Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Otaku: The Japanese Nerds Stand Tall and Proud
In my continued research on nerd / geek culture, costuming, the immasculated male, my head keeps turning to Japan, and my fascination for the Otaku, the Japanese nerd, is starting to verge on obsession! They "live out their fantasies at 'maid cafes' " and the funny thing is, I hear there is one here in our very own city of Lost Angels!
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6456136
Have you read Jenkins' chapter, "Pop Cosmopolitanism," from his Fans, Bloggers and Gamers? He talks quite a bit about the otaku there and how they serve as conduits for transnational circulations of popular culture -- that's an oversimplified summation. Anyway, you might find it interesting...
Thanks for the reference...Tara also mentioned it to me. I found it vastly relevant! Much appreciated.
I don't know quite where to stand about the balance between indulging and celebrating in one's femininity and the refusal to embrace the feminine because it is the image women are traditionally expected by society to portray.
2nd wave feminists would probably object, I'm assuming to the kind of "maid" dress-up play that comes with the otaku cafe scene. But these practices have evolved, and the way that boys sometimes participate in dressing up as "maid" girls indicates something progressive.
At some point, the mocking or "playing-out" of any gender role seems constructive; notions get toyed with, and as a result, we see that these concepts are quite malleable ones.
Being excessively concerned with rejecting traditional gender constructs or images of gender can in other ways prove to be as restrictive as residing closely within their delineations.
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