the 1940s. They rhyme, for instance, with the Jim Henson sketch for the Ed Sullivan Show in which switched-on hipster Kermit tries to educate a square on "visual thinking".
Naturally, I've been terribly interested to see that one of the requirements of Justin Long's hipster character is to speak fluent Japanese. The Networking ad shows him holding hands not just with PC guy, but also a cute new digital camera-girl from Japan, with whom he's able to converse fluently. There's a clumsy parody of the ad on YouTube which only confirms the awfulness of the PC mentality: "See, I speak different languages," explains Mac guy. "Why?" counters PC guy, with a smug pragmatism which comes off as stupid racism, "We live in the United States".
Over on Apple Japan's website, meanwhile, both the PC guy and the Mac guy are cool enough to speak Japanese; that won't suffice to differentiate them. And, in a more consensual, collectivist culture -- one that's tended to resist comparison advertising -- is differentiation even the name of the game?
But these are, by and large, the same Chiat Day ads, with the same scripts, played by actors wearing the same clothing signifiers -- a business suit versus sharp-but-casual leisure wear. "Pasokon", the Japanese PC guy, is notably cooler and slimmer than his American counterpart, sporting a better head of hair, despite the kakaricho side-parting. When it comes to cultural specifics, of course, some changes have had to be made. The US Seasonal Greetings ads have been replaced, in Japan, by a New Year's Card ad.
Nengajo cards are what the Japanese send the way we send Christmas cards. They're cards you buy from the post office in December, either blank or sporting an image, but in either case stamped with a lottery number which will bring gifts to some lucky recipients when the draw comes up in January. The idea is that you customize the blank cards with your own drawings, woodblock stamps, and so on, usually representing the animal of the Chinese New Year. 2007's animal is the boar.
"Cute pig!" says Pasokon, looking at the nengajo card homeprinted using iLife. "Uh, it's a boar, actually," corrects Mac, demonstrating that if "cool" in America is tied up with speaking Japanese, in Japan it's tied up with superior knowledge of Chinese astrology. Chalk one up for orthopraxy -- here the cool points are awarded for "proper social behavior and adherence to ritual as the key to aligning the cosmos". It's enough to get Marxy and me -- the Mac and PC guys of Japanthropology -- slapping each other on the back in a gesture of heartwarming seasonal detente.
I've been particularly interested in how the ads draw not just on the Jobs-Gates rivalry, but on hip v. square stereotypes that have floated around in US culture since the 1940s. They rhyme, for instance, with the Jim Henson sketch for the Ed Sullivan Show in which switched-on hipster Kermit tries to educate a square on "visual thinking".
Naturally, I've been terribly interested to see that one of the requirements of Justin Long's hipster character is to speak fluent Japanese. The Networking ad shows him holding hands not just with PC guy, but also a cute new digital camera-girl from Japan, with whom he's able to converse fluently. There's a clumsy parody of the ad on YouTube which only confirms the awfulness of the PC mentality: "See, I speak different languages," explains Mac guy. "Why?" counters PC guy, with a smug pragmatism which comes off as stupid racism, "We live in the United States".
Over on Apple Japan's website, meanwhile, both the PC guy and the Mac guy are cool enough to speak Japanese; that won't suffice to differentiate them. And, in a more consensual, collectivist culture -- one that's tended to resist comparison advertising -- is differentiation even the name of the game?
But these are, by and large, the same Chiat Day ads, with the same scripts, played by actors wearing the same clothing signifiers -- a business suit versus sharp-but-casual leisure wear. "Pasokon", the Japanese PC guy, is notably cooler and slimmer than his American counterpart, sporting a better head of hair, despite the kakaricho side-parting. When it comes to cultural specifics, of course, some changes have had to be made. The US Seasonal Greetings ads have been replaced, in Japan, by a New Year's Card ad.
