Hegemony and Difference:
Race, Class and Gender
9 More than Just the “Big Piece of Chicken”: The Power of Race, Class,
and Food in American Consciousness
Psyche Williams-Forson
10 The Overcooked and Underdone: Masculinities in
Japanese Food Programming
T.J.M. Holden
11 Domestic Divo? Televised Treatments of Masculinity, Femininity, and Food
Rebecca Swenson
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
12 Japanese Mothers and Obentōs: The Lunch-Box as Ideological
State Apparatus
Anne Allison
13 Mexicanas’ Food Voice and Differential Consciousness in the
San Luis Valley of Colorado
Carole Counihan
14 Feeding Lesbigay Families
Christopher Carrington
15 Thinking Race Through Corporeal Feminist Theory:
Divisions and Intimacies at the Minneapolis Farmers’ Market
Rachel Slocum
16 The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine
Dylan Clark
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9
More than Just the “Big Piece of Chicken”:
The Power of Race, Class, and Food in American
Consciousness*
Psyche Williams-Forson
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
In 1999 HBO premiered Chris Rock’s stand-up comedy routine Bigger and Blacker.
One of the jokes deals with what Rock humorously calls the “big piece of chicken.”1
Using wit, Chris Rock delivers a semi-serious treatise on parenting and marriage.
First, he admonishes the audience for not recognizing that “a real daddy” receives
little praise for “making the world a better place . . .” A man, or “daddy”, according to
Rock, pays bills, provides food, and all of a family’s other necessities. Despite his
efforts, he rarely receives any praise for his “accomplishments.” Although these tasks
are clearly part and parcel of adult responsibilities, Rock ignores this truism in an
effort to set up his commentary on the intersection of race, class, gender, and food.
Continuing, he argues, “Nobody appreciates daddy . . .”
By way of illustrating why a father needs and deserves such concern Rock points
out that fathers work hard all day fighting against the stresses of life. Then a father—
particularly an African American father—comes home to more stress:
And what does daddy get for all his work? The big piece of chicken. That’s all daddy get is the big
piece of chicken. That’s right. And some women don’t want to give up the big piece of chicken.
Who the fuck is you to keep the big piece of chicken? How dare you keep the big piece of chicken!
A man can’t work for 12 hours and come home to a wing! When I was a kid, my momma
[would] lose her mind if one of us ate the big piece of chicken by accident. “What the fuck? You
ate the big piece of chicken. Oh Lawd, no, no, no! Now I got to take some chicken and sew it up.
Shit! Give me two wings and a poke chop. Daddy’ll never know the difference.”2
Chris Rock’s kind of humor has an extensive history as a form of black expressive
culture. Physically, he walks back and forth on stage, bobbing and weaving as he
shares different versions of his comic narrations, turning out stories from “everyday
conversational talk.”3 Rock uses this form of performance or narrativizing to wage
social commentary on a variety of issues including stereotypes of black people and
chicken. When an artist uses stereotypes there are a number of factors that have to
be considered including the purposes to which such oversimplifications are put.
*
Originally published 2008
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108
Psyche Williams-Forson
Stated more plainly, the humor of Chris Rock makes us wonder about the subversive
ways in which objects like food can be used to contest hegemonic representations
of blackness and the ways in which performances of blackness reveal complicated
aspects of identity.
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Investigating Intersections
As more or less correctly stated, there are roughly two methodological schools of
thought when talking about African American foodways. There are those that focus
on the food itself and its connections to the African Diaspora. Among them are historians of the American South (e.g., Karen Hess, Joe Gray Taylor and Sam Hilliard)
and African American studies (e.g., Tracy Poe and Robert Hall), archeologists (e.g.,
Theresa Singleton and Anne Yentsch), geographer Judith Carney, anthropologist
Tony Whitehead, and independent foodways scholars (e.g., Jessica Harris, Howard
Paige, Joyce White, and Diane Spivey). Those who focus generally on the intersections of food and identity, representation, and/or contestation are literary scholars
Anne Bower, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, Doris Witt, and Rafia Zafar, sociologist
William Whit, anthropologist Charles Joyner, and folklorist Patricia Turner;
media specialist Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, and historians Kenneth Goings and
M. M. Manring.4 My research into the realm of African American foods is not only
about locating, identifying, and understanding the connections between foods but
also the people who consume them. This approach goes beyond the theories that
argue we are what we eat and the ways our foods reflect our cultural identity. Rather,
the method I employ asks us to consider what we learn about African American life
and culture by studying the intersections of food, gender, race, class, and power. How
do African American historical, socioeconomic, and political spaces influence the
foods that are consumed? How is this consumption a part of the performance of
black class? Further-more, what do we learn about African Americans when black
people willingly engage in perpetuating the oversimplified images or ideas that are
sometimes held by the larger American society?
Black people have long been engaged in ideological warfare involving food, race,
and identity. Most commonly known are the stereotypes concerning black people’s
consumption of fried chicken and watermelon. Though these stereotypes have been
around for centuries they are still pervasive in the contemporary American psyche.
Consider, for instance, the numerous postcards, invitations, and other ephemera that
illustrate African American men, women, and children with watermelon.
Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins suggests the need to be attuned to the
ways in which processes of power underlie social interactions and are involved in the
process of external definition. These definitions can be challenged, however, through
the process of “self-definition.” The acts of “challenging the political knowledgevalidation process that result[s] in externally defined stereotypical images . . . can be
unconscious or conscious acts of resistance.”5 One engages in the process of selfdefinition by identifying, utilizing, and more importantly, redefining symbols—like
chicken or watermelon—that are commonly affiliated with African Americans. By
doing this, black people refuse to allow the wider American culture to dictate
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More than Just the “Big Piece of Chicken”
109
what represents their expressive culture and thereby what represents blackness. But
this process of defining one’s self is fraught with complications and complexities
particularly if the group fails to understand or acknowledge that there is a power
structure at work behind the creation of common affiliations, labels, or stereotypes.
Collins explains these complications further in her delineation of self-valuation or
the replacement of negative images with positive ones. This process of replacement
can be equally as problematic as the original external definition if we fail to understand and to recognize the stereotype as a controlling image. This concept is perhaps
best illustrated by the example of Chris Rock’s comedy that opens this essay. Though
I will return to Rock’s funny side later, Collins’ caution is registered here. The exchange
of one set of controlling images for another does little to eradicate the defining image
itself. Consequently, black people need to be clear about the ways in which historical,
social, political, and economic contexts have established reductionist narratives and
how these accounts are embedded in food.
One way that blacks can both deal with these narratives and gain independence
from them is to begin by taking a close look at the historical basis of various food
stereotypes. These stereotypes tend to be distorted portrayals of those cultural behaviors that are and have been used in order to diminish black personal and collective
power.
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Stereotypes Abound
Stereotypes involving black people have been around for years. Indeed, they continue
to exist.6 Elsewhere I argue extensively for the partial evolution of some of these
stereotypes as ideologies shaped from laws and ordinances passed during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.7 It was and continues to be my contention that
these depictions partly emerged as a way to control the economic gains of enslaved
and free men and women who bartered and traded in the marketplace. Historians
often cite newspaper articles, court documents, and travelers’ accounts among
other critical sources detailing information on early African and African American
entrepreneurs of food. Nineteenth-century travelers’ diaries, for example, indicate
“flocks of poultry [were] numerous” and, “there are very few [slaves] indeed who are
denied the privilege of keeping dunghill fowls, ducks, geese, and turkeys.” Moreover,
some black people would often sit by the wharf for days on end waiting to buy foods
like chicken and then sell them for exorbitant prices.8 Historian Philip Morgan notes
a similar practice whereby some travelers would instruct their stewards to hold in
reserve various foods like bacon so they would have bartering power with “the Negroes
who are the general Chicken Merchants [sic].”9
As with any encroachment, the bartering and trading by African Americans
ushered in a slew of regulations that sought to limit items being sold door-to-door
and in the market. To be sure the ambiguous ownership of goods prior to sale was one
of the many reasons for stalling and halting the sale of goods. Foods were not supposed to be sold prior to passing through the town gates, and in particular customers
were not supposed to purchase goods whose ownership might be difficult to trace.
This included items such as chickens, which were often sold outside the market.
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110
Psyche Williams-Forson
Archeologist Anne Yentsch maintains that foods such as oysters, salted fish in large
barrels or casks, cattle, sheep, and hogs that were alive could easily be traced because
they were by-and-large produced by small farmers.10
Chickens, on the other hand were far harder to pinpoint. Even though several
blacks had chickens their masters and neighboring farms had them as well. Sometimes these birds roamed freely and thus were traded or sold in an effort to obtain
more favorable goods. Often times, especially during the colonial era, it was difficult
to ascertain the exact origins of a bird. Except among the wealthy, most chickens
during that time were not kept in hen houses. Chicken and fowl were free to roam
finding food and shelter wherever possible, an issue that easily lends support to the
charge of theft. Additionally, there was no widespread formalized system of breeding
in early America when many Africans and Native Americans were engaged in bartering. Consequently, it was difficult to distinguish most common fowl from one another
with the exception of certain kinds of partridges, pheasant, and hens. This reality,
however, did little to hinder the accusations of theft, which were not only levied
against slaves but also free blacks and fugitives.
