The WellTempura'd Nation:

1
The Well-Tempura'd Nation
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Japan, television food shows, and cultural
nationalism
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Todd Joseph Miles Holden
By
Graduate School of International Cultural Studies
(GSICS)Tohoku UniversitySendai, Japan
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Prepared for the Asia-Pacific Sociological
Association
5th Conference
July 4th to 7th Brisbane, Australia
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Asia Pacific SocietiesContrasts, Challenges and
Crises

• Session
• Media, Culture and Identity

6
Abstract assertion
Food is not a trifling matter on Japanese
television. Aired year-round and positioned on
every channel in every time period throughout the
broadcast day, the lenses of food show are
calibrated at a wider angle than
heavily-trafficked samurai dramas, the national
sport beisuboru, or music shows.
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Abstract methods
In this paper I demonstrate this by reporting the
results of a systematically-collected,
qualitatively-analyzed sample of TV food
programming. The results reveal
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Abstract results (1)
At their simplest, food shows work (both in
isolation and as a unity) to reproduce
traditional Japanese cuisine and cultural mores,
educating viewers about regional customs and
history.
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Abstract results (2)
In this way, and perhaps most saliently,
food-talk engages nihonjinron -- the theory of
the uniqueness of Japanese culture. Food talk is
shown to be insular, exclusionary, reproductive,
and, therefore, serves as a powerful pull toward
cultural nationalism.
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Abstract results (3)

• In other ways, food-talk is socializing. It often
  is framed in the context of competition and
  teaches viewers about
• planning and aesthetics,
• imparting class values, and
• a consumption ethic.

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Abstract results (4)
Additionally, because it often arises in
conjunction with the appearance of television,
film, sports, and recording stars, food discourse
also works to reproduce popular culture.
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Abstract results (5)
Finally, despite its interior focus, whether
inadvertent or not, food shows also serve as
globalizers. They teach viewers about the
"peculiar" practices of far-away countries and
expose viewers to ideas, words, people and ways
of life beyond Japanese borders.
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Abstract results (6)
In this way, then, food shows can assist in
integrating outside influences and lifestyles
into Japan
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Abstract conclusions (1)

• Taken together, then, food shows serve not only
  as a medium for reproducing Japanese society, but
  a tool for decoding its deeper-most structure, as
  well.

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Abstract Conclusions 2)

• As such, they can serve as a means for greater
  theorization about Japan.

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Kani tabe (ni) iko, Ha ni kan de iko (Let's go
eat crab, Let's go bite crab)
Puffy, 1997
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• In 1997, the singing duo, Puffy, followed up
  their mega hits, Ajia no junshin (Asian purity)
  and Kore ga watashi no ikiru michi (This is the
  way I live), with a song whose key lyric
  concerned the pleasure of chomping crab.
  Throughout Japan--on radios, in variety shows, as
  backing in TV commercials, over speakers in
  elevators and restaurants, heavily trafficked in
  CD rental stores and karaoke boxes--Japanese were
  singing the praises of scarfing shellfish on the
  beach.

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Opening Observation

• This is not the only instance of food entering
  Japanese popular culture.
• In contemporary Japan, in contemporary J-Pop,
  food is everywhere.

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Premise

• Most often, though, food is not the main dish. It
  is part of a larger discourse centering on deeper
  socio-cultural themes, such as
• historical practices
  professionalism
• preparedness
  intelligence
• organization
  westernization
• aesthetics
  glo-calization
• pleasure
  Japanese uniqueness
• competition star
  culture
• capitalism health
  and body
• gender
  sexuality
• identity

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Aim of this Presentation

• To consider the social and cultural discourse
  that flows through food

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Perspectives
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Sociology of Culture

• Raymond Williams (198133-5)
• Any adequate sociology of culture must be an
  historical sociology
• It must recognize on the one hand, the variable
  relations between cultural producers and
  recognizable social institutions on the other
  hand, the variable relations in which cultural
  producers have been organized or have organized
  themselves, their formations.