Nengajo cards are what the Japanese send the way we send Christmas cards. They're cards you buy from the post office in December, either blank or sporting an image, but in either case stamped with a lottery number which will bring gifts to some lucky recipients when the draw comes up in January. The idea is that you customize the blank cards with your own drawings, woodblock stamps, and so on, usually representing the animal of the Chinese New Year. 2007's animal is the boar."Cute pig!" says Pasokon, looking at the nengajo card homeprinted using iLife. "Uh, it's a boar, actually," corrects Mac, demonstrating that if "cool" in America is tied up with speaking Japanese, in Japan it's tied up with superior knowledge of Chinese astrology. Chalk one up for orthopraxy -- here the cool points are awarded for "proper social behavior and adherence to ritual as the key to aligning the cosmos". It's enough to get Marxy and me -- the Mac and PC guys of Japanthropology -- slapping each other on the back in a gesture of heartwarming seasonal detente.
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looking like you just tumbled out of the Diesel shop doesn't make you "hip"
Date: 2006-12-29 01:00 pm (UTC)just tumbled out of the Diesel shop
Date: 2006-12-29 01:08 pm (UTC)the best japanese hagaki, still used by some, are planks of wood.
Beuys -- pakkuri ??
PLANKS
Date: 2006-12-29 02:15 pm (UTC)Re: looking like you just tumbled out of the Diesel shop doesn't make you "hip"
Date: 2006-12-29 04:22 pm (UTC)John Hodgman is not an uncool guy but he plays one on TV
Re: looking like you just tumbled out of the Diesel shop doesn't make you "hip"
Date: 2006-12-29 05:57 pm (UTC)They could definitely have done better than to go for the Keanu Reeves everyman, empty-slate, nil personality thing. Or if they wanted someone you could project yourself onto, yes, they could have remained noncommittal and had a more interesting appearance.
The trend Apple has taken the past few years has really been to attempt to provide the best kind of blankness, as open as possible to your interpretation. I liked the colors they used to have, though, in their logo and briefly in their computers, and I predict a return, eventually.
-ian
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 01:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 01:19 pm (UTC)bad feeling over my macbook pro purchase but my first choice, the portable solaris box, wieghts about 10 kilos.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 01:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 01:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 01:40 pm (UTC)I suppose. The wild maverick vs. the guy who participates in cultural activities. I dunno, I think the collective vs. individual thing is much smaller than people think.
I like that many here in the US think America is the hippest culture to emulate. In reality, Japan is the hippest culture around the world. We're a little behind the times.
I like when we emulate their culture but still put ourselves in a position of power. Gwen Stefani appropriated that late 90s Tokyo street style but she has those little servants.
I don't even know if conservative Japanese traits can be considered liberal in the US. They're just different?? Could you extrapolate and say that left vs. right conflicts are not based on concrete values but on the inevitable tension between what is traditional and what is liberal/subversive/new? It's very Tao.
One thing I'm wondering is if you could classify either as kind-spirited or mean-spirited. There's a smug wink to the side in each, for sure, though.
Have you brought up these commercials before? I feel like you have. I distinctly remember a discussion about how they play on classes that don't exist anymore. Maybe about how billionaires dress like hip skateboarders?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 04:20 pm (UTC)Thinking of it from this perspective makes it less of a cultural stereotypes issue and having more to do with one man's point view, although I suppose in advertising its not surprising that the views of an "elite" cadre of people who often think they are cooler than everyone become transferred into a cultural transmission to a vast audience.
About collectivism vs. individuality, I don't know that it needs to enter much into this. Personally I have found that most the Japanese people who have become dear to me are all extremely individual, and it's a dangerous stereotype to expect that the whole nation and race is somehow similar or acting together. That being said, Japan is a very homogeneous place, and the racial purity and low foreigner content is part of that. For this reason, Japanese are very good at honing in on detail, and an outsider looking at those Japanese Apple ads may see both characters as cool whereas a Japanese person is attuned to the detail in that character that is clearly portraying him as a square: They have the cultural background to know in an instant that fool's got no bitches.
Yeah, I'd pick the Japanese "PC" businessman to go drinking with over his American counterpart because he somehow seems "cooler". But the average Japanese might do the opposite. To comprehend why that person thinks dasai when they look at that PC character, while at the same time he has some kind of cultural capital to the westerner: That's the real challenge here.
