Psychologically, the yearning for beautiful things is out of human nature. And "cute culture" highlights this point, which makes people feel happy when they see what they like (even if they are usually called "cute"), thus achieving * * *.
The social reasons for the formation of Meng culture are closely related to the tense pace of life in Japan and the long-standing "Meng culture" (Meng culture is also a branch of Meng culture). When the "lovely culture" enters the vision of the younger generation, coupled with the invisible pressure of study or career in life, they begin to forget themselves temporarily in the lovely culture (now generally referred to as ACGN culture) in order to get a spiritual rest.
As more and more people understand this culture, people who like it are constantly emerging. Most of them have a stable life and income, and experience or spread this culture purely out of hobbies. Over time, many vendors selling secondary products (so-called "2.5 yuan") have gathered in reality, and "Meng Culture" has its own publicity place. Because the theme of "Meng Culture" is relaxed and rich, it can cater to many people's different aesthetics and is easy to be accepted, so it spreads quickly and has more and more audiences, forming today's "Meng Culture".
Turn to Wang Yonghao's The Power of Childlike Mind.
Since 1980s, Japan's "lovely culture" has become popular among young people in Asia. Later, it became famous in Europe and America because of the special exhibition of the Paris Foundation for Modern Art and the concentrated discussion of Harvard East Asian scholars. The latter also used the word "CUTISM" to summarize its influence, making the original simple fashion catchwords as otherworldly as Dadaism and Cubism.
In Japan, Yasuhiko Sifang, a professor at Meiji University, took the lead in this research. His "On Cuteness-The First Book about Cuteness" was published five years ago. It is not long, but from the etymology of "Cuteness", this paper discusses the historical changes of the word and its special meaning that cannot be found in foreign languages. Impressively, although the author used the tone of proposing discussion, he expressed his confident judgment that this culture can be compared with the "mourning" aesthetics of the nobles in the eleventh century, the "mystery" aesthetics of the poets in the thirteenth century, the "leisure and silence" of the tea ceremony in the sixteenth century and the "essence" of the geisha in the eighteenth century. He called this culture "Japanese aesthetics in 2 1 century".
At first glance, this judgment is not wrong, because since the 1980s, "cute culture" has really made a lot of noise in Japan, and it has invaded every aspect of Japanese life with animation, film and television and AV as carriers. Of course, young women are the most affected. They are scrambling to catch up with all lovely fashions. In order to converge with them as much as possible, they insist on wearing school uniforms, inconvenient Lolita costumes or princess costumes on rest days, and even imitate children's styles with children's voices. Strictly speaking, although Hello Kitty toys and heart-shaped fake diamonds are regarded as favorites, they reject all other interests, which means they are either the same or different. All these ethos, coupled with incredible extraordinary performance, are far from being exhaustive in the author's book.
Such crazy burning gave birth to a sub-ecological "Meng culture" in the new millennium. It refers to people's uncontrollable love for all lovely things. In this regard, as usual, the book only gives a simple description by introducing rotten women, homosexuals and fans in Tokyo's Meng area. It is true that women are "cute" because they want to "confirm that they belong to a small intimate isomorphism", but how to be "cute", "sell cute", how to say "cute words", pursue "cute points", engage in "cute wars" and then yearn for "cute", why does this originate from Akihabara's "ギャ"
In addition, the author seems to think that "lovely culture" belongs to the category of "girl culture", and men are not so obsessed. This judgment is also very suspicious. Needless to say, according to common sense, men are not "cute" and women don't have to fight for "cute". In other words, as a matter of fact, quite a few men are obsessed with "cuteness" and even "selling cuteness": they not only use cartoon mobile phone stickers in their lives, but also hang plush toys on their satchels and go to beauty salons to trim their eyebrows from time to time. Such scenery and emotional appeal are sometimes enchanting and charming, no less than women. The so-called "cute psychology" often refers to men's love for "cute". This feeling has also been transferred and projected to all aspects of men's lives, so that cute cartoon drawings have appeared from electrical product manuals to economic professional books. Even in recent years, police stations all over Japan have played "cute" cards, and even the recruitment advertisements of the Self-Defense Forces have launched "cute versions". All this caters to men's "so cute" psychology.