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The Institutional Formation we consider is
Television

• TV is part of the increasingly capitalized
  corporate sector which produc(es art) for the
  market. This involves the conception of art as
  a commodity and of the artist as a particular
  kind of commodity producer. (Williams 198144)
• Television is a new media which has
  necessitated the rise of more complex and
  specialized means of production and
  distribution. (p.45).

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Socialization, Social Construction, Cultural
Reproduction

• Berger and Luckmann (1967)
• An institutional world tends to present society
  members with an objectified external reality.
• This objectivated social reality is
  internalized in the course of socialization
• It is then used to produce the conditions which
  will, in turn, reproduce that very same social
  reality.

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TVs Social Reproduction Function

• Television plays a major role in the
  socialization (internalization) and reproduction
  (maintenance) processesnurturing and
  replenishing a societal members cultural stock
  of knowledge.

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About Culture

• Culture is a verb
• -- Street (1993)
• Culture is an active process of meaning making
• Thus culture is ever in formation. It is
  constantly being re/produced through human
  action.
• This is opposed to the view (held in some
  quarters) that culture is an accoutrement, a
  tool, a mere element within a larger structure or
  milieu.

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About Cultural Studies

• Hall (1992) (Cultural Studies) has to analyze
  the constitutive and political nature of
  representation, itself.

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Thus in Media-Centered Studies of Culture

• One must focus on how the visual and verbal
  representations construct their object
• One must ask What is the image purporting to
  represent? How does the image construct the thing
  it is purporting to represent? (From Hall, ibid.)

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Food Shows are Media

• They are not just CONTENT.
• They serve as a conduit which transmits social
  content
• As media, they change relationships between
  people, as well as between people, their culture
  and society.

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Mapping this presentation

• Serves up a sample week of food programming on
  Japanese TV
• Looks at a handful of other programs pertaining
  to food
• Identifies some of the key cultural themes that
  emerge through the aegis of food on TV
• Considers a number of key ideas that are
  communicated in food-related TV advertising.

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A Content Analysis

• Key Analytic Categories
• Straight Cooking
• Food with Guests
• Cooking as Part of Show/Food Introduced during
  course of Show
• Food as an Element in Discovery of/ Travel to
  Place/Region

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A Most Conservative Accounting

• Food Shows amount to 5 of the programming
  between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on any given day.
• Food with Guests and Cooking as Part of the
  Show average 2 hours each per day.
• By Comparison News accounts for 15 of the
  broadcast day for all stations from 5 a.m. to
  Midnight
• These figures do not include the minutes in which
  food is introduced as a minor or inadvertent part
  of the show.

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Typical Examples of Inadvertent or Peripheral
food-discourse

• May 9, 2001 (late evening)
• Binbaba An entertainment show with singing and
  light talk contained a segment in which guests
  and staff tasted (and endured) exotic foods, such
  as toasted scorpions.
• Tonight 2 An adult (generally sexually-tinged)
  infotainment show featured two reporters trekking
  to Nagoya to sample parfaits, fried rice and
  Italian food. They introduced a dessert shop, a
  bistro and a small kitchen and brought ice cream
  back to the studio for on-air sampling.

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Typical Examples of Inadvertent or Peripheral
food-discourse

• May 25, 2002
• NHK News A visit to an elementary school in a
  small city hosting the Slovenian soccer team. The
  children at the school were sampling the food of
  Slovenia for an entire week during their lunch
  period.
• Commercial News Sports reporters were invited to
  a pre-World Cup event in which they were treated
  to an eleven course meal that would be offered to
  VIP ticket holders at the up-coming world cup
  event.

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Gendering Implicit in Food Shows

• Beyond the names of regular food shows (such as
  Letsu! Okusama hiken Lets! Wife, you must see)
  is the gendering implicit in time distribution.
• Those between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m fall
  disproportionately between 8 and 10 a.m. and 4
  and 6 p.m.times that most salaried men are
  presumably not able to view TV.
• Indeed, the patterning suggests that the target
  population is women who will have some time just
  after their husbands and children have departed
  for the outside world and prior to their return
  at the dinner hour. It also affords ample time in
  the late morning/early afternoon for out-of-doors
  shopping.

