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Thane Camus’ Finest Foreign Language School

While doing a little searching around on YouTube yesterday, I came across some classic clips of Funniest Language School (ファニエスト外語学院駅長編), a series of comedy segments in which white foreigner Thane Camus puts a group of clownishly stupid Africans in situations where they end up being rude making lots of funny Japanese mistakes. It was through this show that Nigerian Bobby Ologun became a household name in Japan, much to the dismay of quite a few foreign residents of this country.

The videos on YouTube lack English subtitles, but rather than translate each individual video, which would take more time than I have, I’ll just let you know the basic pattern of every single gag in the videos:

Thane Camus leads the Africans into a situation and gives them a task to perform.
Africans act stupid and rude, making an effort to screw up everything they say in Japanese. (Often their mistakes include clever replacements of certain words in phrases or puns.)
Thane Camus calls them on their dumb mistakes and offers apologies to the Japanese victims of their rudeness.

YouTube user ttz100 has uploaded a total of 38 clips of the series, which might account for almost every one ever produced.

Here are a few examples from the collection:

——

The Africans go to Kumagaya Station in Saitama Prefecture, where they do some work for the Chichibu Railway, where they screw with customers at the ticket counter and Bobby makes some dumb mistakes over the announcement system:

——

The Africans work at a Book-Off store in Harajuku, where they use rude language towards customers and screw up answering the phones:

——

The Africans get some lessons on how to sell mobile phones, and then work at an AU shop, where Bobby plays with a phone like it’s an alligator:

——

The Africans tour Nikko, where they try out some Zen meditation and get beaten with a stick:

Part 1

Part 2

——

Since these shows aired before I started living in Japan or watching Japanese TV, although I had often heard about them, I had never actually seen them until yesterday. Based on what I’ve seen, the show seems to live up to the negative reputation it has among certain groups of foreigners in Japan.

Does this show promote a negative stereotype of Africans?

30 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - January 14, 2008 at 6:37 am

Categories: Discrimination, Foreigners in Japan, Japanese TV Tags: africans, Bobby Ologun, japan, japanese, racism, thane camus, TV, youtube

hkb

I find it really entertaining and funny. Everyone watching this will notice that Bobby is being stupid on purpose. He’s just goofng around when doing those announcements (most of the time anyway), and that’s what the program’s about.

You can never make too much fun of yourself when being a foreigner in Japan, especially not when people expect you to do so.

The show isn’t promoting anything. It’s just plain fun. No Japanese person will see this and decide “Oh right, kokujjin must all be stupid”.

doinkies

I personally always found Bobby’s act rather annoying, especially the voice he puts on. I like Thane Camus’s other Karakuri TV segments like “Funniest English” and “Funniest Japanese” better.
Marcus

You couldn’t be more wrong. Most of, if not all Japanese persons watching this will think Africans are stupid, even if it’s just subconsciously.

I really do think they’re funny though, and I wouldn’t blame Bobby or the other 2 guys for being good at acting stupid.

Yukes

This show doesn’t promote anything negative about Africans. This is all about the common funny mistakes by (any) foreigners in Japan and just goof-balling.

If someone believes this program promotes negative Africans, that person obviously already has got some negative images of Africans before watching the show.

http://www.eigoninja.com/secretjapan Jamie

Very few things make me LOL anymore, and this was one of them~ Thank you very much!
http://www.eigoninja.com/secretjapan Jamie

ps: i agree with HKB with regards to this promoting negative views of africans. if anything, it would be a positive view of “them” being funny that is promoted!

