Idols%20and%20Celebrity%20in%20Japanese%20Media%20Culture

Introduction: The Mirror of Idols and Celebrity 29
28. Throughout the volume, we use the conversion rate of ¥80 to $1, referring
to US dollars.
29. As a magazine targeting men. Playboy in Japan is entirely different from
the US version. Content is not necessarily pornographic, though idols in
swimsuits and semi-nude models are a staple. In general, due to historical
prohibitions on the depiction of genitals and pubic hair, and the longstanding
need to develop large readerships (crossing gender and age divisions),
most magazines in Japan avoid explicit content.
30. The expression aidoru sengoku jidai (idol warring states period) first appeared
as a segment of NHK’s program MUSIC JAPAN in May 2005.
31. Over the course of six months, they actually ended up donating some ¥668
million ($8.35 million) (Oricon Style 2011).
32. One compelling critique is offered by Lukács (2010, 49–50), who argues that
production companies sending idols to witness and experience suffering
(e.g., in Afghanistan or Africa), a common occurrence, is less about explicating
politics or the situation itself and more about the idol being moved to
tears. The audience, witnessing the suffering of both the people and the idol,
cry along with him or her. The VTR of the experience is played during the
TV show, and the idol featured in it watches along with a panel of celebrities,
who cry as an audience (not only signaling the appropriate response to
viewers, but also standing in for them, or crying in place of the viewers so
that they do not have to).
33. The existence of subcultural and countercultural idols seems to suggest
otherwise, though they obviously have smaller audiences and less
influence.
Works Cited
Adorno, Theodor. 1991. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture,
edited by J.M. Bernstein. London: Routledge.
Alters, Diane F. 2007. “The Other Side of Fandom: Anti-Fans, Non-Fans, and the
Hurts of History.” In Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World,
edited by Jonathan Gray, Cornell Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington, 344–356.
New York: New York University Press.
Aoyagi, Hiroshi. 1996. “Pop Idols and the Asian Identity.” In Contemporary
Japan and Popular Culture, edited by John Whittier Treat, 197–234. Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press.
———. 2005. Islands of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic
Production in Contemporary Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Asada, Akira. 1989. “Infantile Capitalism and Japan’s Postmodernity: A Fairytale.”
In Postmodernism and Japan, edited by Masao Miyoshi and H.D. Harootunian,
273–278. Durham: Duke University Press.
Asahi Shinbun. 2005. “Teroppu Nai to Sagaru Shichōritsu-tte Nan-no!” January 31.
Barks Global Media. 2011a. “Dai-3-kai AKB48 Senbatsu Sōsenkyo: Eigakan Namachūkei,
Kokunai Eigakan Zen-97 Sukurīn Zenseki Kanbai.” http://www.barks.
jp/news/?id=1000070600 (accessed 10 June 2011).