These claims were fueled by black people’s use of trading practices like forestalling,
which legal ordinances did little to reduce. According to the South Carolina Gazette,
one writer complained that almost on a daily basis, black women could be found
huckstering and forestalling “poultry, fruit, eggs,” and other goods “in and near the
Lower Market . . . from morn till night,” buying and selling what and how they pleased
to obtain money for both their masters and themselves. Often times their prices
were exorbitant and they would use all kinds of marketing strategies to choose which
white people to sell to and for how much.11 Robert Olwell captures this point when
he explains: “as slaveholders, Carolina whites felt that slaves should be generally
subordinate, but as property holders and capitalists they also had to recognize the
legitimacy of the market in which sellers had the right to seek the highest price for
their goods.”12
Many whites viewed blacks with “great prejudice” when they sought to engage in
capitalist enterprises. Under slavery’s oppression, blacks, regardless of their status,
were to be subordinate at all times. Any deviation from this norm was a threat to the
social order that had been systematically and institutionally constructed over time.
Consequently, any element of freedom recognized and enjoyed by black people, and
particularly women, was an affront to white social power. Lawrence McDonnell
explains it this way: “The marketplace . . . is a neutral zone, a threshold between buyer
and seller . . . . Master and slave confronted each other at the moment of exchange as
bearers of commodities, stripped of social dimensions . . . [this] linked black sellers
with White buyers, and hence with White society, not only by assertion of black
humanity but through White objectification. Slaves appeared here equally purposeful
as Whites.”13
Money and a small measure of market power assaulted the charade played
out during slavery that sought to convince black people that freedom would never
come. Attributing black economic gain to theft helped to perpetuate the travesty.
By attributing stealing by slaves to an inherent nature rather than a condition of
their circumstances (or even to a performance of sorts), slave owners were able to
deflect attention from their own participation in this aspect of slave victimization.
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More than Just the “Big Piece of Chicken”
111
Morally, it was much better to believe that slaves were natural thieves than to believe
that the institution of enslavement contributed to their larceny. Clearly there is some
truth to the claim that slaves engaged in thievery; the extent to which this was the case,
however, is rooted in white patriarchal ideology.14
Though devoid of a disposition toward theft, some slaves did engage in pilfering
and stealing. Some scholars however, have referred to these acts as skill and cunning.
Eugene Genovese’s study of African American life and culture, suggests this when he
writes, “for many slaves, stealing from their own or other masters became a science
and an art, employed as much for the satisfaction of outwitting Ole’ Massa as anything else.”15 In Weevils in the Wheat, for example, ex-slave Charles Grandy tells that
hunger was a motivating factor for stealing food. He says, “I got so hungry I stealed
chickens off de roos’ . . . . We would cook de chicken at night, eat him an’ bu’n de
feathers . . . . We always had a trap in de floor fo’ de do’ to hide dese chickens in.”16
This is just one example of African American trickster heroism that not only reflects
a kinship to African traditions but also views this type of behavior as both morally
acceptable and necessary for survival. At the same time, it is a subversive cultural form
that uses humor in its expression.
John Roberts’ point about early African Americans should be registered here:
“Given the desperate and oppressive circumstances under which they lived, enslaved
Africans could not be overly concerned with the masters’ definition of ‘morality’
of behaviors that enhanced their prospects for physical survival and material
well-being. The task that they confronted, however, was how to make such individually devised solutions to a collective problem function as a behavior strategy for the
group without endangering their adaptability or the physical well-being of members
of their community.”17 Although the oppressive circumstances of today are nowhere
near those of enslavement, the delicate balance of performing individual behavior and
yet not suffering collective consequences is still applicable. Teasing out this sense of
balance and its complications might become more apparent as I discuss African
American performances of stereotypes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century.
The South suffered a devastating loss of free labor with the end of the Civil War
and migrations of newly freed blacks; it found itself in a precarious situation. Its
infrastructure was suffering economically, politically, socially, culturally, and
physically. Suddenly, the millions of freed blacks became an overwhelming problem.
What about their rights? Would they be given rights? How and to what end? How
would white Southerners keep their subordinates in line? Was this even possible
anymore? These and many other questions played themselves out on the political
landscapes of the day. But they were also played out on cultural playing fields as
well. According to historian Kenneth Goings, the loss of control over black people
registered such a blow among white Southerners that they began using emerging
technology as one means of reasserting control and reclaiming power.18
Advancing technology, namely the camera, was useful for depicting African
Americans—men, women, boys, and girls—as visually conciliatory. As Grant
McCracken intimates, such illustrations were useful for alleviating some of the
“nervous prostration” brought on by the rapid changes of the time. Goods and
commodities were used in an effort to alleviate some of the distress caused by the
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Psyche Williams-Forson
social, political, economic, and cultural transformations.19 Goods were particularly
useful for helping individuals contemplate the “possession of an emotional condition,
a social circumstance, even an entire lifestyle” by making desires concrete.20 These
illustrations, or commodities of racism, were coveted possessions. They enabled their
owners not only to possess the physical object but also to mentally covet the pastoral
image of the gallant South that whites wished to maintain. This interpretation is
certainly not the only reason that people might have purchased these kinds of
photos. But for sure these images and their owners were complicit in spreading the
network of racial power.
What quickly emerged through this visual communication was an ideology of
black inferiority, which assisted in the formulation of racist stereotypes. These
stereo-types were perpetuated by advertisements, trading cards, sheet music and
stereoviews like that which illustrates an African American baby in a buggy, caption
reading: “When I Dit Big, ‘Oo’ll Have to Roost Hiah.” This, and countless other
images are clearly staged as if to appear natural. More than likely it was the case
of African Americans performing to stay alive. From the thieving child, to the
salacious lover of white hens, African Americans—particularly men and boys—were
constantly ridiculed; more often than not it was centered on the stereotypical image
of the coon.
Kenneth Goings, whose study Mammy and Uncle Mose historicizes the cultural and
political economy of black collectibles, maintains that the coon image was one of the
most offensive stereotypes. M. L. Graham used this coon motif as the mascot for his
little-known “Coon Chicken Inn” restaurants. The emblem, a black-faced man with
large, extended red lips, was typically symbolic of how whites would stereotype black
people with food to endorse various products like fried chicken. Considered a most
effective advertising technique, images like these reinforced the stereotypical Old
South/New South myth of the loyal, happy servant just waiting to be used by the
master—and now the consumer.
The restaurant with all of its accoutrements became a metaphor for whites using
and discarding black service. When the meal is complete, the napkins, plates and
utensils bearing the black-faced logo are discarded and along with it any remnant of
the serviceable “darker” that is no longer needed or desired. This act of symbolic and
physical disposal provided whites with what Goings describes in a similar discussion
as a sense of “racial superiority” and a “therapeutic sense of comfort.”21 Manipulating
these objects of material culture enabled white Americans not only to forge an alliance
across class lines, but also to more collectively subjugate and vilify black people. The
ideology of black inferiority provided a safeguard for white America during a time
when their racial, economic, and political balance was perceived as unstable and
threatened.
Unfolding against this backdrop, are the numerous ways that food becomes interlaced with discourses of power, race, class, and gender in American consciousness.
Chicken, for example, which was once championed as a celebrated food of the South
prepared by some of the best culinary talent turns into an object of ridicule and
defacement. Chicken—both the bird and the food—is fraught then, with paradoxes
in the contexts of the historical and economic circumstances of the South. On the one
hand, black consumption of chicken was seen as normative; on the other hand, this
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More than Just the “Big Piece of Chicken”
113
consumption was also perceived as negative. The issue is made more complex when
we read chicken—the food—as a cultural text.
Fried chicken, a largely southern food that emerged out of social institutions shaped
by racial complexities, is one of many foods that blurs the lines between the “symbolic
separations [of] those who prepare the food and those who consume it.”22 Black
women were widely credited with lining “Southern groaning boards.” This was
their rightful place as loyal cooks—a cultural demarcation that became necessary for
symbolically separating the domestic rituals of the South. Black women prepared and
cooked fried chicken for white families but they did not consume it; and, thereby
they maintained the purity of southern cuisine. Mentally, this belief was important
for reinforcing the necessary symbolic distance between cook and consumer. This
configuration is made problematic and complicated, however, by the insistence that
black people are zealous about their consumption of fried chicken.
What becomes necessary then are carefully coded words and messages. Namely, the
word Southern becomes coded for white, while “soul food” is decoded as black. Diane
Spivey has labeled this coding phenomenon, “Whites Only Cuisine.” She says:
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The end of the [Civil] war also signaled the beginning of the redefining of southern White
heritage. Food was a factor in the efforts of southern White elites to hold on to their old way of
life. Cooking and cuisine were remade to look uniquely southern . . . . Asserting that the
recipes were “southern” made [their] cookbooks exclusionary, and therefore racist, because
the cookbooks and recipes contained therein were heralded as the creations of the elite
southern White women. In an attempt to promote southern White culture, therefore, the
concept of “southern cooking” started out as Whites Only Cuisine.23
Given the mass exchange of foods and food habits that occurred between early
Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans it is almost impossible for one group or
another to claim any recipe as original or native to their culture. With the ebb and
flow of people across continents, regions, and lands come vast amounts of mutual
exchange resulting in multi-amalgamations between and among cultures and foods
changing and evolving over time.
