No offense taken in Tokyo, where the controversial video has received positive reviews.
While Avril Lavigne's "Hello Kitty" video has raised the hackles of plenty of Western pundits, thanks to imagery that many perceive as culturally insensitive -- robotic, creepy girls in a cupcake-themed stereotype-mart that Billboard.com called "Japan fetishization" -- the view from Tokyo is far more sanguine. In fact, one could argue that the country -- whose music market is worth close to $3 billion, 16 to 18 percent of which is international repertoire (mostly Anglo-American) -- is so used to being misunderstood by the West that this latest pop barrage is hardly worth a flinch. Other Japanese citizens, meanwhile, view the candy cane fluff as a tribute, however shallow, to their homeland. The video logged 12 million views in a week.
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Nobuyuki Hayashi, a well-known Tokyo-based tech and social media expert, concurs.
"Searches in the Japanese Twittersphere and blogsphere show that most of the reactions were favorable," he says, adding, "The people who are blaming the artist for racism are non-Japanese … but most Japanese people are not taking it that seriously."
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But there is one pop divide that Lavigne has yet to conquer. As Frank Takeshita, managing director of Live Nation Japan, notes: Other artists may have caught less flack for this kind of video. "This is a bad match with Avril's 'punk' image, and that's why people may think it could be making fun of Japanese culture," he says, adding that Sanrio, the company that created the Hello Kitty line, must have had approval on use of the famous cat's image. "If Katy Perry would have made this video, I do not think anyone would argue." In fact, Perry experienced a similar backlash when she performed at the 2013 American Music Awards in full Geisha garb. Said Perry stylist Johnny Wujek at the time: "Katy and I both love Japan ... There's so much there visually. We wanted to try and encompass that almost [as] a tribute." Almost.
Billboard