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A Sample Week of Food Discourse
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SMAP x SMAP
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Ninki mono de ikou
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Tonnerus no nama de daradara ikasette
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Thursday, 900 p.m. Douchi no ryori shiou (Which
one? Cooking Show)
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Douchi!? (Which one!?)
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Douchi!? (Which one!?)
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Friday, 1100 p.m. Ryori no tetsujin. (The
Ironmen of Cooking)
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Friday, 1100 p.m. Ryori no tetsujin. (The
Ironmen of Cooking)

• Society as War

This show, which ran for 300 plus airings was
retired last year. Like sumo the weak were thrown
into the ring with the strong. The challengers
were Japanese (or operated in Japan), though
occasionally they came from overseas. Almost
without exception they were men. The strong were
four teachers from Hattori senmon gakko, arguably
the premier training ground for chefs in Japan.
Each sensei specialized in a particular cuisine
Japanese, Chinese, French or Italian.
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Friday, 1100 p.m. Ryori no tetsujin. (The
Ironmen of Cooking)

• The challenger could choose which chef he would
  battle.
• Both were allowed to bring a team to assist.
• The chefs were provided with fully-equipped
  kitchens positioned side by side on a sprawling
  sound stage
• They prepared a full-course meal for four
  celebrity judges within a set time frame (usually
  one hour).
• Just prior to start time they were informed which
  one ingredient had to be used in every course.
• The contestants had to finish within time AND
  satisfy the judges' in terms of planning,
  creativity, composition, aesthetics and taste.

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Society as War

• A reporter and cameras waded into the trenches,
  conducting interviews and offering play-by-play.
• Jump-cut editing quickened the pace of the show
• A running clock added suspense
• Consistent with one message encoded in Japanese
  history was this it is very hard to defeat the
  big power. Hattori senmon gakko usually won

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Ryori no tetsujin
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Saturday 1100 p.m. Chyu-bo-desu yo (Its a
Chefs Kitchen!)
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Chyu-bo-desu yo
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Other Shows of Note

• Gotchi Batoru
• Zumu-inu Asa
• Letsu! Okusama Hiken
• Oban desu!

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Thursdays 900. Tunnerusu no minasan no okage
deshita. ("Tunnels' because of everyone")

• In this show, cooking is a regular corner.
• Two guests--a male and femaleseek to guess which
  of 4 prepared dishes includes one item that the
  other guest absolutely detests.

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Thursdays 900. Tunnerusu no minasan no okage
deshita. ("Tunnels' because of everyone")
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Thursdays 900. Tunnerusu no minasan no okage
deshita. ("Tunnels' because of everyone")

• There is more than a bit of sadism in this show
  as the guest is forced to continually eat
  something that turns his or her stomach--all the
  while smiling and pretending s/he loves it. In
  many ways this suits the Japanese cultural value
  of gaman, of bearing up under intolerable
  conditions.

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Friday 700 p.m. Gotchi Batoru (Banquet Battle/(I
will) Treat (you) Battle)

• A pun meaning both Banquet Battle as well as
  I will treat you, Battle
• SCENARIO a group (4 Gotchi regulars and
  (usually) 1 guest go to a famous restaurant in
  Tokyo. The restaurant can be Italian, French,
  Chinese, Japanese All members must guess the
  price of the dish served to them. The person
  whose guess is farthest from the true price must
  purchase everyones meal.

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Gotchi Batoru

• An Info-tainment Show in that
• a narrator describes the ingredients of the dish
• the audience views the chef preparing the dish
• the patrons discuss the food as they taste and
  guess its price
• Advisories flash on the screen informing the
  audience whether a guess is close or far off.

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Zumu-inu Asa

• Regional reporters stationed throughout Japan
  introduce the cuisine in their particular local
  beat.

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Letsu! Okusama Hiken

• SCENARIO a reporter strolls through a
  neighborhood, knocks on a door, invites
  him/herself in and shows the TV audience what is
  being prepared for dinner or else what has
  already been consumed by the family inside.

Okusama, konya no okazu wa?
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Oban desu!

• At the local level, all 3 networks have their own
  news/infotainment shows which feature a food
  corner.
• In Oban desu! viewers send recipes into the
  station and the shows hosts try cooking a
  selected recipe on air. After they have completed
  the task, they call up the person who submitted
  the recipe and ask our effort came out like
  thisis that how it is supposed to be?