The intersections of food with power and other variables enable a reading of
the ways in which the idea of blackness as performance boldly emerges. As I have
discussed thus far, since their arrival in this country, Africans and Africans born in
America have been performing race in myriad ways. Long after the auction block
performance African Americans engaged in other racial acts like participating in
staged photographs and witnessing their recipes being usurped. A good many of these
performances of racial roles for survival involved food. Part of understanding
the food and foodways of African Americans asks that we also question what all of
these performances had to do with blackness and issues of identity? And how has
agency been a part of the performance of this blackness? Turning back to Chris Rock’s
comedic discussion of the “big piece of chicken” helps us to think a bit more about
these questions.
In the vignette that opens this essay Chris Rock is explaining how the children of an
African American family have eaten the “big piece of chicken” even though they
are aware that this piece of meat belongs to their father. In the comedy, Rock makes
manhood and fatherhood synonymous with the right to have the largest piece of
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114
Psyche Williams-Forson
chicken not simply as a reward but as a right. Rock argues that this is the father’s just
portion because “daddy can’t work all day and come home to a wing.” Implied, of
course, is the fact that because the father leaves the home to work and engages in
a number of anxieties outside the home, he therefore deserves all of the praise—
including culinary recompense.
On the surface one could argue that this routine is simply another of Rock’s
treatises on the ills of society. Every race of people can identify with this scenario—
one of the many aspects of Rock’s performances that endear him to diverse audience
members. However, my contention is that this scene is multifaceted. Rock is, in effect,
performing blackness in ways that can be described as both subversive as well as
oppressive, rendering this piece to be about more than “the big piece of chicken.”
Rock is dissident in that, more or less, he follows the basic formula of delivering
an African American trickster folktale. Consider, for example, Jacob Stoyer’s slave
narrative, Sketches of My Life in the South, wherein he tells a story of man named
Joe and how he outsmarted the master’s wife, Mrs. King. According to the story, Joe
killed and dressed a turkey that belonged to the King family. In his haste to get
the bird into a pot without being caught, he neglected to cut it leaving its knees to
stick out of the pot. To hide his thievery, Joe threw one of his shirts over the pot.
When Joe failed to respond to the calling of Mr. King, Mrs. King came into the
kitchen to inquire of his whereabouts. Discovering the theft, which Joe declined to
know anything about, she saw to it that Joe was punished for “allowing the turkey
to get into the pot.”24 The point here is the way in which Joe was able to dupe, if only
briefly, the King family. The larger issue is the momentary reversal of power executed
by Joe in his performance as a “dumb slave.”
Similarly, Rock manages to dupe both white and black audience-goers who usually
have paid a somewhat hefty price to enjoy a laugh. By performing racist, sexist,
and otherwise problematic comedies Rock proffers the illusion that he buys into these
notions as truisms. In doing so, he is a relative trickster, perpetuating the racist
perception of black people as chicken lovers.25 But as E. Patrick Johnson argues,
“blackness does not only reside in the theatrical fantasy of the White imaginary that is
then projected onto black bodies. Nor is blackness always consciously acted out. It is
also the inexpressible yet undeniable racial experience of black people—the ways in
which the ‘living of blackness’ becomes a material way of knowing.”26 Among black
audiences then, it is not surprising that Rock’s performances are laudatory and
celebratory. Many watch the performances of him and other comedians and laugh
uproariously knowing that much of what is being performed has all kinds of negative
implications. Yet, there is something to be said for these dramatic interludes, which
often make audiences momentarily forget about their troubles. The very fact of
the matter is that these comedians are enjoyed precisely because they engage in the
slipperiness of black cultural politics.
Part of this slipperiness derives from another suggestion offered by Johnson: “The
interanimation of blackness and performance and the tension between blackness as
‘play’ and material reality further complicates the notion of what . . . ‘playing black’ is
and what ‘playing black’ ain’t.” Rock engages this question of “black is/black ain’t”
with his audiences. With white audiences he leads them into thinking that he is performing what “black is” as he mocks, mimics, and ridicules black people. With black
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More than Just the “Big Piece of Chicken”
115
audiences, he relies upon a number of “in-group” techniques to offer black audiences
comic relief while simultaneously playing to a number of ‘truth claims.’27 Later, using
a similar coded performance as the trickster hero in African American folktales, Rock
turns the tables on this segment of the audience using the rhetoric of race, class, and
gender.
The art of verbal play has always been a vehicle of self-expression for black men and
women, although women have only recently been recognized as engaging in such.
Rock understands the role of signifying in the black community and employs it well
in his routines. From Rock’s references to the fact that daddy experiences stress all
day from working in a “white world,” we can assume that daddy feels little or no
economic power. Consequently, in order to establish his manhood, he needs to assert
his authority at home. One of the ways he is able to affirm his household status is
by eating the “big piece of chicken.” Here the chicken functions metaphorically and
literally as a source and a reflection of masculine power. Rock’s subtle explication of
this power enables him to dupe his black audience-goers—particularly the women.
Using children as the catalyst, Rock creates the scenario of mama as a culinary
artist. After her children consume the forbidden big piece of chicken, she is able
to flawlessly recreate it by expertly sewing together two wings and a pork chop. In
addition to all of the other work mama has done during the day—caring for children,
running a household, cooking and other chores—she now has to make up for the fact
that one of her children has eaten the wrong piece of chicken: “Oh Lawd, no, no, no!
Now I got to take some chicken and sew it up. Shit! Give me two wings and a poke
chop. Daddy’ll never know the difference.”28 The challenge posed by this situation is
perhaps the cause for Rock acknowledging, “Now mama got the roughest job, I’m not
gonna front.” Denying daddy his rightful portion is a measure of disrespect that
will surely bring wrath upon the children. To avoid this mama tries to make amends.
Mama then has not only procured, prepared, and presented the food, she now has
to alter and re-prepare the meal while simultaneously protecting her children.
After all of this, mama will undoubtedly have to “do a jig” so that daddy does not
recognize her necessary handiwork. She then will have to placate him if he discovers
the ruse.
The discussion of mama’s incredible talents is double-edged because while
plentiful, her culinary and household ingenuity must not be celebrated because to do
so would reveal that daddy is eating something less than the “big piece of chicken.”
Equally problematic is that it has gone unnoticed that while mama is not in the
paid work force, she is nonetheless very much involved in a system of work. Her
work, unfortunately, is largely domestic, economically undervalued, and from the
standpoint of this example, aesthetically unappreciated. Because even though mama
has created another large portion for daddy she cannot speak of it because it will only
make daddy feel that he gets little for all his “hard work.” Unspoken are the stories of
mama’s day of work, her troubles, and her battles—many of which are represented
symbolically by the chicken.
It is not surprising that Rock would gender his discussion to include some kind of
praise of a mother’s culinary abilities. As Pamela Quaggiotto notes, “the mother
determines when, what, and how much family members will eat . . . . She controls
the symbolic language of food, determining what her dishes and meals will say
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116
Psyche Williams-Forson
about herself, her family, and world.”29 And yet his depictions of “mama” are both
enlightening and baffling for what they seem to reveal/hide about Rock’s gender and
racial agenda. Clearly the parody and humor of this situation are evident. Though the
audience knows it is a joke, there is uncertainty over whether mama’s work is being
praised or ridiculed. Moreover, there are the questions of whether or not Rock is
waging some sort of commentary on racial stereotypes involving black people and
chicken. For example, it is significant to note that Rock never specifies whether the
chicken is fried or baked. In fact, he does not have to because he relies upon a certain
amount of a priori knowledge that assumes that chicken eating in the company of
black people means “fried.” Comforted by the fact that black audience members bring
to bear their own life experiences and cultural memories surrounding food and thus
know what “black is” and “black ain’t” he is able to launch into his dramatization.
Maybe it is a similar comfort and ease that Rock attends to when at the end of the
routine he admonishes women to remember their “proper” place in dealing with
men. Undoubtedly many in the audience see mama’s work as a labor of love that is
taken for granted, not needing any particular recognition. In fact, Rock half-heartedly
suggests this when he implies that daddy has the primary responsibilities in the household. As if rethinking this assertion, Rock soon after backtracks by supplying his one
line of praise for mama. Despite all of this backpedaling, by the end of his show Rock
is clear about his direction as he definitively reinstates his masculinist stance. He
closes his performance with: “Women talk too much. They always want you to be
listenin.’ Let a man get situated! Let me get my other foot in the door! Let me get
somethin’ to eat. Let me get somethin’ to drink! Let me take a shit! Go in the fuckin’
kitchen and get me my big piece of chicken!” Having said this, Rock drops the mike and
struts off the stage amid the cheers and shouts of approval from men—and women.30
Food objects are useful for elucidating the type of obscurities revealed by this kind
of close reading. Additionally, they are politicized by the meanings inscribed in their
uses and associations historically and contemporarily. This is particularly salient to
an article like chicken that is perceived to be generic in its uses among all races and
ethnicities of people. The meanings that chicken holds for black people are as
diverse as its members. But when chicken is placed in various contexts alongside
performances of power and race then it is plentiful for what it reveals beyond being
a portion of food.