Most importantly, from the age and gender of addicts, the "cute culture" not only covers boys and girls, but also the elderly are considered to be happy only when they are "cute". Therefore, JJ and other popular women's magazines will put forward the proposition that "adults are cute", and many elderly people also pay attention to pretending to be gentle and obedient in their lives to close the relationship with the younger generation. The author quotes the sociologist Chizuko Ueno's criticism of this phenomenon, but fails to point out the feminist identity of Neusoft University professor. Moreover, her criticism is not based on anti-utilitarianism in the general sense, but that this act of pretending to be "cute" is actually a "temptation package" for women, with the aim of continuing to attach to the patriarchal social framework and expanding women's living space. This is consistent with her insistence that women should not be bound to the role of women. But the book does not discuss the cross-era projection of "lovely culture".
From the cognition and recognition of drug addicts, the meaning boundary of "cuteness" is enlarged beyond common sense and common sense, and even becomes an omnipotent myth and curse. For example, although a child or girl is "cute", later, even her old grandmother and her boss's big belly are considered "cute". What's more, many disgusting things are actually so cute that "きもぃかわぃ" and "かわぃ" that express nausea can be combined into "きもかわ". As the author said, this. They pull each other and overlap each other. Of course, this aspect of the written expression is not limited to this, and there are expressions like "ふずかわ" (ugly and lovely), which we originally wanted to see from the book.
But all of the above are only incomplete and incomplete. What makes people feel dissatisfied is the lack of revelation behind this culture in the book. Because the cartoon culture characterized by cuteness is popular all over the world, the economic benefits brought by it are more considerable. In recent years, there have been many discussions in Japanese society, from the folk to the government, about building a "cuteness economy" and exporting the country's soft power with "cool Japan". Following the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism regards Hello Kitty as a goodwill ambassador for tourism, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also launched a "lovely ambassador" composed of three high school girls, whose image is taken from the common "little sister" on the streets of Harajuku. The mascots and Logo launched by prefectures and counties all over Japan are in line with the "cute" way. Perhaps based on this, the author is quite optimistic about the development prospect of this culture, and the evaluation is quite positive. Some comments are generally confident and optimistic. In 2007, Taiwan Province Tianxia Culture published a translation of Chen Guangbang, entitled "Lovely Power", which seems to be influenced by this optimism. But the question is, is this a positive force?
The Japanese like to say "strength" about everything. A while ago, Junichi Watanabe said that if a person is dull and dull, he will not be easily hurt by foreign objects, but will be tough for a long time. Not long ago, Murakami Takashi talked about "naivety". In 2003, he published the Manifesto of Innocence, which boldly and frankly carried forward his post-modern art view, which was deeply influenced by animation and focused on "otaku" culture. He also invented Japanese English "Superflat" to refer to the "super flat" style created by individuals based on two-dimensional planes. Because this style has obvious and strong "cute" elements, many art critics regard it as the representative of "cute culture". In fact, what he really means is to express the denial of the barrenness and lack of depth of Japanese pop culture, and the naive and brain-dead irony that Japan can't take responsibility and make its own decisions after the war. Unfortunately, many Japanese people don't know what this means at all. They just use the word "childish power" to make themselves proud, thinking that the more naive they are, the more they can form power, or that only childishness can form power. This book does not comment on the true meaning of this "childish power" and its relationship with "lovely culture", or even make the most general introduction and discussion. This seems to remind people that the author lacks a deep understanding of the complexity of mass culture under the post-modern background, and then lacks sufficient understanding of the social problems hidden behind this culture.
The social problem behind this culture is that the Japanese are completely self-enclosed and do not want to grow up, resulting in lax cohesion, declining learning ability and lack of sense of responsibility. These problems can be seen from the popularity of "cute culture", or it is this overwhelming "cute" trend that has caused the downward decline of Japanese society today.
