Commercializing Cultures: Asian Fetishization in the Modern World (Part Two)
Despite successful modern attempts at cultural exportation Asia still suffers under the looming fetishization of its culture and people
Despite being viewed as a cultural backwater of the world for centuries by the West, it has only been in the past few decades that Asia has revealed its might. Home to some of the most powerful countries in the modern world, Asia has not only established its power through monetary or political might, but also through its cultural exports that have allowed it to methodically attain global attention.
Yet with the presence of corporatization, global capitalism, and consumerism that make up the foundations of the western world, these cultural exports have become largely commodified and distorted, resulting in an interesting fetishization of the Asian concept of exoticism, uniqueness, and tradition.
Being the second article of a multi-part series investigating the continued fetishization of Asian culture by the West over time, this article will explore the modern state of Asian cultural exports and its effects on the Western psyche. I highly recommend reading my previous article as it outlines the history of Western fascination with the East and will be used as a reference numerous times over the course of this article.
One quick note is that this article will largely focus on East Asian cultural exports. If you want to see my resources or would like to investigate further, I’ve linked to a document containing all that info here.
Modernizing the Orientalist Narrative
Even as the effects of Orientalism have been left to fester on the psyches of millions of Westerners, the eventual cultural breakthroughs that occurred as broadcasted media was able to directly link Asia to the rest of the world would allow for even truer and authentic experiences of the East.
However, despite the fresh cultural imports being much more representative of the cultures that they originate from, the sheen of Orientalism still lingers amongst the appreciation for these newer forms of media, despite their adaptations to the modern globalized world.
Tantalizing Landfall of Japanimation
Bringing a fresh new art style that melded aspects of traditional Japanese animation with Disney-like aesthetics, the introduction of early generation Japanese animations and comics (anime and manga respectively), such as Astro Boy, to the Western hemisphere would spark a growing interest in the modern state of Japanese media.
In the 1990s, anime would become mainstream, with Sailor Moon, Pokémon, and Dragon Ball Z all establishing large fanbases globally and grossing billions of dollars worldwide. Although these anime appealed mainly to the younger audience due to their animated art style and fantastical storylines, anime geared towards older audiences such as Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion (personal favorite) would also diversify the animation style to become critically acclaimed and distinguish itself from the childish stereotypes often associated with animations and cartoons.
However, despite reaching mainstream popularity, the subcommunities formed around Anime contain subtle hints of Asian exoticism, melded with an extreme and almost unhealthy interest in a relatively distorted image of Japanese culture.
Approximations of Authenticity
Weaboos and otakus are both words which I’m sure most of you have heard of if you use the internet at all, but if I had to summarize what they mean in one sentence it would be this: people who are unhealthily obsessed with anime and general Japanese culture to an extreme degree (with otakus having their lives consumed by their interest in Japanese culture/anime).
Although there are indeed great anime that meld captivating stories with beautiful animations and a bulletproof soundtrack, all anime are still significantly influenced by the capitalistic consumerist culture that they exist within. Needing to gain audiences, many animation studios have appeased the anime community through the use of anime tropes that have continued generate fetishizations of East Asia.
Shadows of Depravity
Being an almost exact parallel to original Orientalist art, the harem genre is an especially popular trope in modern anime. Often depicting a large group of women vying for the attention of a relatively normal male protagonist, harem anime continues escapist sexual gratification through crafting relatable male characters in which viewers can simulate the experiences of female attention.
Hyper-sexualization of anime characters through the use of suggestive scenes and character design has been aptly dubbed “fanservice” and is another way in which animators have been able to satisfy the sexual urges of its consumers. Whether it’s bouncing breasts, the odd upskirt, or not-so-subtle nudity, this gratification of perverted fantasies is only compounded by an unhealthy attachment to many of these hypersexualized characters themselves.
Fully realizing the unhealthy attachment to fictional characters, weaboos have gained such an romantic affinity for some characters that they have dubbed them “waifus” or “husbandos” as they would be willing to marry them. With debates such as “what’s the best waifu in X show” raging across online forums daily, its clear that the commodification of Japanese characters and culture into being mere objects of fantasy is starting to take its toll by intensifying modern escapism and the fetishization of East Asia.
However, the fundamental issue with this fetishization is that despite appearing to be an authentic look into Japanese culture, anime is itself a commodified product that appeals to the broader audience by painting a more idyllic picture of Japanese culture. Although I will fully dissect this topic in the next article, fetishization of East Asians and especially East Asian women have been a direct result of this oversexualized pandering in anime as Japanese girls in the West are now viewed as submissive, petite, and exceedingly doll-like due to the sexualized pandering in anime.
Manufacturing Perfection
Hallyu (the “Korean Wave”) was a global phenomenon that saw Korean culture disseminating across the world. Originally finding popularity in Asian countries in the 1990s through its music and TV shows, this Korean wave would eventually come crashing into the banks of the West with a four minute music video.
Becoming a worldwide sensation overnight, Psy’s hit song “Gangnam Style” became one of the most renowned songs of 2012, being the first video to ever hit one billion views on Youtube and introducing the West to an entirely new look into the “Asian monolith.”
In the proceeding decades K-pop would skyrocket in popularity and gain mass attention as bands such as Twice, Blackpink, and BTS have all gained millions of followers overseas and charted extremely high, with BTS even reaching the top of the Billboard 100 for a period of time.