This essay has attempted to illustrate the importance of moving beyond studying
merely the foods of various cultures to include the behaviors, actions, contexts, and
histories that involve them. As this article has also suggested foods like chicken, that
have been used to stereotype African American people, are often actually undergirded by intersecting variables of race, gender, class, and power. This fact, perhaps
more than any other, lends credence to the notion that food is always about more
than what it seems.
Notes
1.
For a more detailed analysis of this particular routine of Chris Rock’s see Williams-Forson, Building Houses
Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2006), 178–185.
Food and Culture : A Reader, edited by Carole Counihan, et al., Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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More than Just the “Big Piece of Chicken”
117
2. Chris Rock, Bigger and Blacker.
3. Geneva Smitherman, “The Chain Remain the Same: Communicative Practices in the Hip Hop Nation.” Journal
of Black Studies 28, 1 (September 1997): 3–25.
4. Though in no way this dichotomous, most of these scholars can be roughly divided into these categories, as
Krishnendu Ray observes. See book review by Ray, Building Houses out of Chicken Legs, in Food & Foodways,
15:1–6, 2007. Also see African American Foodways: Explorations of History & Culture, Ed. Anne Bower (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2007).
5. Patricia Hill Collins, “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist
Thought,” Social Problems 33, no. 6 (1986): 516–517.
6. African Americans have long been caricatured as brand mascots for various food and household products. For
example, a grinning black chef named Rastus was used to represent Cream of Wheat hot cereal and a pair of black
children who were known as the Gold Dust Twins, were used to advertise soap powder. In addition to the now
infamous Aunt Jemima, who sold pancake mix, there have been numerous other grinning black women who
were “Jemima-like” that were used to sell fried chicken, shortening, and cookware. It also should be noted that
other races and ethnicities have also been stereotyped where food is concerned. First there was Frito Bandito,
who spoke in an exaggerated Mexican accent and then there was the Chihuahua who muttered ¡Yo Quiero Taco
Bell! In March 2007 Masterfoods USA, a unit of Mars Foods attempted to hoist the stereotypical depiction of
“Uncle Ben” from servant to chairman of the board. The attempt was met with mixed success. See Stuart Elliott,
“Uncle Ben, Board Chairman.” The New York Times. 30 March 2007, C1.
7. For a more lengthy discussion see Williams-Forson, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs, in particular chapters
1 and 2. See also Williams-Forson, “ ‘Suckin’ the Chicken Bone Dry’: African American Women, Fried Chicken,
and the Power of a National Narrative.” In Cooking Lessons: The Politics of Gender and Food. Ed. Sherrie Inness.
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000): 200–214.
8. Anne E. Yentsch, A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology (Great Britain:
Cambridge University Press, 1994), 242.
9. Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and
Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1998), 359.
10. Yentsch, 245.
11. Quoted in Robert Olwell, “ ‘Loose, Idle, and Disorderly’: Slave Women in the Eighteenth-Century Charleston
Marketplace.” In More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas, Eds., David Barry Gaspar and
Darlene Clark Hine. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996): 97–110. See also, Yentsch, 242–243; Phillip
Morgan, 368–372.
12. Olwell, 102.
13. McDonnell, “Money Knows No Master: Market Relations and the American Slave Community.” In Developing
Dixie: Modernization in a Traditional Society, ed., Winfred B. Moore, Jr., Joseph F. Tripp, and Lyon G. Tyler, Jr.
(Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988): 31–44.
14. Lichtenstein, “ ‘That Disposition to Theft, With Which They Have Been Branded’: Moral Economy, Slave
Management, and the Law.” Journal of Social History 21 (1989): 413–40.
15. Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, Inc., 1976), 606.
16. Charles L. Perdue, Jr., Thomas E. Barden, and Robert K. Phillips, Eds. Weevils in the Wheat (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 1976), 116.
17. Roberts, From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom. (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1989): 33. Lawrence Levine also establishes connections between the African American
trickster and the acquisition of food. See “The Slave as Trickster,” in Black Culture, Black Consciousness.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 121–133.
18. Kenneth W. Goings, Mammy and Uncle Mose: Black Collectibles and American Stereotyping (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1994), 4–7.
19. Grant McCracken’s discussion is a good one on the ways in which consumer goods helped to preserve hopes and
ideals during the Victorian era. See “The Evocative Power of Things,” Culture and Consumption (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1990), 104.
20. McCracken, 110.
21. Ibid., 47.
22. Mary Titus, “ ‘Groaning Tables and Spit in the Kettles’: Food and Race in the Nineteenth-Century South,”
Southern Quarterly 20, no. 2–3 (1992), 15.
23. Diane M. Spivey, “Economics, War, and the Northern Migration of the Southern Black Cook,” in The Peppers,
Crackling, and Knots of Wool Cookbook: The Global Migration of African Cuisine (New York: State University of
New York Press, 1999), 263.
24. See Jacob Stroyer, Sketches of My Life, Sketches of My Life in the South. Part I. 1849–1908. Salem: Salem Press
(1879). Documenting the American South: The Southern Experience in Nineteenth-Century America, eds. Lee Ann
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118
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
Morawski and Natalia Smith (2001). Academic Affairs Lib., U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. (June 1, 2007).
Williams-Forson, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs, 176–181.
E. Patrick Johnson, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2003), 8.
Patricia Turner and Gary Alan Fine suggest that when rumors and/or stereotypes are based on information
that could be correct it is considered a truth-claim. Truth claims contain a certain amount of “cultural logic”
because they make “cultural sense” (i.e. all black people eat fried chicken) even though no systemic, definitive
evidence exists in which to substantiate them. Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2001), 18.
Chris Rock, Bigger and Blacker. Videocassette. HBO Studios (1999).
Pamela Quaggiotto as quoted in Carole M. Counihan, “Female Identity, Food, and Power in Contemporary
Florence,” Anthropological Quarterly 61 (1988): 52.
It is quite easy to become overcome with laughter by Rock’s prose and delivery. The immediacy and dramatic
nature of the moment invite this response. It is only later, once you have had a chance to relive the scene that one
might realize the sexism inherent in both the rhetoric and the performance as Rock leaves the stage seemingly
in command, having said all that he has had to say.
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30.
Psyche Williams-Forson
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10
The Overcooked and Underdone: Masculinities
in Japanese Food Programming*
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
T. J. M. Holden**
To the Western ear, the phrase “Japanese food show” will likely conjure images of
teams of smocked chefs hustling through a rangy in-studio kitchen, racing the clock,
concocting ingenious ways to prepare a particular ingredient, thereby pleasing a
panel of judges and defeating a crafty culinary rival. In fact, though, food battles
are only one genre of food show in Japan; a genre, itself, that is widely represented
on television. Moreover, battles are but one way that gender and, in this particular
case, masculinities are expressed in Japanese culinary TV. Stated another way,
on Japanese television, food shows are manifest—even ubiquitous—and food is
a dominant means by which identity discourse transpires (Holden 2003).1
While masculinity is but one component of identity, it is a major one. It is a discursive formation that emerges prominently at various turns in TV food shows, in
multiple ways.
This article’s purpose is to demonstrate the degree to which discourse about
masculinity courses through Japanese food shows. So, too, does it seek to open for
consideration the communication architecture and set of codes through which
masculinities are expressed. This is important for at least two reasons: first, because it
has not been done before; and second, because (not unlike the false perception
that Iron Chef is representative of the universe of Japanese food shows) prevailing
assumptions about Japanese masculinity are similarly truncated. The paltry range
of masculinities depicted on culinary TV must be said to play a part in that. For
the most part, masculinity is a narrow, repetitive discourse; hence, the “overcooked”
in this article’s title. What is underdone is both ironic and intriguing. First, the
salary-man—the prototypical version of Japanese masculinity—is virtually invisible;
secondly, although a wide range of male characterizations (that is, fashions and
mannerisms and lifestyles) may be on display, the actual range of masculinities
represented on TV is close to nil. Despite the fact that a more protean set of representations concerning masculinity exist as social text out in the world beyond the
screen, inside the box, these masculinities are, like the salaryman, incapable of
being found.
*
Originally published 2005
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T. J. M. Holden
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Japanese Masculinity in the Academic Literature
What are the prevailing assumptions about Japanese masculinity? Until recently,
discourse was nearly univocal, confined to the social type, “salaryman.” The urban,
middle class, white-collar worker has remained a relatively uncontested figure in
both academic literature and public consciousness. Emblematic of the “typical”
Japanese male since the 1960s (e.g., Vogel 1963; Plath 1964), this caricature persisted
relatively unabated into the 1990s (e.g., Rohlen 1974; Allison 1994). Now, however,
that image is beginning to change. As Roberson and Suzuki (2003:8) recently observed,
the salaryman is but an idealized version of Japanese masculinity. Its wide currency
may be explained because it articulates other powerful “discursive pedagogies,” such
as the capitalist employee, state taxpayer and family provider. The authors cite Ito
(1996), who has argued that past conceptions of Japanese masculinity have been
driven by views of hegemony and, in particular, three “inclinations” characterize
the dominant discourse concerning masculinity.2 These inclinations, identified as
(interpersonal) authority, power, and possession (especially in relation to women),
obviously align easily with conceptions of men as workers, members of power
structures, protectors, and “bread-winners.”
