Has international media coverage of Hawker murder peddled an ugly strand of uninformed stereotyping?
The Guardian has featured a letter to the editor by Jenny Holt, a lecturer at Meiji University who believes that the international media has used the Lindsay Hawker murder case as an excuse to “indulge in practically the only form of overt racism still tolerated today – the demonisation and denigration, en masse, of Japanese men.” Here’s an excerpt:
The paper announced that the murder had “cast a sinister shadow” over Tokyo’s entire female expatriate community. “In Japan,” it proclaimed, “British women constantly have to put up with unwanted male attention – such as the endemic groping on the trains”. Later, it interviewed another British teacher who cautioned women to be “wary” before travelling to the country.
Others have also capitalised on this crude stereotype. In September 2008, Radio 4 broadcast a play by John Dryden and Miriam Smith entitled A Tokyo Murder, which was loosely based on the Hawker case and which trotted out the same xenophobic caricatures about an uptight society with an underlying streak of insanity that refuses to co-operate with western forces of reason and justice.
This year Clare Campbell included a discussion of the Hawker case in Tokyo Hostess, an investigation of the Roppongi bar scene and the Lucie Blackman murder – even though Lindsay Hawker had nothing to do with hostessing. As Susanna Jones commented in a review of Campbell’s book, the only thing the murders have in common is that Blackman and Hawker were “targeted by horrifyingly dangerous men”. To imply that the presence of two psychopaths makes a whole country dangerous for foreign women is to leap to the most preposterous of conclusions.
And it is not just the Blackman and Hawker cases that invite this approach. The same ignorant stereotypes are rolled out at any opportunity. Newspaper reports of the Nomura sex discrimination case emphasise the fact that the bank is Japanese, even though sex discrimination is endemic in banking and companies of every nation are routinely sued for it. Television programmes seek out oddballs to portray as mainstream, eating live fish, doing cosplay or collecting hentai manga. And cinemagoers would be forgiven for thinking that every other Japanese was a geisha or a yakuza. Any half-informed piece of disinformation seems to suffice where Japan is concerned.
Found via 空, which also directs readers to Jeffrey Levick’s “Japan in the U.S. Press: Bias and Stereotypes.”
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Wow, what a timely post and I just briefly mentioned this in the previous post about this guy.
There is absolutely NO doubt that the international media loves sensational stories about these. A caucasian women victimized by a Japanese male in Japan. This is free reign to engage in stereotypes, which would never be tolerated in other countries against other males, for the most part compared to Japanese males.
That last line about any half informed piece of disinformation seems to suffice where Japan is concerned, is on the money. Something I also have stated here before.
I’ve named several Japanese women that have been brutally raped and murdered in a previous post, a lot of those were tourists and whatnot in the U.S. (and recently a Japanese woman was horribly raped and brutalized in Indonesia). Where was the world media outrage over those incidents? In fact, on other Japan related websites, whenever Japanese women are the victims of horrible crimes, in a perverse twist many seem to somehow blame the Japanese women themselves (they should never have traveled alone, they are so naive, etc. etc.).
All these ridiculous double standards when it comes to Japan and Japanese make me ill. I am glad Japan Probe is willing to point out this issue as this is an influential and popular site.
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“Where was the world media outrage over those incidents?”
Wasn’t the media outrage over the bumbling cops and the fact that he hadn’t been caught, as opposed to the murder per se? That’s the impression I got.
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American’s stereotype Japanese people, Japanese people stereotype Americans. Its a two way street. This is just another dumb fad, and people want to milk it for all its worth, and squeeze all the money out of it.
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I was about to comment something but you said it all.
Agree 100%.
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Let’s not try and pretend that chikan aren’t an actual problem in Japan that people are allowed to discuss. I’m a man and I was even groped (palm squeeze to da arse), presumably by a homosexual, on New Years Eve. My wife has shared so many stories of her problems with chikan growing up in Japan.
Telling women to be wary when they travel in another country isn’t stereotyping, it’s making women aware of what they need to watch out for. In Japan it’s chikan, in America it’s typically black males between 14 and 35. This is not my opinion, this is fact based on the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, the Department of Justice crime statistics and my experience in the legal profession.
Women can either care about someone else’s hurt feelings over a supposed stereotype or they can practice situational awareness based on factual statistics to limit their chances of being victimized.
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Wrong.
In America, political correctness means that criminals are usually not identified by race, especially in my neck of the woods. In fact, you should know very well that in America, sexual crimes committed by black males are either downplayed or ignored by the media. A case in point was that guy that brutally raped and killed that white female Atlanta newscaster. The police in that case absolutely downplayed any mention of rape in order not to stir up racial hatreds. And there is absolutely NO way any travel guide in America will caution foreign travelers to be wary of 18-35 year old black males, are people kidding me?