Groomed for Greatness
However, despite appearing to be an organic industry that has seen the natural rise of young idols across South Korea, the K-pop entertainment industry has developed its own industrial complex that effectively grooms teens to becoming pop idols.
With idols having to undergo grueling training as both performers and influencers, often undergoing plastic surgery, and keeping their records clean of anything that could mar their public image, it is clear that the perfect personas surrounding these icons is a carefully manufactured by the agencies that are responsible for training and managing them.
Yet, the continued illusion of this perfection has come to spread not only a semblance of parasociality, but a deeper infatuation with idealized beauty, notions of Asian exceptionalism, and a false perspective of Korean culture. Similar to weaboos, “koreaboos” are people who are similarly obsessed with this cultural distillation, fetishizing the perfect image of Korean culture displayed in K-pop.
Tinges of Orientalist Superiority
Although Japan and South Korea have seen massive success in captivating a substantial portion of the Western market and leading to a fetishization of both ethnicities through embellished portrayals of their cultures, the rest of Asia still carries the continued concept of underdevelopment, inferiority, and traditional exoticism that has permeated the entirety of Orientalist thought. This can be best seen through the Western portrayal of China.
Despite modernizing significantly and industrializing to become a global superpower that now acts as a counterbalance to the Western monopoly of power, China’s diminished presence of democracy and Western influence has made it retain its historical view as a morally underdeveloped and antiquated country.
Falling far short of the Western appeal of its East Asian neighbors, China has been seen as a dystopian hell with its social credit scores, mass censorship, and controlling government. Rather than having true positive cultural exports, most internet commotion regarding Chinese “cultural exports” include John Cena’s ice cream speech, funny Chinese Songs, or mocking Xi Jinping and the absurdity of the social credit system (Click here for a social credit meme video).
Coupled with its association with cheapness and poor-quality in mass produced goods, China as a whole carries an air of backwardness and foreignness. Although China has modernized significantly and now leverages elements of capitalism in its command economy and industries, its opposition to Western values and use of strict authoritarianism has effectively soured its image in the eyes of the West, continuing the sentiments of underdevelopment, immorality, and otherness that underlie Orientalist thought.
Seven Fistfuls of Spirituality
Although modern media exports from East Asia have largely altered the influence of traditional Orientalism, the influx of traditional cultural practices such as martial arts or religious practices into the broader Western world have come to revitalize the narrative of Asian mysticism and simplicity.
Images of the traditional cloth garbs donned by martial artist practitioners and Asian monks alike have become engrained in the western psyche thanks to Hollywood blockbusters in the late 20th century. As this image of the mystical and spiritual aspect of Asia is further reinforced in modern media such as Dr. Strange’s journey to the Himalayas(Dr. Strange — 2016)or Batman’s ninja training in Southeast Asia(Batman Begins — 2005), Asian culture has become largely co-opted as a way to find inner spirituality.
Lacking technological refinement or any semblance of external complexities, the fetishized traditional spirituality of the East has captured large movements such as the “mindful meditation” fad while still continuing the false image of Oriental primitivism.
Appealing to the “Objective” Perspective
In the past century, the attribution of objectivity, science, and rationality as “Western” traits has not only continued false conceptions of superiority, but also inherently tied Eastern countries to ideas of spirituality, irrationality, and exoticism. In efforts to capture the Western market, Asian cultural exports often play upon both extremes of this mindset in order to gain Western appeal.
In their journal article that evaluates Asian pop and its spread, Kloet et. Kooijman comment on the omnipresence of Western pop as the standard that is often emulated or mimicked by other countries:
“Despite decades of intense globalization and significant geopolitical shifts, we are bound to conclude that Anglo-American pop culture still remains hegemonic on the global scale” — Kloet et. Kooijman
Applying to much more than just pop, this use of the Western standard as an “objective” benchmark effectively diminishes Asian cultures from the get-go. Similar to the shrouded inferiority of Asians espoused by the concept of the “model minority,” the positive praise of successful Asian exports like K-pop and anime comes from their abilities to mimic and pander to Western values rather than fully developing and exporting their own cultures unabridged.
On the other hand, many Asian countries are intentionally portraying their countries as “beacons of the past” in order to bolster their tourism industries, intensifying Orientalist preconceptions and leaning into the concept of East Asian timeless exoticism.
Ubiquity of Inferiority
No matter the adaptations that Asian countries have made in their cultural exportation, there is still the looming presence of Orientalist sentiments that come to shape how they themselves portray themselves to the world. Whether its embracing the concept of the “Marvels of the East” by tokenizing its culture as being exotic and traditional, imposing its own cultural standards independent of the West, or even modernizing and adapting its country and cultural exports to Western taste, Asia is still seen as an exotic and inferior place to be fetishized.
Indeed, this issue is not limited to Asian culture, as the concept of fascinations and fetishizations of others has been observed in practically every cultural collision in every direction (e.g. Asian fetishization of the West). However, despite the relative subliminal nature of these fetishizations, they often come to root deep senses of objectification that removes any possibility of true cultural understanding.
In my next article, I will examine this concept, evaluating how Eastern fetishization has effectively shattered the complexity of Asian cultural understanding and investigating the broader societal effects that have resulted from the unconscious sublimation of disfigured Asian culture.
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