Importantly, Roberson and Suzuki assert, the salaryman is not the sole version of
masculine identity in contemporary Japan. Indeed, there are numerous discourses
available regarding what is “male” in contemporary Japan.3 Such a critique is consistent with a general, quiet revisionism that has transpired in Japanese studies over
the past two decades; one that has alleged greater heterogeneity in Japanese identity.4
The unitary image of masculine identity in the form of salaryman reflects an
association of masculinity with particular institutional sites (for instance, inside
corporation or outside home). This has been a standard, unreflecting, academic trope
during the post-Pacific War era. It is also (coincidentally) consistent with the way
Hall (1994) has theorized that identity ought to be decoded (i.e., within institutional
contexts). For most researchers of Japanese masculine identity, those institutional
contexts have centered on the state, the workplace, and the school (Connell 1995). By
inversion (i.e., reflecting a relative absence or exclusion), the institution of family
(and its locus, the home) can also be included in gender-identity discourse.5
Perhaps in reaction to the institutional emphasis, Roberson and Suzuki’s volume is
rich with alternatives: civil movements, transnational information flows, transgender
practices, day-laborers. Non-institutional theorization of identity is an important
maneuver, but does not minimize the importance of institutions in bounding,
framing, and providing meaning to contemporary identity. This is particularly true in
an era of “reflexive modernization” (Robertson 1992; Beck 1994), constituted by “late
modern” or “post-traditional” societies (Giddens 1994), such as Japan. In this article,
in particular, it is the media institution (generally) and television (specifically)
through which masculine identity is found to flow. As shown in my previous work on
“mediated identity” (2003), such formal institutional sites are heavily implicated in
the gender-identity calculus.6 In a word, media (such as television) are institutions—
no different than the state, corporation, or family—that provide the ideational and
“physical” context within which masculinity is represented and through which it is
reproduced.
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The Overcooked and Underdone
121
In this article, I explore one genre within this institutional site of television
communication in Japan: food discourse. Surveying this content, one soon learns
that Japanese masculinities are both on-message and beyond-message vis-à-vis
past academic framings. Consistent with what has heretofore been alleged about masculine identity in Japan, there is a widespread hegemonic masculinity on display. At
the same time (and significantly), that hegemonic masculinity is not played
out through the aegis of the corporate worker. Despite the pervasive expression of
masculine identity through food talk, and despite the fact that such identity tends
to be hegemonic in nature, there is nary a salaryman to be found. Japan’s televisual
masculinity is singularly hegemonic, yet it is not confined to a particular model or
“type” of person. It is communicated through any number of people—both male and
female (as we shall see), people who are both conventional and unconventional in
appearance, job designation, or background.
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Japanese Television and Food Discourse: A Précis
All of this is important because television is the preeminent medium of communication in Japan. It has a diffusion rate of 100%,7 is viewed by virtually every Japanese person every day,8 and outpaces other popular forms of information
processing, such as newspapers (86%), cell phones (73%), and the internet (27%).
It has been reported that, on average, at least one TV set plays 7 to 8 hours a day
in each Japanese dwelling, with personal viewing rates per day approaching
225 minutes.9 A recent European survey ranks Japan second worldwide in terms
of daily TV viewership.10
While television is dominant, one might wish to argue that food is not. A conservative accounting—based on genres reported in television guides—suggests that TV
food shows comprise but 5% of programming between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. The reality,
though, is quite different. Begin with the fact that, unlike other countries (in which
food shows are generally confined to specialty cable channels, or else a particular hour
on a particular day), Japan’s food shows can be found on at least one commercial
station during “golden time”11 on multiple days of the week. In past years, there has
been either a food-themed show or a show with a regular food segment every day of
the week in prime time.
The best current embodiment is “Dochi no Ryāri Syou” (Which?! Cooking Show).
Now in its seventh season, it is a highly rated Thursday night offering from 9 to 10 p.m.
In this show, seven entertainers must choose between two dishes prepared
before their eyes by rival chefs from a prestigious cooking academy. The guests are
allowed to sample the food and are given a chance to change “sides” if or when their
preferences for the respective dishes shift. Their decisions are often influenced by
two hosts—both popular male TV fixtures, one in his late 40s, the other in his early
60s—who interview chefs, cajole the guests, and make impassioned appeals for their
support. Dochi also serves as a window on the world, with segments on the people
and places associated with one of the key ingredients in each dish: a fisherman, for
instance, a dairy farmer, or cabbage grower, all toiling away in their respective remote
corners of Japan.
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122
T. J. M. Holden
In addition to shows that are exclusively about food, a number of golden hour variety shows feature regular segments built around food. For instance, SMAPXS-MAP—
now in its sixth year and hosted by Japan’s premier “boys band” (SMAP)—includes a
“Bistro” segment in which an invited guest (generally a female entertainer) is welcomed into the bistro by the “owner” (generally SMAP’s lead singer Masahiro Nakai),
interviewed about her life and career, then eats (and judges) rather elaborate, multicourse meals prepared by competing teams (which are comprised of SMAP pairs).12
The popular, Thursday night variety show Tonnerus’ Minasan no Okage Deshita
(Tunnel’s: Because of Everyone’s Good Will) offers a weekly segment in which two
guests—usually one male and one female—are invited to sit alongside one member of
the (male) comedy duo, Tonnerus. Both guests are served four dishes, which they
must consume while being interviewed about the food as well as their life histories.
Free discussion and casual banter co-mingle with on-camera consumption. At the
end of the show, all four participants vote as to which dish the guests consumed and
pretended to enjoy, but in actuality detested.
Gotchi Battaru is a third show in which food plays an important, entertaining role.
It is actually an elaborate segment of another show, the Friday evening variety
hour, Guru Guru Ninety-Nine. Four regulars (comedians, usually, and all men)
travel each week to a different top-rated (and pricey) restaurant and try to guess
the price of a set of dishes prepared for them. An invited guest from the entertainment world accompanies them.13 After all individual estimates are summed, the
guest farthest from the price of the entire meal must pay for everyone. Cumulative,
weekly totals are also kept and posted on the show’s web site, listing how many
times each regular has lost, and how far in arrears he is. Discussion during the
show is balanced between good-natured ribbing of individual guestimates, information about how the food is prepared, and comments about how each dish tastes.
These are four examples of food discourse on Japanese TV, reflective of a larger
pool of shows in which food plays either a primary or secondary role. Factor in the
number of shows in which food appears in an ancillary role (for instance, during
morning “wake-up” programs that discuss urban culinary trends or local village
festivals, or else travel shows that present the foods of target destinations that can be
consumed) and the percentage of food-related discourse on Japanese television
increases exponentially. This description does not even begin to tap the great
reservoir of “inadvertent food discourse” in which food serves as an incidental, but
prominent background feature during dramas, quiz shows, newscasts, sporting
events, and the like. Finally, one must not forget the ubiquitous presence of food
advertising on TV, which has been found to account for as much as 20% of all ads
broadcast in a one month period (Holden 2001).14
All considered, it is impossible to view food discourse as a trivial or negligible
element in Japanese televisual communication. Food is present on virtually every
channel, every hour, every day of the week, throughout the broadcast day.
Characteristics of Televisual Masculinities
What then, of gender, in general, and masculinity, in particular, is in these televisual
culinary productions? First, these elements are neither invisible, nor insignificant.
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The Overcooked and Underdone
123
Furthermore, scrutiny of the content of food shows supports recent theorization on
gender. To wit, rather than simple sets of stereotypical differences between classes
tagged as “male” and “female,” masculinity and femininity clearly emerge as social
constructions, i.e., sets of reproduced practices and performances that mimic and
support a system of power.15 In fact, the ways in which gender identities (in general)
and masculinities (in particular) are communicated in these televisual productions
faithfully reflect Ito’s (1996) trinity of authority, power, and possession. Similarly,
there are cases in which femininities are constructed and communicated in such a
way as to embody and buttress Ito’s hegemonic masculinity. Let’s consider concrete
examples of these elements, in turn.
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
Power: Masculinity as Competition
To begin, let’s return to Dochi, previously introduced, in which rival dishes are
hawked by two male hosts. These front-men are combatants who do whatever they
can to secure victory: interviewing the competing chefs (who are almost always men),
sampling the food, cajoling the guests to join their side, and making impassioned
appeals for support. At the end of the contest, one exults in victory, the other despairs
in loss. Their win-loss record is updated weekly on Dochi’s website. At the close
of each show, the victorious host holds court center stage, consuming the favored
meal with the winning guests. He gloats and needles the losing host as well as those
unfortunate guests who voted incorrectly. These minority members are made to
observe and, sometimes, even serve the winners. Dochi’s discourse, in short, is one of
contestation, of dominance achieved, and of subordination suffered; it operates in
the vernacular of power.16 Its conflictual, competitive discourse is one normally associated with games—not unlike the Iron Chef show, with its clock, rival combatants,
teams of specialists, sideline announcer, play-by-play and color commentators,
and final judges. Such competitive shows adopt the rhetoric, the visual, contextual,
and practical tropes of sport, “an institution created by and for men,” (Messner and
Sabo 1990), whose practices service the reproduction of hegemonic masculinity.17
Viewed in this way, shows like Dochi and Iron Chef support a sporting, contentious
masculinity. They conjure constructions of gender in terms of combat—not coincidentally performed almost exclusively by men. And lest one wonder whether this is
but an aberration, we must note that this discursive practice is not confined to one or
two shows. Bistro SMAP, after all, is a competition between teams. The results are not
simply points on a weekly chart, but kisses acquired from the female guests. And even
in shows where food is used to measure intellect, sophistication, and judgment (e.g.,
Gotchi Battaru), the discursive frame centers on competition to avoid pecuniary loss
and, thus, public “face.”
