Peculiar Girlhood of Baby Metal
“Oh, you’re Japanese? I know one word — KAWAII!!”. The association between kawaii or cuteness with Japanese culture, particularly with Japanese girls, seems inseparable. This association, however, is something that I witness both nationally and globally — it seems to me that kawaii, what used to be a signifier of idealised Japanese femininity, has now developed into a highly profitable commodity. Let me elaborate.
Who is Baby Metal?
Baby Metal, a Japanese kawaii metal band formed in 2010 (Baby Metal, n.d.), for example, provides a perfect example of how cuteness is commodified in a global economy. With music that “blends the sounds of traditional J-pop and different styles of heavy metal music (Wallis, 2019)”, they have gathered immense popularity within the Rock music scene. Their third album, Metal Galaxy, for instance, ranked at the top of Billboard’s Top Rock Metal Albums chart in October (Wallis, 2019). With the increasing availability of the internet and social media, their presence seems to keep expanding. On the surface level, their successful music career appears to be attributable to the novel sound of their music — but is that all? This article will employ a social justice perspective to examine their successful music career as well as their transnational representation. Particularly, I will focus on how the cuteness is emphasised in Baby Metal, how such emphasis is commodified to serve the transnational consumption of culture, and how these processes of commodification and consumption of cuteness influence the representation of Japan, Japanese girls and Japanese culture in globalised society.
Peculiar Girlhood of Baby Metal
Female-led J-Pop is characterised to portray youthful girlhood through the singer’s voice, appearance, demeanour and performance (Keith & Hughes, 2016), and such characteristics are highly perceivable in the way the singers in Baby Metal present themselves on the stage. For instance, as evident in Figure 2 and Figure 4, their high-pitched voice accompanied by their exaggerated facial expressions, as well as their gothic-lolita-like outfit, all reflect the conventional characteristics of J-Pop. Not surprisingly, this disproportionate focus on youthfulness and girlhood stands in a sharp contrast with conventional metal music, which is characterised as powerful, loud, aggressive, and male-dominated, as represented in Figure 3 (Estrella, 2017; Keith & Hughes, 2016). The contrast these two opposing sounds create in and of itself enhances the cuteness of the singers in Baby Metal — their youthful and feminine voices are nothing you would expect to hear in a metal band, and their angelic appearances are enhanced exponentially with the presence of masculine music around them.
Consumption of Peculiar Girlhood
What makes Baby Metal’s cuteness so attractive in the western context though? I postulate that this attraction can be explained partly by Orientalism (Said, 1978). Orientalism explains that the attraction towards the cultural “other” by the western viewers is explained by their curiosity for “exotic” and “extreme” imagery that they are unfamiliar with (Mathijs & Sexton, 2012), which in this context is the unique femininity and girlhood inherent in Baby Metal. What is problematic about this Orientalist gaze is that such a gaze is colonial in nature, which asserts the dominance and normalcy of the west, and simultaneously reinforces the “otherness” of the non-western culture.
It is also important to note, however, that this peculiar “otherness” in cuteness is not simply imposed by the west but is also carefully calculated and produced by the Japanese music industry. For instance, Keith and Hughes (2016) note how the girls in the J-Pop industry are specifically trained to follow “well-defined yet unwritten rules” that ultimately “produce” the cuteness that is expected. This equilibration of demand and supply of cuteness plays an essential part in a transnational economy. However, what this entails is the strategic and effortful objectification of Japanese girlhood that reduces their presence to mere “youthful and cute girls”. That is, the singers of Baby Metal as well as many other girls in the J-Pop industry are expected to conform to this monolithic girlhood to produce the cultural values that Japan sell to the global market as the “exotic” token of Japan. Baby Metal’s success in the Rock music scene, then, can in part be explained by their ability to satisfy these values that are desired, demanded and expected transnationally. In other words, they are enfolded in Japan’s struggle to survive in an increasingly transnational capitalistic economy.
Implications of Commodification & Consumption
What might this commodifying representation of Baby Metal entail though? I postulate that there are two major problematic implications. The first is that it perpetuates the monolithic “otherness” of Japan; this is not surprising, considering that the representation in and of itself is reduced to a very specific, certain form of girlhood explained earlier, which I note as a peculiar girlhood. The second is that it feeds into the misogynistic, male-serving Japanese economy. As Keith and Hughes (2016) argues, the Japanese music industry “include girls, but [is] not produced for girls” — that is, Baby Metal’s ability to participate in the market is contingent to their ability to comply with the industry’s rigid gendered expectations as well as the transnational racialised expectations, in which they are not allowed to explore nor express their heterogenous girlhood to their full capacity.
As a metalhead myself, I have known Baby Metal for a while, and I have always had a conflicted impression towards them. Their music is undeniably interesting and catchy, but when I think about the production side that I have noted earlier, I could not bring myself to support them. At the same time, however, I also wonder what it means for me to not support Baby Metal as a band, as the band itself is most likely not involved in this racialised and gendered production of this peculiar girlhood.
I sincerely hope to see a turn in Baby Metal’s music, that reflects the true interests and expressions of the singers and the musicians that are free of the influence of the music industry as well as the expectations posed by the consumers, both for their emancipation from the racialised and gendered capitalistic economy as well as for bring more heterogeneity in the representation of Japan, Japanese girls and Japanese culture.
References:
Baby Metal. (n.d.). Profile. TOY’S FACTORY. Retrieved from https://www.toysfactory.co.jp/artist/babymetal/bio
Baby Metal. (2014). [Fig 4]. ギミチョコ!! — Gimme chocolate!! (Official). YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIKqgE4BwAY
Estrella, E. (2017). How Did Heavy Metal Music Get Its Name? The Origins, Cultural Significance and Top Names of Heavy Metal Music. Liveaboutdotcom. Retrieved from https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-heavy-metal-p2-2456255
Five, J. [Fig 2.]. IN PICTURES: BABYMETAL AT GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL 2019. Kerrang!. Retrieved from https://www.kerrang.com/features/in-pictures-babymetal-at-glastonbury-festival-2019/
Jamieson, B. [Fig 1.]. YUIMETAL HAS LEFT BABYMETAL. ROCK SOUND. Retrieved from https://www.rocksound.tv/news/read/yuimetal-has-left-babymetal
Jenke, T. [Fig 3]. Aussie study finds that death metal fans are ‘nice people’. TONE DEAF. Retrieved https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/new-study-death-metal-fans-nice-people/
Keith, S., & Hughes, D. (2016). Embodied kawaii: Girls’ voices in J-pop. Journal of Popular Music Studies, 28(4), 474–487. DOI:10.1111/jpms.12195
Kim, Y. (2011). Idol republic: the global emergence of girl industries and the commercialization. Journal of Gender Studies, 20(4), 333–345. DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2011.617604
Mathijs, E. & Sexton, J. (2012). Transnationalism and Orientalism. Cult Cinema: An Introduction, 120–130. Oxford, UK: Wiley‐Blackwell. DOI:10.1002/9781444396447.ch11
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism (1st — ed.). New York: Pantheon Books.
Wallis, A. (2019). Babymetal becomes 1st Asian act to top Billboard’s rock albums chart. Global news. Retrieved from: https://globalnews.ca/news/6078379/babymetal-first-asian-act-billboard-rock-albums-chart/