Cuteness vs. Adulthood in Japan

In Cuties in Japan, Sharon Kinsella explores the ideologies and practices of ‘cuteness’ in Japan. Since the 1980s, Kawaii style has become a dominant aspect of Japanese culture that is ubiquitous in everyday life, impacting the ways Japanese populations–especially young women–dress, eat, write, and affiliate within civic life. Kawaii, connotes childlike fashion, a “style which is infantile and delicate at the same time as being pretty” that values not only surrounding oneself with ‘cute things’, but also is “about ‘becoming’ the cute object itself” (Kinsellsa 220, 237).

           

            Kinsella explains that this interest in cuteness reflects a rebellion by Japanese youth against the mainstream principles of self-sacrifice, work ethic, and responsibility that had allowed for Japan’s rapid redevelopment after World War II. To teenagers and young adults, the age groups most interested in cute fashion, impending adulthood implies the loss of personal identity– the “cover up of their real selves and…emotions under a layer of artifice” (Kinsella 240). Further, maturity and civic life, are seen not as avenues for freedom of action, but rather as the defined by cooperation, compromise, obligation, and social responsibility that render adulthood oppressive and un-fun (Kinsella 243). This dreariness is especially apparent to young women who will no longer be able to live independently, free from other’s desires, once she marries and starts a family.

           

            Thus, in startling contrast to the bleakness of adulthood, Japanese youth organically developed Kawaii style. Instead of worrying about harsh family and work responsibilities, cute fashion acts as outlet for “an escape from reality” through “cuteness, nostalgia, foreignness, romance, fantasy, and science fiction” (Kinsella 252). Not only does Japanese cuteness create an existence apart from everyday social pressures, but it is also based on an idealized childhood that never truly existed. “Cute childlike behavior [is] considered genuine and pure”, a reassertion of innocence, even as it is an artifice–“a style derived from adults pretending to be childlike” (Kinsella 240). Nevertheless, Kawaii style is a genuine expression of an alternative identity at odds with mainstream Japanese culture.

            Yet, as detailed by Kinsella and as I observed in Japan this summer, cuteness is everywhere in Japan and has become a key aspect of Japan’s hyper-consumerist culture. Almost every product and company has an associated cartoon. Many young women fully embrace the Victorian, virginal-child look (as sold at this store: http://shop.milk-inc.com), and the general aesthetic of women’s fashion is overtly feminine, reminiscent of school uniforms, pastely, and very frilly. Further, cuteness is a defining aspect of Japanese pop (idol) bands (such as Moiromo Clover Z: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PpyfM3nwTY), its mixed media industry, and Japan’s exports abroad (such as http://morninggloryus.com). Thus Kawaii sytle, an identity the purports to counter Japanese adulthood, has become a key proponent of consumerism allowed by work and productivity in that adult world.

            In relation to our class, there exists another tension within Kawaii style that sticks out to me. While cuteness has been embraced as an identity meant to differentiate oneself from a life restricted by responsibilities, it also entails a disempowering message. According to cute culture, “young people become popular” because of “their apparent weakness, dependence, and inability, rather than because of strengths and capabilities” (Kinsella 237). More than implying cuteness, the word Kawaii also refers to pitifulness, vulnerability, and powerlessness. By idealizing these attributes, Japanese cute culture does more than relinquish unwanted responsibility–it celebrates young women’s submissiveness and child-like dependence in a society where women are already unequal (http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201310260017).  Based on Kinsella’s reading and the other articles for this week, do you guys think that Japanese youth culture simply continues gender inequality? Or, by highlighting independence and freedom removed from work responsibilities, it actually allows for young women to create their own, alternative identities?