Not the case when it comes to Japan and Japanese males, in that case the world media is free to engage in stereotypes and generalizations.
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You misunderstand, I know that political correctness dictates we ignore how dangerous blacks are. I only said “when talking to women about what to look out for.” This means that I would tell women what to look out for and to boot, I won’t give a damn what political correctness dictates.
I also won’t let some PC myth that there is no real crime in Japan deter me from educating a woman about chikan when they travel there. The politically correct/retarded people are the ones that would tell women that it’s all just a stereotype and not to worry about it.
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There’s a fine line between warning women to be careful of potential dangers in Japan (or anywhere else), and demonizing the majority of Japanese males and Japanese society as all a bunch of sexual perverts that prey on women, especially white women.
I’m sure even you would acknowledge the difference, and for sure the world media isn’t interested in altruistic motives of warning foreign women of the dangers in Japan.
How about Thailand? 13 Britons have been murdered in Thailand since 2003, many more have died under mysterious conditions in places like Pattaya. British women have been raped and some murdered in Thailand, more so than Japan, yet I don’t see the kind of hysteria and sensationalism towards Thai males as I do Japanese males and society.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-374208/Another-Thai-holiday-Briton-raped.html
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I find it incredibly funny you would point out how 13 Britons have been murdered in Thailand but fail to point out that 3,900 Buddhists have been murdered by Muslims in Thailand since 2004. If I knew someone was traveling to Thailand I would tell them to convert to Islam first and carry a Qur’an with them.
Back to Japan now, you are again missing my point. I understand that a country shouldn’t be demonized because of a few murderers. Japan has a very low crime rate! But in the rush to defend Japan against demonization, certain parties seem to have forgotten that a low crime rate does not mean no crime. There is crime everywhere and people deserve to be educated about what to look out for.
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Ah, but we DO see “hysteria and sensationalism towards” Muslim males. So your attempt to insert a rant on Islam seems to have little point. The topic is also British women being murdered, so unless these Buddhists in Thailand are in female Brits, your point is completely irrelevant other than to state that murder does happen in Thailand.
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Hamachiman,
Boy are YOU wrong. The local news always describe exactly what the police want the media to describe, when looking for a suspect, with a police sketch:
They always describe people exactly the way they are typed, such as: “A Latin man of 25 to 30, short hair, brown skin, etc etc…..”
“A man of African-American descent, 6′4″, gold teeth….. etc etc……”
“An Asian man, 5′4″, possibly of Thai or Vietnamese descent etc etc…”
“A Caucasian man, 5′10″, blonde hair, etc etc…….”
ALWAYS.
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No, I am definitely not wrong. Where I live in the Bay Area, the news broadcast for the most part do not identify suspects’ race in a crime (unless there is a mugshot released to the public). They only mention the age range and build. In fact the next time I watch the local news I’ll prove it by mentioning it here, stay tuned.
As a small sampling, this is exactly similar to how a t.v. news would broadcast the same information:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/11/13/state/n230747S53.DTL
Notice race is not mentioned. The very fact that you emphasize the word ‘always’ shows that your line of thought is already on shaky grounds.
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Isn’t the Bay Area (of San Francisco, I assume) notoriously left-wing liberal though? Perhaps it is the exception that proves the rule.
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If the ethnicity isn’t ID’d then how can anyone know what to look for?
“A man of African-American descent, 6′4″, gold teeth….. etc etc……”
“An Asian man, 5′4″, possibly of Thai or Vietnamese descent etc etc…”
“A Caucasian man, 5′10″, blonde hair, etc etc…….”
This is ALWAYS how they identify the accused when reported in the media.
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The MSM in Chicago almost always neglect to report the race of an offender. If they include it, it’s because the offender is White. They can’t keep it a secret forever but Hachi is right, there is a rather large movement in America to sugar coat the crime statistics.
For a couple of years the FBI reported Hispanics as Whites in the offender categories and Hispanics as Hispanics in the victim categories. Do you think that padded the “White crime rate” just a little bit?
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Hamachiman,
I am in L.A. They always give out the exact decription.
How can you find anybody if you do not describe them the way they look? No wonder it took years for the cops to find people like Jaycee Dugard in the Bay Area!
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experimenting as to why my post has been judged “too spammy” even though there are no links. and apparently my email addy is fine
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yes,,.
I don’t know why u.k media make too much noise for Lindsay Hawker.
‘peril’?
oh,,U.K.
what a childish and nonsensical country.
how many japanese people killed and injured by
Caucasian?
we japanese shouldn’t even have to say this.