James, you seem to have an overblown negative view of Japan after living here for quite a while (I imagine). The way you say “I’ve only ever heard of these kinds of show” – these kinds being what exactly? Comedy? Perhaps you need to chill out and stop assuming that Japan hates foreigners, because it simply couldnt be further from the truth.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

I’m not sure where you got that quote of me stating “I’ve only ever heard of these kinds of show.” In the post I mention only having heard of this particular show, which is pretty well-known among foreigners who have been in Japan for a while. Here are a couple examples of it being mentioned on the internet:

http://www.gaijinsmash.net/archives/bobby.phtml
http://bigdaikon.org/board/viewtopic.php?p=876023&sid=c2304c285d4cf06006eb5f923a5e87bd

My view is that the creators of this show did not set out to promote a negative view of Africans. However, by putting Bobby’s bug-eyed negro clown act (much of which is probably his own creation) on TV, a view of Africans as funny Bobby-like clowns is furthered. As a white American this doesn’t cause problems for me, but my friends over here who are black males have had to deal with frequently being compared to Bobby, something that makes them feel like shit. I tend to agree with the Gaijin Smash guy’s view that the very limited number of Africans in Japan plays a larger role in this situation that some sort of anti-foreign feeling among the Japanese.

I don’t assume Japan hates foreigners. You assume that because I sometimes post about situations in which foreigners face problems in Japan, I have some sort of overblown negative view of Japan. If I thought Japan hated foreigners, I wouldn’t be living here.

http://www.eigoninja.com/secretjapan Jamie

Sorry, I must have misinterpreted this: “Since these shows aired before I started living in Japan or watching Japanese TV, although I had often heard about them”. My mind must have put a “kind of” in there.

Interesting point though. I’m not African either, nor to be brutally honest do I have any african friends in Japan, so I’m not in a position to see how this might affect them. Perhaps even, the fact that I found them to be hilarious just exposes myself to being the same kind of racist as most Japanese in this regard.

The gaijinsmash article is pretty eye opening – never had that situation myself since I dont look like anyone in particular… but Im not going to lower myself to reading the detritus that is posted on bigdaikon – that place is a breeding ground for hate and discrimation and should be avoided in any serious discussion.

Anyways, good points James – my apologies~

Aside, how long HAVE you been here? I find my own personal love/hate Japan cycle to rotate roughly every 6 months (for 4 1/2 years now)! Right now Im on a love phase, but I suspect it’ll be over by next month…

abc

Does finding these clips funny mean you’re racist? Well, it depends on why you found them funny.

Would you have found it as funny if instead of three Africans, those three guys were Asians for example? What if instead of Thane Camus, the teacher was an Afro-American or African teaching three white Westerners?
ponta

“Would you have found it as funny if instead of three Africans, those three guys were Asians for example? What if instead of Thane Camus, the teacher was an Afro-American or African teaching three white Westerners?”

That is also funny.

Claytonian

I don’t think we can hold an African living in Japan to the promoting a bug-eyed negro stereotype because that seems to be an thing from the early American films. I could be wrong on that.
I also doubt that his use of puns makes him appear as anything but a deceptively intelligent entertainer.
Much as it may pain some people out there, I like these clips.

I feel for gaijin smash guy though, as much as one can. I have been called things like Tom Cruise and it is infuriating.

abc

The problem is that there are very few African talento in Japan, and the ones which are well known pretend to speak bad Japanese, while, for example, there are white talento which are as clownish, there are also people like Thane Camus and Dave Spector for example, who are well known for speaking fluent Japanese.

It is not so much the portrayal of a certain group in a certain way that is racist or discriminatory as is the disproportionality of how that group is depicted which can implant or reinforce stereotypes, racist or not, in the mind of the audience.

You may think it’s just TV, it’s just for laughs, but many people get their ideas about how Africans, Americans, Asians, Middle-Easterners, South-Americans etc. solely from what they see on TV.

An example is the Korean wave, many Japanese women started dreaming of finding a Korean husband after seeing Korean TV series, and because many of these series are about romance, they believe Korean men are more romantic than Japanese. This stereotype is very recent, just because they saw Korean men shown as leads in romantic TV series, an association Korean man=romantic appeared some viewers’ mind.

This is an example of how a stereoype, albeit “positive” in this case, can form in the audience’s mind about people from another country, just by watching TV, when most of the people from that country that people see are shown in similar ways.