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Oban Desu!

• In this way food is the medium for interaction
  and participation in public culture. It also
  involves, to however small a degree, performance
  and identity.

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Saturday 1200 p.m. Merenge no kimochi (Feelings
Like Meringue)
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Saturday 1200 p.m. Merenge no kimochi (Feelings
Like Meringue)

• Like many food shows, Meringue uses food as a
  vehicle for understanding another human being. In
  this show it is a star (author, comedian, singer,
  actor). The person (generally male) will be
  interviewed by 3 female hosts and then
  introduce the hosts and audience to a food that
  they like to cook.

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Sunday 600 p.m. Riori Banzai (Hail Cooking)
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Riori Banzai
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Ubiquity / Invisibility

• Well beyond the formal data that can be
  identified by coding TV Guides and content
  analyzing TV shows whose conscious definition or
  primary theme is food
• Is the informal, invisible data that floods TV
  programming about food

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Ubiquity / Invisibility

• In short, food is present in an overwhelming
  number of showseven those which have nothing to
  do with food.
• Shows like quiz shows, sports, news, travel, and
  late night talk shows

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Continuity Editing

• Advertising plays an enormous role in placing
  food at the center of Japanese society

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Function of Ads

• Used as a device to heighten tension or
  underscore the shows major themes
• Ads interrupt
• just before a judges decision (SMAPxSMAP,
  Douchi, Tetsujin)
• when it is revealed whether the host can follow
  the correct procedure (Tonnerus)
• before the delivery of the punchline to a story
  a guest is telling (Merengue)
• prior to announcing which star correctly
  evaluated an item (Ninki mono).

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Ad Function

• But ads are not departures from the world of
  food, as a large proportion of them are devoted
  to edible items.
• In this way, they underscore food's intimate
  relationship to economy--a point that SMAPxSMAP
  and Meringue make with their tie-in goods and
  yearly recipe books offered for sale. A point
  underscored by shows which provide maps to and
  menus of the restaurants where the weekly chefs
  operate.

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Food Ads on TV some numerical data
   
   
 
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Most Frequent Ad Categories (Collapsed)
 
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Top Categories of Ads (Itemized)
 
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Top Categories of Ads (Itemized)
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Qualitative as well as Quantitative

• Just in terms of numbers, then, advertising
  serves to reproduce food-culture in Japan
• However, qualitatively, as well, the content of
  food-ads works to emphasize themes that are most
  central to social structure and in social
  consciousness

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Emphasis on secondary socio-cultural discourse.
Embedded in this commercial discourse one finds
deeper social themes such as health, diet, gender
roles, sexuality, race, globalization, even death.
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Predominant themes include

• Gender Roles Health
• Sexuality Diet
• Sexism Fitness
• Body Star-cult
• Consumption Identity
• Nationalism

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Gender Roles
Food ads reinforce the message that women stay
inside and cook while men go out and play
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Gender Roles
Or else that women wait at home for their
husbands, who they happily greet at the end of
the day with a warm meal
78
Gender Roles
Ads reinforce the idea that women are food
shoppers
And that that they set high standards for
freshness which must be met in their kitchen
79
Gender Roles
Ads continually send us the message that women
keep their families nourished, healthy and
happyeven when they have moved away to college
or work in another city.
80
Sexuality
Through food comes discourse about heterosexual
intimacy
81
Sexuality
And women as the objects of lesbian fantasy
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Sexuality
So, too, physical contact and the expression of
emotion are present in ad text
83
Sexuality
Food also is the occasion to present men as
desired subjects
84
Sexism
And food ads are a medium through which women are
continually partialized
85
Sexism
In food ads, women are ever objectified, taken
advantage of, and put on display
86
Body
Part and parcel of this trend is the emphasis on
bodies
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Body
Both for women
And men
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Health

• Ads for energy drinks and antacids often focus on
  the difficult life of the salary-man

Which, of course, also reproduces notions of
gender roles
89
Nationalism

• Aside from the flag-mimicking trademarks of many
  food companies, ad text often makes reference to
  nationalism

90
Nationalism

• In this ad, a man is preparing food in his
  kitchen, only to find himself transported onto a
  tennis court, facing a powerful foreign player,
  armed only with a frying pan.