-shane
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 04:44 pm (UTC)He would probably know where all the good strip joints are if I have my Japanese businessman stereotype right.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-31 03:19 am (UTC)This is interesting biographical insight, but is advertising really as auteurist as that explanation implies? In other words, are you allowed to let your personal fetishes show through to that extent? Isn't all personal eccentricity on the part of the "creatives" replaced by marketing data which ensures the right demographic thinks the right thing?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 05:10 pm (UTC)Americans are resting on thier laurels. After giving the world jazz, blues and rock and roll they think they can sit back and invade defenseless countries.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 09:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 09:21 pm (UTC)I never made any such suggestion. If you're going to make accusations like this then sign you're name.
Last I checked Louis Armstrong and Robert Johnson were Americans.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 10:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 03:38 pm (UTC)What I find amusing is the Mac presumption that there's a significant difference between its "culture" and the "PC culture", when that's never been demonstrated (to my satisfaction, anyway), and that it's a worthy topic for an ad campaign. In a way, I find it more of an American idea, as it plays up rivalries where there are, in fact, more commonalties. Gates is a jeans, button-down shirt and tweed sportcoat guy, Jobs is a black pants, black sportcoat and t-shirt guy. Both of them strike me as as middle-of-the-road as can be imagined. I think Mac v/s PC is more like two opposing sports teams than two opposing cultures or value systems.
I Find This Post To Be Suprisingly Annoying
Date: 2006-12-29 04:11 pm (UTC)My deeper point -- and I'd love someone to address it -- is how Japanese values can be conservative in Japan and liberal outside it, or how the meanings of values change completely with context.
....................
Yes, that would be an interesting discussion but I must admit finding the way you accepted the American ad campaign's premise -- even as you tried to sit outside of it as a commentator -- simultaneously ironic, off-putting and distracting.
What do I mean?
Your description of John Hodgman as "tubby" and, compared to Japan's "Pasokon", uncool with relatively bad hair wasn't merely a comment on the structure of the commercials and the 'message' they're designed to put across but a reflection of your bias in favor of certain sorts of people (and body shapes?) and Apple products as fall out of bed, easy-does-it indicators of stylishness and cosmopolitanism.
Of course, as Toddius and Akabe have pointed out, in 'real life' Hodgeman is quite thoroughly cool, your apparent fixation on his waistline as a counter-cool signifier notwithstanding. Indeed, in the United States, even outside of Hodgman fan circles (Google "Little Grey Book Lectures" if you're unfamiliar), the reaction to the ad campaign has been somewhat the opposite of what Apple expected: Justin Long's character is perceived by many to be a bit too smug in his youthful hipness and Hodgman, casted to come off as comparatively dull, is beloved as a charming persona.
Re: I Find This Post To Be Suprisingly Annoying
Date: 2006-12-29 06:16 pm (UTC)Yep. I think the ads are entertaining, but one still comes away from the spots with the impression that Long's entitled trust-funded Mac character is wearing expensive designer boxer briefs underneath his "casual" clothes and that Hodgman's PC character is a poor working stiff in tighty whiteys who has never had a haircut that cost more than $20.
Re: I Find This Post To Be Suprisingly Annoying
Date: 2006-12-29 09:10 pm (UTC)Re: I Find This Post To Be Suprisingly Annoying
Date: 2006-12-29 09:27 pm (UTC)Re: I Find This Post To Be Suprisingly Annoying
Date: 2006-12-29 10:48 pm (UTC)Re: I Find This Post To Be Suprisingly Annoying
Date: 2006-12-29 10:59 pm (UTC)eh meh jeh
Date: 2006-12-29 06:21 pm (UTC)You do a good job of making a positive case for exoticism, Peter Pan. To be pat, we can cast Commodore Perry as Captain Hook. Quick, someone do a flash animation.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 03:01 pm (UTC)But my impression is that the USA is actually a rather collectivist society. It has the world's biggest military, and military might requires collective coordination. It has the world's biggest space program - ditto. Its dominant art form is cinema - ditto. To make a movie depicting Bruce Willis as a maverick loner requires massive collective effort by make-up artists, stunt coordinators, set designers, key grips, best boys etc.