Stuff like this wouldn’t be so controversial if there were famous, intelligent sounding Africans on TV to talk about serious stuff and not just to make people laugh.

Anotehr example, but in the US, from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Blacks

The news media: criminal stereotyping
The Black Image in the White Mind illustrates ways in which negative media images of African Americans are disproportionate and arguably harmful to race relations:[16]

A mug shot of a black defendant is four times more likely to appear in a local television news report than of a white defendant.
The black accused is two times more likely to be shown physically restrained in a local television news report than when the accused is white.
The name of the accused is two times more likely to be shown on screen in a local TV news report if the defendant is black, rather than white.
According to Lawrence Grossman, former president of CBS News and PBS, TV newscasts “disproportionately show African-Americans under arrest, living in slums, on welfare, and in need of help from the community.” [21] African-Americans are misrepresented for several reasons. Although FBI statistics show that most violent crimes involve others of same race, there is a common misperception that black-on-white crimes are more common. [22] Black-on-white crimes are over-represented on news shows because the majority audience can better identify with white victim. Emphasis on deviance generates higher ratings for TV networks by playing on people’s fears. However, these images of blacks (and whites) on TV newscasts do not represent reality and negatively impact the way we think about race and race relations.

Pam

Maybe you’d be less offended if you had some context. The clips all come from Sanma’s Super Karakuri Terebi and back in the days when Thane Camus was still doing the Funniest English “corner”, Nakamura Tamao (movie star in the 1950s and widow of Katsu Shintaro) used to have a segment called “Tamao ga Yuku” in which she would do exactly what the Africans do in these clips. She’d try out various jobs and wreak havoc. One of the funniest clips I ever saw was when she worked as a waxer at a men’s “esthe” clinic.
You can catch her in action as a “bench reporter” in this Youtube clip. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ovd0w9LMH-s

The Overthinker

I saw some of those back in the day – some good stuff there. But this isn’t really the same. At best she was well-known enough to be Tamao Causing Havoc, at worst she was reinforcing the stereotype of the Obatarian, but she was not perpetuating any racial or national stereotypes. These days, Bobby might be well enough known to get away with playing Bobby Being Silly, but a random black person acting like a jerk in Japan is going to be seen as primarily a Foreigner and a Black – ie what distinguishes him from the rest of the people around him – and so the stereotyping is even stronger.
abc

There are very few famous African talento on Japanese TV. Yet the only ones which are famous are because they pretend to speak bad Japanese. This stuff wouldn’t have elicited as much criticism if intelligent, fluent speakers of African origin were shown on Japanese TV.

Even if the intent of the TV station is not to say all Africans are stupid or can’t speak proper Japanese, the lack of other portrayals creates a stereotype because people have a tendency to lump together individuals from groups they are not familiar with, so if the only Africans which get on Japanese TV are shown speaking bad Japanese, even if it’s comedic and obviously ヤラセ,
there will be people who think all Africans who live in Japan are like them.

Hanami

They could use other “non-African” talento’s too, right? The thing is though, all my friends and I (obviously all Japanese) are simply VERY impressed how good of Japanese they speak, and how well they adjusted our culture and even having fun with it! Now that is a real talent!

This show serves GREAT purpose for Japanese to understand people from Africa who are relatively not well-known/understood like, let’s say, white Americans.
I cannot wait to meet those funny smiley and positive African people.

marinaliteyears

How are blacks treated in Japan? i’ve always wanted to go there(:,i’m African American by the way.

The Overthinker

Probably better, frankly (and unfortunately), than in many parts of the US. Certainly as a visitor or short-term resident, there should not be too many problems. Overt racism is rare, but you will get more than a few looks. Much more than in the US.

ponta

I don’t think Bobby promote a negative view of Africans so far. It’s Bobby, not African that is funny just like any other Japanese comedians.
But I do think Japanese TV should pick up African descendants who speak Japanese intelligently on a serious matter such as economics and politics in a serious TV program.

abc

I agree about the second part.

http://www.appleotaku.com Apple Otaku

That was my favorite segment on Super Karakuri TV. I don’t think the segments are racist since these Japanese shows are well known for poking fun at the Japanese as well.
cappy

hkb writes “No Japanese person will see this and decide “Oh right, kokujjin must all be stupid.” In other words you’re able to divine the the innermost thoughts of 120 million people. Amazing.