It is worth comparing that this judgment was also made by the Japanese. In today's Japanese society, young people want to stay at 19 years old and never grow up. Even when they grow up, they don't want to get married. Even if there is, I just want to comfort myself with "asexual marriage" to cope with "no society" Therefore, more than 6 1% of men and 49% of women have no contact, and more than 50% of marriageable men and women do not want to contact. Then, up to 70% of men and women seek spiritual comfort in "cute goods". Some Japanese people have strong anxiety. They think that there is no other cultural significance behind such pure naivety, which is simply not enough to constitute resistance and resistance to social rules. That is to say, in the pursuit of "cute goods", people are addicted to such animation games and book ornaments all day, or take pleasure in collecting and exchanging "cute toys", so that adult toys account for 70% of the entire Japanese toy market. From eighteen to sixty-nine, 84% people have at least one, and 50% people have more than twenty. Some male players, for them, are toys. As Winnie Court, a British pediatrician, said, they have simply become "transitional objects", replacing their stubborn fantasies about their mothers. This is not a typical childish or even mentally retarded thing!
Although the author touched on this, such as introducing Shungiku Uchida's cartoon Xiao Nan's Lover in the late 1980s, and suggesting that this was actually a precursor for an "otaku" to taste the pleasure of seclusion with a doll imitating a beautiful girl, it is a pity that he did not further explore how the obsession with "lovely culture" meant escaping from the unlovable reality. In fact, many otaku frequently patronize the maid coffee shop in Akihabara because of the "cute" image of the maid in the animation, and listen to her gently sing Mando of "You're Back"; Or go to romantic places such as "the home of mature women" and "the night hides the moon", hoping to use the experience and words of the eldest daughter in those years to alleviate personal inner anxiety; Or turn to a special intermediary company to get psychological compensation for "coming back yesterday" from the woman who looked for her like her mother ... All these things, even women who are obsessed with "cuteness" feel naive about "eight tones", which could have explained their inner fragility and immaturity. But every time I write to such a place, the author stops.
In sharp contrast with なぜかくもになったのか ("Why the Japanese have become so naive") written by Ye He Fukuda, a professor and critic at Keio University, is Haruki Kadokawa's office. In the book, Fukuda said how painful it was. The original idea is that if childishness is not a defect, but "loveliness", then there is really no reason for people to ask themselves to grow up. And Qian Shibao, director of Japan Youth Research Institute, and Fan Yi, a novelist of "まじめののたち" (Serious Collapse-Young People in Japan) and "サママル". "Adult" here refers to both physical age and mental maturity. The most famous is Kenichi Ohmae, who, in "A Society with Low IQ", felt that the younger generation had no desire, no progress, neglected to study and gave up thinking, and called this phenomenon "idiot" that they only cared about things within three meters, only knew passive escape and had no sense of responsibility. All kinds of "stupid phenomena" he summarized, from economic illiteracy and retarded officials to the popularity and spoofing of soap operas, many people regard ignorance as their own personality, so that their vocabulary is single and their words are vulgar, and some of them are recognized as "cute" by this society. He thinks this is the problem.
Speaking of it, it is human nature to like small animals, even everything with larval characteristics, so that adults still have some larval characteristics in their hearts to varying degrees, which is what Austrian zoologist Conrad Lorenz said. But in today's Japan, the tradition of introversion, seriousness and preciseness has been abandoned, and innocence has become stupid. The atmosphere of the whole society is constantly reminding and disciplining people-you must enlarge and strengthen this "cute" idol in your heart and assimilate it as much as possible in your subconscious; You must be a naive idiot to become a happy member of this society. What a terrible society! Therefore, some Japanese pointed out that if you pursue "Kawaii" so much, it will easily become "crying wow" (Japanese "fear" means fear). Compared with this grim observation, the author's judgment that "the whole world is overwhelmed by' cuteness'" is somewhat optimistic. In fact, many observers of different cultures are just surprised. In their minds, neil Pozmann's book The Disappearance of Childhood can explain everything they see, the disappearance of the boundary between children and adults, and the naivety of adults caused by media technology. Not only that, but also scholars from East Asia. In Hong Kong, which is deeply influenced by the author's "lovely culture", Liu Lier's "Japan's present progressive form" published by Ming Pao also discusses the problem of "accelerating the declining birthrate in Japanese society". These are more thought-provoking than this book.
