An Idol Fan's Take on Scholarly Readings

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to enroll in a Japanese popular culture subject at university, something that was different to all my usual business-type stuff. Thoroughly enjoyed it (if only because arts subjects are so much more lax than commerce, but I digress) as a means to appreciate a more scholarly take on the media that interests me. But in the end, I was left wanting more. Something more... directly and specifically relevant to the idol fandom that I participate and consume.

As per my usual boring self, a couple of months ago I was browsing through the internet and I came across something which really caught my eye. And proceeded to subsequently purchase it months later when it was finally released. Enter the book that you saw above.

Some, in fact many, may dismiss the perspectives offered by academic scholarship within the field of cultural studies - especially when related to popular culture, let alone the subject matter here: Japanese idol fandoms - as being irrelevant and not useful when compared to directly participating in the popular cultural form itself. Unlike them, I prefer to take a balance and to be open to all sides of perspective, irrespective of how distant these perspectives are relative to the fandom itself. And in many ways, Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), itself a compilation of essays and articles pertaining to Japanese idols from the viewpoint of pop-cultural scholarship, presents quite a few different perspectives. Now I'm no academic (so don't expect a laborious formal literature review of this from me!) but I do hope to share with you what I think of this book.

Introduction
Aoyagi's opening foreward to the book fittingly reflects on his own influential work within the study of Japanese pop idols, Island of Eight Million Smiles, and brings it forward to the current generation with an optimistic hope of shedding deeper light into the world of contemporary Japanese pop idols. Nevertheless, Galbraith's own acknowledgements highlight the fundamental difficulty of timeliness and relevance in the scholarly analysis of popular culture, citing Maeda (Atsuko)'s recent graduation as an example of the ebbs and flows, and movements throughout, in the Japanese idol entertainment world.

I found Galbraith and Karlin's introductory chapter to be quite a good overall (and balanced) summary of the world of Japanese idols and entertainment cultures, highlighting the interrelationships between mass media, the fans and the idols themselves (using relevant current examples like AKB48 and Arashi) as forming a central theme throughout the book.

System
Marx gives an insightful summary review of the structures and power relations that underpin the Japanese entertainment world. A solid understanding of the dominance that management agencies (jimusho) play in the world of idol fandom helps in forming the basis of how Japanese entertainment industries work to produce, own and license content/properties. Prusa deals with the influential swaying power over public opinion that Japanese media have during idol scandals, yet I found it to be a surprisingly strongly worded critique of Japanese media, although one that is not too unexpected, with a fair degree of implications for the mangerial construct that we see today in the idol world. Meanwhile, Karlin's chapter is a relevant and intriguing overview of the dialogue between corporate media marketing (through the TV commercial) and consumers, and discussing on the idol as a tool for corporate commercialisation - to the effect that the consumer audience begins to identify with the idol towards the end goal of product consumption.

Desire
Nagaiike and Glasspool, using SMAP and Arashi as examples, elaborates on the notion of accessibility and consummative, emotional desire (and ownership) for (male) idols, even Glasspool going so far as to extend consumers' emotions towards a framework of sexualised desire. Mackintosh, on the other hand, presents to us the notion of desire from another perspective: the world of Yukio Mishima and Misora Hibari, and the homoeroticism attributed by (Mishima) them or to (Misora) them by the homosexual community.

Difference
Japanese pop-cultural norms - indeed, most of Japanese society and culture - are generally formed through rigid and conservative structures and principles, yet Hambleton explores the context where media stereotype and established structure clash with social difference and individualistic pursuits - the case of Agnes Chan and the tensions between social structure and "the idealised perception/image of idols". In Ho's chapter, whilst the discussion of middle-aged women and their reflections on Korean idol fandom might immediately strike as odd and perhaps initially dismissive, much of the core concepts discussed surrounding ownership, emotional desire and following (of an idol) are actually very much applicable and relevant, in general, to the entire idol world regardless of nationality, gender or age.

Image
Speaking from the perspective of an avid consumer of idol goods, I am slightly critical here of Galbraith's chapter when he considers the use of psychological theory to explain the consumption of idols (by otaku) as being directed by a "perverse" gaze that blurs the line between reality and fantasy, yet fuels intimacy. Rather, I'd take the generalist tack of ownership and emotional desire as being the drivers of consumption. Both link heavily to the core crux of the capitalist argument (to which Galbraith contends here), the flow of capital as being responsible for the fuel of consumptive desire. Black's chapter, meanwhile, takes the blurred fictional reality of the image of idols to the logical extreme - the segregation of the physiological body and idol image, through the example of Miku Hatsune and other virtual idols.

Overall Impressions
I found the book to be a reasonable and explicit overview of some of the basic theories and concepts that we take for granted as consumers of idol media, with a couple of applicable extensions scattered throughout. In essence, there is inherently nothing that we already "don't know" as participants in the fandom, but presents the ideas that we have acquired and framing our experiences as consumers into a more formal context. Put it simply, experience and "theory" cohabiting side-by-side or rather, theory that is informed and supported by experience.

Wota will definitely not be running out to buy Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture (and, given its academic nature, at £50 RRP, won't have the incentive to anyway), and I don't see a need for them to. Nor do I think this is a "mandatory read" for all idol fans - some would rather be guided wholly through experience and participation. But as an informative, theoretical and explicit discussion on the very fundamentals that explain our role within the fandom, as well as the social and cultural intricacies that our fandom is constructed through, it is well worth a read in its entirety.

References:
Galbraith P.G. & Karlin J.G. - Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture, 2012 Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Official Palgrave Macmillan product page here. Order from Palgrave Macmillan directly, through Bookworld (AUS only) or Amazon.