Overthinker writes “Overt racism is rare in Japan.” Guess you’ve never been denied housing because of the color of your skin or heard of Debito.org.

hkb

Maybe I say that because I like to believe that people just don’t work in such simple ways. At least I don’t watch TV and say “right, that’s the way it is”. Do you?

I really feel it unnecessary to adress that Debito.org question, because I think there’s been said enough about his attitude and “motives”.
http://www.japanprobe.com James

Had to clean up this thread because there was mess of users calling each other names and then arguing about it. Name-calling and insults do not add to intelligent discussion are are not permitted on this site. I’ll let the above comment stand (with the insult edited out) since it does bring up an interesting question.

Anyway, here’s a comment from Overthinker that I think I may have accidentally deleted in the process of cleaning up this mess.

Comment from Overthinker

“You really don’t seem to know what you are talking about. Or what I am talking about. Discrimination about housing is not linked to race, but nationality. Chinese and Koreans get it as much as white people do, if not more, despite looking the same as Japanese. I have not argued that there is no or even little *national* discrimination in Japan. My argument is that it is not generally racially-motivated, and what racially-motivated hate there is is very minor.

I don’t need to rely on Debito’s reporting to form opinions about the levels of overt racism in Japanese society. Having lived here nearly half my life, I have had ample time to form my own conclusions.”

shazzb0t

Camus’s Japanese is very good, but his voice is sooooooooooooooooooooooo annoying.
D-san

As a black man in Japan, I usually get called Will Smith all the time.
happy foreigner

When viewing this, ask yourself if you are framing your ideas about what you see, with a western version of racism.

In other words: if in N. America, doing X is racist, is it racist to do X in Japan? The answer is not necessarily ‘yes’, IMO.

Or to put it another way, if you did X in N. America, it presupposes certain motives or viewpoints. But doing X in Japan does not necessarily mean the doer shares those viewpoints.

Japan is not a perfect country, any more than any country is perfect; but Japan does not have the American baggage of slavery of Africans, segregation, reactionary groups like the KKK, and so forth. If there was media in the US making mirth of Africans, it would need to be viewed in that lens. But does that lens exist here? How many people in Japan have even seen an African in real life?

I don’t necessarily think these videos were intended to put forth the message that Africans ought to be treated as a sub-class, exploited and harmed. It’s simply something that was fun.

If anything they are making fun of foreigners in general.

I also wouldn’t necessarily use Debito as an example, either, but that’s another subject…

PS D-San, you should say, ‘why yes, I am will smith! say, are you sonny chiba? How about buying me lunch!’
Charles Jannuzi

Thane is just another one of those talentless taleento. Bobby is not only that, he is an awful boxer!
concerned Filipino

I don’t think there’s any racist intent, and any intelligent viewer should immediately see, thanks to the clever puns and all that, they’re just pretending. But as we no doubt all know, not all TV viewers, in any country, are intelligent. It’s conceivable that some Japanese’s opinions of Africans could be negatively affected, even subconsciously, especially if, as happy foreigner says, they’ve never seen an African before.

On the other hand, being thought of as Will Smith is a good thing.
The Overthinker

You really don’t seem to know what you are talking about. Or what I am talking about. Discrimination about housing is not linked to race, but nationality. Chinese and Koreans get it as much as white people do, if not more, despite looking the same as Japanese. I have not argued that there is no or even little *national* discrimination in Japan. My argument is that it is not generally racially-motivated, and what racially-motivated hate there is is very minor.

I don’t need to rely on Debito’s reporting to form opinions about the levels of overt racism in Japanese society. Having lived here nearly half my life, I have had ample time to form my own conclusions.

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