I had a gazillion things I wanted to talk about today but a programme I saw on ChannelNewsAsia changed all of that.
i was channel-surfing when an all-too familiar face popped up on my tv set when i least expected it. the show was "beyond the red dot" and they were featuring singaporeans in tokyo (like there arent singaporeans in other parts of japan and like waseda is the be-all-end-all of tertiary education in japan. but yes, before i detract, these are grouses that would have to be aired on a separate occasion).
i wont be baring my fangs over whose face i saw since she is on close terms with a good friend, but imagine my bemusement when the camera pictured her perched on a stool in a maid cafe gesturing in what would best be described as cutesy kitty sign language.
oh, and i almost forgot. she was dressed in a blue maid's outfit complete with a ruffled lace collar and headgear.
before anyone gets the wrong idea, this entry isnt about to get personal (and neither was the show really about her). but i really recoiled in horror when the narrator called the squirting of ketchup by a maid waitress onto a plate of omelette rice (into the shape of a Hello Kitty face no less) "the love touch" and mindless karaoke singing by two maids in really short skirts "connecting with customers on an intimate level".
lets just call a spade a spade shall we? the maid cafe phenomena that has been sprouting up all over tokyo's akihabara should really be acknowledged for what it truly is. i'm not a japanophile (despite how i might look to people outside) and i dont profess to know all about the otaku culture, but if all that gunk about "moe" (otaku experts liken it to a "kinetic and intimate experience of otaku community that allows room for fantasy") serves to conceal what i think is a convenient expression of an inclination towards the lolita complex and the sexual objectification of women, i say take a cold hard look again.
no one goes to maid cafes for food, really. the disproportionately male clientele, the maids in uniform (i dont think they make skirts THAT short for real maids though) spouting subservient lines and sporting a servile attitude, complete with chargeable perks like getting up close and personal with famous maid personalities ought to be more than enough to raise a few alarms.
despite the recent academic hoopla about japanese popular culture and the sudden proliferation of research interest in anime, manga and the otaku brigade, have we really succeeded in demystifying what we have sought to examine? or have we perpetuated canons of academic fluff and weaned an entire generation of students on the myths of contemporary japan in the process?
of course i wont go as far as insinuate that the study of japanese popular culture holds little value. but all too often, when we fall over ourselves to give academic credence to the new darlings of social research such as the otaku sub-culture, we inadvertently do more harm than good. we take the akiba geeks, throw in some academic jargon, fluff it up with some mead and mills, and oh what the hell, heap debate on structuralism for good measure and call it sociology. or modern anthropology. or the social psychology of the concepts of self-identity and group behaviour whatever.
as much as attention to popular culture is drawing more undergraduate researchers to the social sciences than ever, there is good reason to believe that we are close to scraping the bottom of the barrel as we happily dish out the fluff and candy floss. the study of japan should not be founded upon repeated attempts to locate the social implications of anime or otaku within academic literature. there are real problems to be solved and real research just waiting to be conducted.
as for the frilly maid i saw on tv, it seems that she is attempting to change people's perceptions about what it really means to be an otaku.
very well then. i will prepare to be amazed. in the meantime, check out this link below. it's by a singaporean who went to tokyo in search of her dream to set up a global otaku portal. dont say i didnt warn you:
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