In keeping with the notion that gender is not simply reducible to male/female
categorizations, there are those Japanese food shows in which women battle one
another for judges’ approval. When they do, these females adopt the vernacular
of (hegemonic) male discourse.18 They are operating within an authoritative
structuration of power, working against rivals for a favorable personal result. In a
word, women in the context of Japanese mediated identity are not immune from
operating in the rhetoric, manifesting the core trait of hegemonic masculinity.19
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124
T. J. M. Holden
Authority (I): Masculinity as Executive Function
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Among the categories that Goffman identified in his qualitative assessment of
Gender Advertisements (1976) was “executive function,” the role (of elevated
position, control, and authoritative action) that men adopt when paired in ads with
women. This function was patent in my own content analysis of gender in Japanese
television ads (1999); it also seems widely replicated in Japanese television food
shows.
Men are executives insofar as they are accorded the lead and the power to direct.
All activity flows through them, or else beneath their commanding gaze. In food
shows, masculine guidance can take the form of two guises: host and chef.
Host As Dochi’s description suggests, men often appear in the role of host. This is
not a hard and fast rule—Emiko no O-shaberi Kukingu (Emiko’s Cooking Talk)—
features a female host. Importantly, though, Emiko defers to the chef who is a man.
As is true of all food shows, in the matter of food preparation, culinary direction, and
advice, the chef operates as chief executive. For the host, the role is clearly defined
and circumscribed: hosts greet guests, interview them about their lives, solicit their
opinions about life and food, ensure that attention is accorded to the chef’s
(often backgrounded) work in the kitchen, and facilitate the flow between and
balance these various elements. Important among the latter is timekeeping and
scheduling; hosts determine when final judgments will be rendered. As guardians of
continuity, they also verbally validate results tendered by chefs or guests. In a word,
they exert administrative control over the communication event.
In cases where there are multiple hosts of differing gender, executive function
adheres to a “gender order,” with males invariably reigning over women. Consider
the show Chūbō Desu Yo (This is the Kitchen). Airing at 11:30 p.m. on Saturdays,
the hosts’ job is not only to welcome guests and make them feel at home, but also to
prepare a meal with them in an in-studio kitchen. Like Dochi, the guest offers
judgment on the food prepared, and, like Dochi, that decision has the power to make
the hosts exult in triumph or deflate in defeat. Unlike Dochi, however, the hosts are
not rivals, and, importantly, unlike Dochi, they stand in a particular (power) relation
to one another. The female host of Chūbō (Ikumi Kimura) is intro-duced at the
outset of each show as an “announcer.” Moreover, she wears the same green and
yellow sticker on her apron that all newly minted drivers in Japan affix to their car
windows—signifier of a beginner. Tellingly, Ms. Kimura has worn that sticker for
over three years. By contrast, the male host (formerly a popular singer named Masaaki
Sakai) introduces himself as possessor of “three stars”—the highest rating that can be
awarded to a prepared dish on the show—and “Master Chef.”
Gender ranking does not end there. During the course of the half hour, Sakai
provides directions to Kimura in the kitchen, during the interview segments, and at
the dinner table when the time comes to ask the guest for his or her evaluation of the
completed meal. Often Sakai will interrupt his work in the kitchen to engage the guest
in conversation, leaving Kimura to toil on her own, making sure that the preparation
moves toward completion. In addition, during the critical moments of the show, when
a segment has to be concluded or a result announced, it is Sakai who takes the lead.
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“This dish is finished!” he will intone after the casserole comes out of the oven. Or, as
they consume the food, he will suggest, “Ms. Kimura, please ask the guest for his final
evaluation.” Kimura-san will then dutifully inquire, “For this dish, how many stars
will you give?” Once the guest has responded, it is left to Sakai to affirm the judgment.
As the camera focuses tight on his face, he shouts theatrically toward the rafters, “for
this dish . . . one and a half stars!”
Chef There are numerous shows in which the chef also adopts the executive
function by instructing the host and/or guests in the ways of food preparation. Chūbō
is emblematic of this, introducing three chefs at the outset, who perform on their
own premises. Having viewed three variations on the show’s selected meal, the three
amateur cooks now follow one of the demonstrated recipes. At various stages of the
preparation, the three loosely discuss the method they are following. In particular,
though, once the meal has been completed and is being consumed, they discuss where
they may have improved on the meal—what ingredient was in too little or too great
supply, where the oven or stove was used for too long or too short a time. In short, the
amateurs note their deviations from the chef’s instructions and chastise themselves
for failing to conform to his direction.
In addition, Chūbō features a short segment introducing a resident apprentice
in one of the chef’s kitchens. Almost always, these chefs-in-training are young men in
their early twenties. In every case to date, these young men are depicted receiving
commands from elder male employers. Here again, then, Japan’s food shows cast
men and masculinity in a discourse of authority.
With but two exceptions, the featured chefs in all of Japan’s food show genres are
men—the exceptions being the case of desserts and katei ryōri (home cooking).20
When these dishes are featured, female chefs consistently appear. However, because
neither category of food is widely represented on food shows, the female presence
tends to be overshadowed by that of the male. As a consequence, viewers are apt to
perceive “chef” as a male role and, logically, see men as culinary authorities. It is not
a stretch to assert that, on the other side of the gender equation, the significance
that flows out of the two areas reserved for female expertise (desserts and home cooking) communicates that women are “sweet,” soft, peripheral or decentered (i.e., not
associated with main courses), less sophisticated or elaborate, and also are specialists
in meals served in private rather than out in the public sphere.
Authority (II): Masculinity in Profession
The executive function is not the only way in which status and authority are communicated in cooking shows. Another is the provision of expert knowledge. And like the
direction of stage and culinary activity, this is another function that is performed
predominantly by men. The recognition of a chef as an “expert” occurs in numerous
ways in food shows.
First, and most obviously, is the invocation of the title “chef” to those who are
called upon to perform in these TV productions. The deference hosts show to these
culinary workers—soliciting their opinion about preparation, allowing them to
explain the peculiarities and secrets of each ingredient—goes a long way toward
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T. J. M. Holden
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elevating cooks to a position of authority. Clothes, too, serve as markers of
professional association, and guest chefs never fail to appear in the starched white
aprons and toques of those who cook for a living. Finally, and most importantly, is the
chef’s resume. In Japan, where organizational affiliation is one of the significant markers of legitimacy, food shows take pains to introduce their kitchen authorities not
simply by name or age, but by pedigree. For example, they name the schools in which
they have trained, the countries in which have they apprenticed, and under which
banner they now wield a spatula. In a word, this discursive formation is framed institutionally, in terms of economy and social sanction.
Dochi serves as exemplar of this intellectual construction, drawing its chefs exclusively from one corporate group, Tsuji in Osaka—arguably Japan’s most prestigious
professional cooking academy. The title “Tsuji” (or its offshoot “Ecole Culinaire
Nationale”) flashed beneath the in-studio chef or else on the food show’s web page is
enough to communicate “expert.” To Japanese media consumers, “Tsuji” connotes
“rigorous training,” “knowledge,” “competence,” “professionalism,” and “qualitycontrol.”
As mentioned earlier, Dochi (not unlike most other food shows) calls upon its
professionals to provide advice in between segments of host/guest repartee. Culinary
experts explain the “dos and don’ts” associated with particular foods and tricks for
preparing a meal to perfection. Hosts are careful to respond with affirmative noises,
such as “Oh, I see” or “That makes sense,” or even “Incredible!”—clearly stressing the
presence of a knowledge hierarchy. In this way, the message is communicated
that chefs are “professionals,” not merely because they have a title and an impressive
uniform, but because they are experts and leaders in their field.
Status in a Binary Universe: The Comparison with Women One of the major
areas of contestation in gender studies—appropriated from structuralism and
ushered in large part, by Judith Butler (1990)—is the issue of language as totality,
a closed system in which signs give rise, by inference, to (often invisible) paired
opposites. On these terms, “man” begets “woman” as “feminine” conjures “masculine.” As Hughes (2002:15) has observed, “In the male-female binary, to be
a woman requires us to have a corresponding concept of man. Without this
relation, the terms alone would have no reference point from which to derive
their meaning.”
Butler’s influence—along with Foucault’s (1980)21—was to move analysis beyond
simplistic binaries. At the same time, the structure of meaning in Japanese televisual
productions is predominantly dualistic, creating sign-pairs of male/chef and female/
not chef. In this way, what is present, what is communicated, and what “exists,” is an
absence of females in the role of “chief cook,” and the banishment of women from
public kitchens as either professional or apprentice. All of this can produce the view
that women are not cooking authorities, and that “chef” is a male identification, rather
than a female one.