Of course, considering that the author specializes in film history, in the postscript and postscript of the book, he directly accepts that "there are some things I haven't written yet, if only I could delve into some problems", "I don't have enough knowledge reserves for contemporary girl culture" and "I don't care about the topics discussed by otaku", and his personality is free and easy, and he pays too much attention to the sense of scene and interest brought by field trips and questionnaires. Perhaps, combined with the later published World Revolution (Lovely World Revolution, 2009) and Empire (Lovely Empire), the author Gu Helingzi. In particular, Sakurai, as a writer, a producer of print media, a pop culture consultant of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and an advocate of "Cute Ambassador", seems to have a more professional analysis of why "Cute" has become the lingua franca in the world, and a deeper analysis of why a girl like Paris has become a Japanese woman.
Finally, I want to discuss the historical and cultural background of Japanese obsession with "cute culture", and borrow the author's expression, that is, whether "cute" is "a special aesthetic unique to Japan". In this respect, as usual, this book has a little taste, but it can be classified as "Japanese culture without Japanese flavor" by Iwakuni Koichi.
But this is still specious. We admit that in Japan, most things spread to the world in the name of "lovely culture" are developed from popular culture, but we can't agree that it has nothing to do with Japanese culture and national character condensed from this culture. When discussing Japanese people's soft spot for "shrinking" and being good at discovering "immature beauty", the author talks about the relationship between "loveliness" and Japanese culture, which reminds people of the cliché that western culture advocates eternity, grandeur and maturity, while Japanese culture advocates modesty, delicacy and innocence. Interestingly, he quoted donald richie, an American film critic who has lived in Japan for nearly half a century. Because he likes immature things with childishness, the Japanese often deliberately project their childish images around him to attract others' attention. Because of this, MacArthur will say that "Japanese are all twelve-year-old nationals".
This reminds people of the famous book The Structure of Gan written by psychiatrist Ken Langtuju (coquetry structure, hall, 197 1). He pointed out that almost all Japanese people have a lifelong dependence on their mothers, which is a unique feature of the Japanese. In the future, this trait will also affect the interpersonal relationship in Japan, resulting in an emotional connection like "quasi-family" even within the company. This can explain why in Japan, subordinates pretend to be "cute" in front of their superiors, who will not feel embarrassed, but colleagues will feel normal. Moreover, if they used this naive innocence to overcome the mental anxiety caused by the drastic changes in modernization, it has now been completely transformed into a strategic response to world recession and indifference. The meaning of "doing" is often interpreted as "pampering" or "falling in love". This kind of affection is actually the psychological basis for young people to love "lovely culture", and it is also the fact that all Japanese people will use the word "lovely" to cover up the truth whenever they are unable or unwilling to praise each other with "elegance", "beauty" and "coolness". Although the other party may not accept it, you can't refuse the love and affection of the other party.
Others, such as psychoanalyst Kiki Kojima, also pointed out in the book The Age of People in Mental Preparation (Central Public Comment Institute, 1978): In fact, every Japanese is deeply hidden by superficial social consciousness. Therefore, Kazuo, who studies maternal society and Japanese social pathology, will say that if we look at Japanese folk traditions from the perspective of "women" instead of "men", we will find that the Japanese self is closer to women, and even if there is a blind cover-up of patriarchy in the social system, it is difficult to hide this trait. It goes without saying that women, that is, men, are completely unaware of the difficulties that Japanese people have in accepting the domestication of "lovely culture", and the reasons are self-evident.
Think again about the extreme metamorphosis under the ubiquitous negative resistance in Japanese literature, which often has childish willfulness and triviality behind it; There are also many "herbivorous men" around us who are surprisingly indifferent to women today, and there is often a strong and extreme dependence on their mothers behind them. Our feeling is that it is almost futile to hide the Japanese identity of "lovely culture". But the author wants to highlight the "odorless" and the possibility of "sweeping the world" of this culture. This kind of obstinate boasting, which is not without pampering, is actually a self-proof of the above cultural characteristics. Although the author himself may not realize this.