When the egg simmers in the pan, it appears as a
percolating Hinomaru
91
Identity

• A large area of secondary discourse in food ads

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Identity Example 1
A Japanese woman bumps into an Indian man on the
street
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Identity Ex.1
She thinks Oh! CurryWhich she promptly
rushes home to eat.
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Identity Example 2
What would you like? the waiter asks
Cut back to the customer who says I think Ill
have Sato rice cakes!
Cut to a room full of patrons who chant Sato
rice cakes
95
Identity Example 3
"Even if its raining, don't let it bother you"
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Identity Ki ni Shinai(dont worry/dont let it
bother you)
"Even if they laugh at you, don't let it bother
you"
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Identity Ki ni Shinai(dont worry/dont let it
bother you)
"Even if you don't know, don't let it bother you."
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Conclusion
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What is Food?

• While a considerable amount of primary ad
  discourse is centered around food, it is ersatz
  food (vitamin-enriched waters, sugarless gums,
  food supplements) which has recently come to
  dominate ad space.

100
Challenging Old Conceptions and Patterns

• Not only does this signal a change in dietary
  habits, it suggests changes in human behavior and
  orientation toward a face-paced lifestyle,
  convenience, rapid consumption, disposable goods,
  solitary living, eating away from home.

101
What Food Talk Tells Us

• Food is often framed in the context of
  competition
• It teaches viewers about planning and aesthetics
• It imparts class values
• It encourages a consumption ethic
• Because it is intertwined with singers, actors,
  artists, comedians, and sports heroes, food
  discourse is also inevitably about the
  reproduction of popular culture.

102
Food for Conclusion

• One question remains "why food?
• What is it that qualifies foods as a suitable
  source and medium for filtering the raw material
  of popular culture?
• For one, food is something that all Japanese
  share in common. It is an essential part of daily
  life.

103
Food for Conclusion

• Beyond that, though, there is the legacy of the
  not-so-distant past.
• Embedded in the consciousness of nearly a third
  of the population is an era of food shortage,
  which has given rise to overwhelming abundance.

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TV's food-talk is of interest to almost all
viewers

• Because of foods history (the agrarian basis of
  Japan its postwar saga from dearth to bounty)
• Foods place in Japanese folklore (animist roots
  and ritual)
• Its ubiquity
• Its easy availability to nearly all societal
  members and
• Its penetration into many aspects of everyday
  life.

105
Food is a Part of the Structure of Every Viewers
Life

• Thus, it serves as a fathomable conduit for all
  manner of other talk.
• To invoke information theory, there is very
  little noise on the channel when food is
  involved, so pure information can pass unfettered.

106
Bringing Food Talk within the Orbit of the
Opening Concepts
107
An analysis informed by Cultural Studies,
Semiology, and Sociology of Knowledge and
Sociology of Culture suggests

• Food Discourse
• Communicates about the nature of society
• Reproduces the basic structures and values of
  that society
• Socializes member/viewers into the logics and
  behaviors of that society

108
Via Commercials

• food serves as a medium for the processing of
  gender-related themes, sex-roles, body, health,
  sexuality, nationalism and identity

109
In TV programs

• In looking at the numerous segments that
  introduce food in the course of travel or meeting
  guests
• We see that food is used as a means to
  decode/understand a person or place.
• This is equally true whether the place is
  Nairobi, Hakodate or Tokyo whether the person is
  Jackie Chan or Kimura Takuya.

110
PROXIMATE EFFECTS

• The array of food discourse works to
• reproduce traditional Japanese cuisine and
  cultural mores
• educate viewers about regional customs and
  history
• teach viewers about the "peculiar" practices of
  far-away countries
• Thereby engaging the global/local dialectic.

111
ULTIMATE EFFECTS

• Sustained food discourse aids in reproducing
  nihonjinron--the spread of views about the
  uniqueness of Japanese culture.
• As such, food talk tends toward cultural
  nationalism.
• At the same time, food talk assists the
  integration of outside influences and lifestyles
  into Japanese society.