Probing this possibility further, we find that women who appear as cooks in
Japanese cooking shows are often featured in one of two ways: in the primary guise
as “talento” (entertainer), or else in the capacity as “housewife.” In the case of
the former, women seldom, if ever, offer culinary advice. Their cooking duties are
mere props to their true identity, star, singer, sex symbol, or actress. In the case of
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the latter, women prepare foods and engage in activities associated with the private
domain of the household.
An example of the former is found in the Sunday afternoon show, “Iron Shufu.”22
A spin-off of Iron Chef, this variety show features female guests, all former entertainers who are now married. The show has a number of components: two rounds of
quizzes (one centering on food customs, another concerning ingredients, nutrition,
and calories), then a round in which kitchen skills are on display. For instance,
housewives might have to run an obstacle course while flipping stir-fry in a wok, or
grasp slippery konyaku with chopsticks. One week, there aired a task involving
whipping cream, after which sticky hands and quivering fingers were made to thread
three needles in succession. Following this ordeal, contestants were asked a battery
of personal questions regarding life with their husbands (e.g., where was their
first date, what was the first present they received from their husband, when is
their wedding anniversary).
Once all these tasks are completed, the two highest scoring guests (measured in
terms of fastest time through the obstacle course and most correct quiz answers) are
pitted against one another in a cook-off. They are given thirty minutes to prepare a
meal in the katei (or “home-cooking”) style. Like its namesake, Iron Chef, one
featured ingredient must be integrated into the menu. An additional stipulation (since
it is katei style) is that one of the courses must be served with rice. A panel of celebrity
judges—along with the president of a cooking school (i.e., a professional/expert)—
offers evaluative comments and scores the two contestants. In numerous ways, then,
Iron Shufu embodies elements of the masculine hegemonic discourse: competition,
expert evaluation, and female cooks associated with private (home-made) food. It
also casts women in overtly-domesticated roles that differ in multiple, stereotypical
ways from those accorded to men. In this way, patriarchal gendered discourse
is reproduced.23
Markers of Masculine Identity It should be observed that there are a few food
shows in which female chefs prepare foods other than desserts or home cooking.
In these cases, however, an interesting designation is attached to the cooks; an
appellation that appears to undercut their status as authority. Their title is “riyōri
kenkyu ka”—literally “food researchers.” One tangible effect of this title is that it
tends to soften the impression left when a woman is offering advice to a male
announcer or host.
This is not so in reverse, of course. Where women are being instructed and a man
is in the tutelary role, there is no shying away from affixing the title “chef” or “sensei”
(teacher), providing his professional affiliation, and clothing him in the garb of
the professional cook. A prime example is the after-hours entertainment (Saturday
12:30 a.m.), Ai no Ēpuron 3 (The Love of Three Aprons), in which three young (generally sexy) talento are assigned the task of preparing a particular dish (for instance,
apple pie) without the benefit of a recipe. The final product is then presented to a
panel of (generally) male entertainers. The program’s website explains that the
“women must make the dishes for these men with love.”
The bulk of the show involves the heaping of (generally critical) judgments by the
male hosts upon each of the women’s food productions. Thereafter, the dishes are
assessed by a professional (male) chef. His comments, though generally respectful,
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128
T. J. M. Holden
aim at improving the women’s effort next time out (with the implicit assumption that
there will be a next time). Due to the deference paid to him by the guests and hosts, as
well as his uniform and title, he comes across as an authority possessing special
knowledge; his words are treated as insights beyond reproach.
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Possession: Masculinity as Ownership
Punctuating and possibly stoking the go-go era of Japanese socioeconomic
development were distinct epochs in which particular trinities of goods were
sought. Thus, there were the three Ss of the late 1950s and early 1960s: senpūki,
sentakuki, and suihanki (fan, washing machine, and electric rice cooker); the three Cs
of the late 1960s: kā, kūr ā, and karā terebi (car, air conditioner, and color TV);
and the three Js of the late 1970s: jūeru, jetto, and jūtaku (jewels, jetting, and
house).24 Aside from travel by jet, all of these items were goods to be owned. They
were statuses secured through acquisition and were communicated via conspicuous
display.
Of course, these trinities center on consumption; however, they also reflect a
discourse of possession. It is this rhetoric that can also be spied in Japanese food
productions, particularly in relation to the chefs who appear. In numerous shows, the
chefs are introduced on the premises of restaurants they have founded, manage, and
maintain. Cameras capture them either outside the door of their business or
else inside, in the dining area. Invariably, they proudly bow in greeting and offer
some remarks of invitation. Viewers are treated not only to tours of their kitchens,
but are shown menus, sample the décor, drink in the ambiance, and even watch the
chef as he prepares and then consumes his product.
Chūbō, previously mentioned, is noted for such excursions to the owner-chef ’s
domain. So, too, though, are the numerous shows in which hosts travel to a particular locale (perhaps in a village off the beaten path) or else seek out a particularly
special dish. In such cases, the chef becomes something more than a food preparer;
he becomes host in his own right, commander of a world of his own invention,
and interviewee. His status as owner lends an additional power to his countenance.
He is not only executive, not only employer, not only expert, he is also landholder,
proprietor, and business owner. In Japan, for historical (social class-based) reasons,
these are quite powerful statuses to hold. And, of course, it goes without saying,
these are roles that are almost exclusively held by men, at least in the Japanese televisual universe.
Alternative Conceptions of Televisual Masculinity
Thus far, we have explored how masculinity in TV food programming is consistent
with past conceptions of Japanese masculinity; in a word, it embodies a hegemonic
discourse of authority, power, and possession. Here, I wish to briefly identify two
elements that suggest alternative, though not necessarily inconsistent, conceptions
of gender identity.
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129
Creation: Masculinity as Production
When Sherry Ortner offered the now-famous assertion (1974) that women are nature
and men are culture, she was referring to the notion that the male world is “made”; it
is a world invented, produced, rendered, and controlled. Certainly, this is the message
from Japan’s food shows—where the key producers are generally all male. Production
transpires within an institutional context (media) and, within that context, an
(generally) organizational structure. Such a structure is “man-made”; it is a humanly
constructed, artificial environment, configured to confer status and facilitate the
expression of power. The tools wielded and the products crafted on these shows, may
or may not belong to the cooks, but the fact that they are produced in audio-visual
spaces generally presided over by men and filtered through rhetorical strategies that
are often regarded as “hegemonic masculinity” suggests that these productions are,
in fact, male; they are possessions of the male producer world and, hence, can be
associated with masculine identity.
By contrast, for women—who are so often associated with the “natural realm”—
their televisual role is generally one of nurturer or consumer. As such, their job is to
facilitate food production (as hosts) or else serve as end-users (as guests).25 Certainly,
exceptions can be located as in the case of the Three Aprons or the Iron Shufu shows,
previously described. In each case, however, production is for purposes supportive of
a patriarchal frame, namely, satisfying the dictates of male hosts or else proving one’s
wherewithal in providing an amenable home for a husband. Because competition is
involved, the women in these shows subrogate themselves to and adopt the logic of
hegemonic male discourse. Even when they are not governed by the male world, they
seek to uphold and reproduce the logic of that world.
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Freedom: Masculinity as Agency
If the message of some TV food shows is that women exist within a clearly delineated,
bounded structure, the same could obviously be said of men. As previously
mentioned, chefs are often depicted as members of organizations (as in the case of the
Tsuji performers) or else (as in the case of the Chūbō chefs and a wealth of other shop
proprietors) as proud possessors (creators, owners, executives) of structures that,
incidentally, are “man-made.”
At the same time, this image of attachment must be counterbalanced with the
impressions of independence often communicated by Japanese media productions.
As Gill (2003:145) has written, “Japanese male fantasies frequently stress the
mobile: the sportsman, the traveler, the man of action, the magically endowed
superhero.” For men, and especially television viewers, the majority are tied to
structures of “permanence and stasis” (Ibid:146) and, so, pine for an alternative
model of existence—a model offered by the television shows. This is not so much
embodied by the chefs who have hung out their shingle and run their own businesses;
rather, it is in the aegis of the entertainers and guests who saunter onto the food show
stage seemingly unencumbered and free of institutional affiliation or organizational
layering.
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130
T. J. M. Holden
This is a version of Japanese masculinity that is less well known—one that has
few exemplars out in the free world, one that is often relegated to the realm of
wish fulfillment (for instance, movies centering on the vagabond peddler “Tora-san,”
leaderless samurai, like the “47 Ronin,” or meandering monks like “Zatoichi,” or,
more recently, daily news about highly-publicized “free agents” who have migrated to
play baseball in America). It is a version of masculinity that, far from the quintessential salaryman, views male identity in terms of autonomy and individually-oriented
existence. It is a disparate image of masculinity, one which may have little referent in
reality, but is, nonetheless, persistently cropping up in televisual productions.