When I first went to the USA my biggest shock was how law abiding people were of even the most irksome petty laws. An English pedestrian considers it her right, nay her duty, to jaywalk at all times even when she doesn't have any reason to do so; to us, American observance of "Don't Walk" signs seems incredibly conformist. Italian or French motorists are real "rebels" of the highway; not Americans, in my experience. Oh, and American bylaws preventing people from having alcoholic drinks on the street, and their strong enforcement, are really surprising to me; at the height of the Terror of the 1930s, I doubt that Stalin could have enforced such measures on the Russians.
The US is collectivist, but pretends not to be
Date: 2006-12-29 04:11 pm (UTC)Politically, of course, this provides fodder for "small government" types who want to turn all of this over to the benevolent charities of their billionaire cronies, or the private sector, or people's own initiative. (and yes, dems do this as often as repubs; remember Clinton's Workfare?)
To do a mac/pc comparison of my own, here in Canada we see these sorts of collective solutions as part of our national DNA, multiculturalism is the norm, and the Marlboro Man ethos really never took hold. And at least in Montreal, we jaywalk like crazy (despite sporadic attempts to crack down on it).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 05:11 pm (UTC)Of course, America is vast, and so on, and I was unwilling to draw conclusions, but the impressions remain.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 11:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 11:53 pm (UTC)I thought again about what I'd written, after I wrote it, which is what usually happens, and of course one's own conformity is often (not always, mind you) invisible to oneself.
One thing that did strike me about my own experience of America, was something similar to what our host, Mr Momus, wrote a while back about Dionysus and Jesus. It was really only after going to America that I felt Britain to be quite a pagan sort of place. It suddenly seemed to me a very tribal, Celtic kind of culture, in distinction to the clean-cut Protestant culture of the States. (Much as I hate to drag science into these things, science, apparently bears me out and tells us - just recently - that the Scots, Welsh and the English, are, genetically speaking, basically Celtic, the Anglo part of the English being much exaggerated, in terms of blood, at least. But then, the same Anglo aspect of America is presumably also just as Celtic, which means it's down to nurture rather than nature, after all.) I did sense some kind of over-arching American identity (thinking here of immigrants displaying stars and stripes proudly in porches and other such things) but it seemed of a different kind altogether than the British, and I couldn't quite get a handle on it.
Well, excuse a rambling a probably irrelevant post.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 07:08 am (UTC)Or conversly, the collectivist dominant ideology actually produces monadic, isolated individuals.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 06:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 03:07 am (UTC)mixu62
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 04:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 10:12 pm (UTC)mixu62
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-31 09:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 06:58 pm (UTC)japanese is not a "race" it's an ethnicity. would
you call cambodians a separate "race?" would you
call iranians a separate "race?" how about laotians?
and as far as "purity" goes, this is an an old myth
that feeds into japan's war-time mongering and belief
of being descendants of amateratsu, the sun goddess.
right-wing wackos love to wax on about japanese
"purity" (not you shane, conservative japanese who
want to see this myth perpetuated) and when they
do just remind them of the ainu, burakumin, koreans
and chinese who make up their "pure race." the notion
of any "purity of race" is as fascistic as it is fallacious.
people like Yasuhiro Nakasone can help you understand
this ridiculous notion of japanese "purity." (he once quipped
that the different (non-caucasian) ethnicities that make up
the USA have helped fuel the country's intellectual degeneration.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 07:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 08:39 pm (UTC)I like VH1's Best Week Ever take on the ads: Mac guy is a trust fund baby who makes crappy podcasts and mash-ups, and PC guy is a responsible guy with a job.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=d522bxLm_Nc
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 09:13 pm (UTC)Is Momus a trust fund baby?
Date: 2006-12-29 09:35 pm (UTC)Sadly I have no dreadlocks nor trustfund.
tv ads and all else that doesn't matter
Date: 2006-12-29 10:07 pm (UTC)love love,
John /Fashion Flesh
www.fashionflesh.com