Opinion

Fighting stereotypes

By Caroline Pover

I'ｖe received a huge amount of feedback from my recent articles about international relationships. It seems that many people are very interested in this idea.

Usually the interest is very positive. One Japanese television production company even asked for my help because they wanted to make a documentary about international relationships. They planned to air the show as part of a very well-known news program.

We all thought this was a great idea. It was a good chance to give Japanese men encouragement in being more forward about their feelings and to make foreign women feel a bit special. And we all thought it would be something fun to do, too.

For the program, we decided to set up a group blind date (kind of like a gokon) between three foreign women and three Japanese men.

I met the director to work out the details and it wasn't long before I was very disappointed with him. It turned out that the way he wanted to portray foreign women and Japanese men was rather negative.

As we talked, the director said that he wanted to make sure that the three Japanese men were all short, unattractive, shy and "geeky" men. He also wanted the three foreign women to be all tall, beautiful and "aggressive" blondes.

When I questioned him about these stereotypical images he wanted to portray, he said that, if he really had to, he could accept non-blondes, perhaps non-Caucasian women, such as black or Hispanic women, but he definitely didn't want to have any Asian-looking women. He said that Japanese people don't like to see non-Japanese Asian people romantically involved with Japanese people.

I realized that this director didn't want to make an interesting, educational and entertaining program about international relationships. He wanted to make a program that showed stereotypical images of both Japanese men and foreign women.

I think what really annoyed me was that this was for a news program. This was not a late-night titillation show; this was for a prime-time news program, watched by children, teenagers, families, international couples, foreign and Japanese people in general. And the director told me that stereotypes were what Japanese people want to see!

I don't believe this is what Japanese people want to see on television. The Japanese people I know, and those of you readers who write to me, express the same opinions about international relationships, Japanese society, global politics, and their individual hopes and dreams in the same way that Westerners do. You tell me that you want to challenge the way things are, and you want to be challenged with new ideas too! I know that you don't want to see Japanese men in this way, and I know that foreign women don't want to be seen in this way either.

We've started to hold singles' parties every month for foreign women and Japanese or foreign men. They have been a great success so far! And no, the Japanese TV director isn't invited!

Shukan ST: May 28, 2004

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