Alternative Masculinities
While the general argument on these pages has been that, with regard to Japan’s
televisual food shows, little alternative discourse circulates concerning masculinity,
this is not completely the case. As we saw in the previous passage, discrepant masculinities do exist. And, in fact, these discrepant versions are greater—more extensive
and farther reaching—than simply that of the autonomous agent just described. Here,
I’d like to consider a few of these deviations, and also what that may tell us about
contemporary Japanese society.
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TV’s Widest Angle: Masculinity’s “Multiplicity”
It is not infrequent that alternative genders—transgendered men and female
masculinities—surface on Japanese TV.26 Food shows and food advertising, in
particular, often feature performances of multiple genders.27 Consider, for example,
Dochi. Generally, six of the seven invitees rotate weekly,28 often striking a numerical
balance between men and women. Among the former, past episodes have included a
transvestite, numerous rikishi (sumo wrestlers), retired baseball and tennis players,
actors, singers, comedians, writers, and producers.
The transvestite, in particular, warrants mention here. His name is Akihiro Miwa,
and he is a cultural icon. A former cabaret singer, Miwa is as famous for his
elegant gowns as he is for his silky singing voice and his romantic involvement with a
famous novelist, the late Yukio Mishima. A writer and TV personality, as well as
a regular on variety shows, Miwa is accorded respect, with little hint of derision or
disdain. The same can also be said for the homosexual twins “Píco” and “Osugi,”
the “new half,” “Pítā,” and the ubiquitous and enormously popular transvestite,
Ken’ichi Mikawa. While one would be hard-pressed to claim that transgendered
men are widely represented on Japanese television, it would also be impossible to
deny their presence. Rarely does a day pass without the appearance of a person
embodying an alternative conception of gender on mass-distributed, mass-consumed
Japanese television.
Alongside these versions of masculinity are also other “models.” On Dochi alone,
one encounters an obese wrestler from Hawaii; a waif-like singer from Japan’s
longest-running boy’s band, SMAP; a forty-something producer in scruffy beard,
blue jeans, signature cowboy boots and ten-gallon hat; a Japan-raised, blond-haired,
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The Overcooked and Underdone
131
grungy, earring-studded Canadian; an elderly actor with assiduously trimmed goatee,
adorned in yukata (traditional male kimono). In short, one can hardly claim that what
is broadcast is the narrow, repetitive discourse of masculinity embodied by salarymen
in gray suits and conservative ties. So, too, could one hardly assert that this motley
mélange of free agents fits the profile of power wielding, authoritative, possessive
hegemonists—at least on the surface.
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The Illusion of Freedom
It must be recognized, however, that while such “models” of masculinity may
materialize on-screen, good reasons exist to view their social impact with caution. As
guests, these men stand in an asymmetric relationship to those who manage the
show, specifically, the hosts and chefs in front of the cameras. For these latter groups,
invariably, action is wrapped in the vernacular of masculine hegemony. Significantly,
no matter what model of masculinity hosts and chefs may appear to communicate
via their appearance, they uniformly manage to channel food talk into discourse
concerning authority, power, and possession.
It also must be noted that a disjuncture exists between the televisual and the real
worlds. Food shows place a plethora of free agents on display and communicate
alternative masculinities and femininities in far greater measure than the stereotypical types comprising the world beyond the screen. To wit, in Japan today,
organizational work still accounts for upwards of 70% of those employed;29 day
laborers and casual or part-time workers also comprise a significant sector of
workers. Nonetheless, in show after show, from the food-centered Dochi, Chubo
Desu Yo, and Kakurea Gohan, to the weekly cooking segments on SMAPXSMAP,
Tonnerus’ (Minasan no Okage Deshita) and Gotchi Battaru, workers—both within
and on the margins of “organizational society”—are never invited to sit at the
TV table.
What’s more, while the actors and actresses, athletes, singers, comedians, and the
like appear to be “free agents,” it is also apparent that this is mere illusion; they are far
from free. Almost all of the food consuming-performers on screen belong to invisible
corporate structures that book them onto these shows, not only to reap money, but
more importantly, to gain further exposure for them, their popular cultural product.
As such, the consumer-performers on food shows offer the illusion of independence,
reproducing a myth of masculine and feminine freedom that in actually doesn’t exist.
In its stead stands the more hegemonic, structurated model of masculinity that
pervades almost all of Japanese society today.
The Absence of Vision
In the same way, although transgendered and alternative masculinities are
represented on these shows, it is generally only through the aegis of a handful of
prominent entertainers, the few, established well-known, accepted “others” who
make the perpetual rounds in what is a finite, hermetic, televisual universe. Today,
these performers who began as public curiosities rotate from show to show, appearing
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132
T. J. M. Holden
in a variety of genres equally distributed across the four major channels and spread
throughout the seven day viewing week. The consequence is that the message that
they might embody of alternative versions of masculinity stands a very real likelihood
of being absorbed into, and even overshadowed by, the intimacy cultivated through
repetitive exposures of star and host and encounters between viewer and performer.30
It is this affective bond, I would aver, that may easily lead to the emotional embrace
of the one or three or five alternatively masculine “regulars,” without having to
inculcate the ontological potentials they actually embody. The result may be that
viewers become desensitized to, or even come to ignore, the performativities
that these personalities signify, the various transgender potentials of “transvestite,”
“drag queen,” “new half,” or “homosexual.”31
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The Tight Focus of Televisual Masculine Identity
There is no end to food shows on Japanese television. No two are exactly identical,
but all are broadcast for a purpose. To be sure, they exist to educate and entertain.
Occasionally they may carry some deep unspoken or less motivated purpose, for
instance, the mediation of identity. When this occurs it might be identity defined
in terms of the nation, interest group, or individual (Holden 2001, 2003). Or, as
shown here, it may be identity cast in terms of gender.
Televisual food shows clearly play a powerful role in communicating masculine
identity in contemporary Japan.32 Clearly, too, such shows are not amenable to
the representation of all aspects of masculinity. Beyond the gender performativities
previously mentioned, a number of contexts are absent from the screen in which
masculinities are generally reproduced. For instance, save for the simulated kitchens
in which chefs toil, workplaces are almost entirely absent. Also missing are homes,
sites where parenting occurs.33 Class also is invisible, as are men who are unemployed
or else under-employed. Not surprisingly, the homeless are non-existent. In short,
there is so much that bears on masculinity that televisual productions ignore, deny, or
banish from public view.
The discourse that does appear in these productions serves to present, interpret,
translate, and/or modify masculinities. Interestingly, as pervasive as gendered
identifications are, the emblematic masculinity for Japan, the salaryman, is entirely
pulled from the frame. In his place are other figures—numerous tropes, codes,
characters, social processes, institutions, organizational structures, and human
agents—both visible and invisible, who are employed to communicate masculine
identity. It is a certain kind of identity, a singular kind of identity that is consistently
organized and communicated in terms of authority, power, possession, production,
and—only seemingly—autonomy.
Notes
**
I wish to thank Takako Tsuruki for the invaluable assistance she provided throughout
this research. In particular, her wise counsel, cultural and linguistic interpretations, and
apt examples immeasurably improved the original paper.
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133
1. This work, like two precursors (Holden 1999, 2001), is based on a systematic sampling of the universe of
Japanese TV shows. As explained in that earlier work, recording transpired over the course of an entire month
and was supplemented with new programming as some shows were retired and others debuted. Analysis was
based on the construction of three distinguishable data sets: (1) an “ideal week” of prime time food shows,
(2) food-related advertising, and (3) regular programming in which “inadvertent food discourse” was
regularly introduced. Especially considering the extensive amount of air-time accorded to the last category, it
was concluded that food discourse is ubiquitous on Japanese television, playing virtually every hour, on every
channel, every day.
2. Ito’s concept was developed in association with his introduction to men’s studies—written in Japanese. Clearly,
however, the concept is not culturally bound and can be applied to other contexts.
3. Presaging this work, perhaps, was McLelland’s (2000), which argues that homosexuality in Japan does not
reduce to a neat, unitary discourse.
4. Among a chorus of writers Lebra and Lebra (1986), Moeur and Sugimoto (1986), Harootunian (1989), and
Befu (2000) have observed that there is no homogenous Japan, comprised of a single class, gender, geography,
ethnicity, occupation, or generation.
5. Iwao (1993:271), while arguing that Japan has witnessed a dramatic opening up of the public sphere (and,
attendant institutional sites) for women, discusses how family has remained one institution which an earlier
generation of women use to define their identity.
6. In my conceptualization, “mediated identity” is interactive and institutional, involving: (1) significations,
(2) conveyed through representations of sameness and difference, (3) by media, and (4) brought into relief
by: (a) references to (socially constructed) group-based traits, and (b) the depiction of relationships between:
(i) individuals and/or (ii) groups. Even more recent work on cell phone users (Holden forthcoming) suggests
that the above definition requires modification to allow for the power of users to communicate representations
of themselves and actively construct identities by consciously utilizing media.
7. Japan: Profile of a Nation, Kodansha (1995:247). See also Kazuo Kaifu, “Japan’s Broadcasting Digitization Enters
the Second Stage: Its present state and prospects,” NHK Culture Broadcasting Institute, No.11 (New Year, 2000).
In fact, the diffusion rate as early as 1965 was 95%.
8. 95% of the population according to Shuichi Kamimura and Mieko Ida. See: “Will the Internet Take the Place of
Telev...
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