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Oh stop this “We Japanese” bullshit. You shouldn’t have to say this, YOUUUU. Just like YOUUUU don’t represent the entire Japanese race, douche master
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come on, this minato is just a troll looking to stir the pot. come on minato we all know it just admit it and come out of the closet.
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for that matter,Mr.ichihashi was arrested on suspicion of allegations of abandonment of a corpse.
not murder.
Don’t be judgmental.
thankyou
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I agree with Ms. Holt and British press, better go for Eastern Europeans and Africans, because they will never complain about “the demonisation and denigration” of their societies in media and leave Japan alone!
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Did this guy ever try to see how foreigner are dealt with in Japanese media ?
He should write a paper about that issue if he is really interested in stereotype in media.
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I think you might have just solved your own problem there.
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Japan is the country with the highest ratio of mental illness per population in the advanced countries.
Among this group of mentally ill people somebody may end up with being attracted by resident foreigner ladies. It is very likely.
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Your point being … ?
If somehow the status of having the highest ratio of the mentally ill per population among advanced countries makes the mentally ill who are attracted by foreign women magically pop into existence where there were none before, that is news to me and indeed, a cause for concern.
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You’ll find that America has 3 times the number of mental health sufferers. You mong [pun intended].
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5111202/
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Without a significant body of data to back it up, such a statement is nonsense.
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Thank you so much Ms. Holt for saying this to the western media.
“I can honestly say that the most striking thing about people here is how downright normal they are”
It has definitely alleviated my childhood trauma caused by that one white American girl who told me right in my face “Japanese men are so disgusting. My father told me how disgusting they are.”
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To be fair, as a foreign woman, you do get groped. And you get nasty comments. And questions. And no, it’s not generally Japanese women dishing these things out. It’s the guys.
Is that an excuse for blatant racism? No. But what big media news story exists that does not regurgitate stereotypes? Stories about Japan are no different than stories about gamers or pet owners or teenagers or car enthusiasts. The media does what it thinks will earn the most money. It’s not a conspiracy and there’s no reason for rabid japanophiles to start rattling their sabres. Big Media will be no kinder to you than to anyone else. At least not as long as its majority viewership isn’t made up of rabid japanophiles, or gamers, or car enthusiasts.
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you’ve hit the nail on the head fiona. mass media does what they think people want in whatever country that the majority wants to see. they make no distinctions.
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Basically agreed about the mass media – they turn out complete drivel because news has become (unfortunately) entertainment. I will cut them some slack in this regard in a way I will not for a certain Japanese “activist” who publishes ludicrous claims on his blog that the Japanese police condone the murder of foreigners by Japanese.
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you’re all wrong… forever
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Hey, I think you’re really smart and handsome!
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It’s ok to be racist against white males… in fact, it’s expected… even from white males.
“they have had all the power for centuries, now it’s time to crush them!”
pffffft! I don’t have any power, or money… but I do have skills and a strong work ethic.
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Sure, there are plenty of douches that blame white guys for killing and enslaving everyone, but you know what, it’s not like WE did it, I personally don’t remember getting drunk one night bombing hiroshima, killing all the native americans, and enslaving a bunch of black people. Anyway, all white guys are just clumped together into one big white man group anyway. Its weird though when it comes to groups. I mean there’s APASA- for asian people, NAACP- for black people, but what happens when a bunch of white people get together and make a group – what would people call that? NAZIs or the damn KKK.lol…shit
“Asian pride”- okay
“black power”-fine
“latino pride”- sure
“white power/pride” – wooooooahhh buddy. Racist.
I just think its funny. I mean sometimes its ridiculous, I called an asian guy a goober once, and he told everyone I was racist for saying that. Last time I checked goober is not a racial slur for asian people, but since I’m white its a good excuse for accusing me of racism.
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She says the only form of overt racism still tolerated today – the demonisation and denigration, en masse of – Oh, thought she was gonna say “white male Americans”. But I guess the meme matches. It’s only OK to be racist against nationalities and races that are dominant and/or successful.
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She says programmes seek out oddballs to portray as mainstream, eating live fish, doing cosplay or collecting hentai manga.
Two big problems in that sentence. Why does she assume such things are “oddball” if not for her own prejudices. Going as far as labeling sashimi-sushi as raw fish.
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She says the only form of overt racism still tolerated today – the demonisation and denigration, en masse of – Oh, thought she was gonna say “white male Americans”. But I guess the meme matches. It’s only OK to be racist against nationalities and races that are dominant and/or successful.
Why if not to purposefully portray common sushi as more “odd”? Has the writer even BEEN to Japan?! Ever gone to a costume party? Ever praised sex-themed artwork as groundbreaking and worthy of government funding? [OK, not exactly the same as hentai manga, but close]
Second, it’s JAPANESE TV that produces most of these shows, and the clips are then used abroad.
BTW, most of my female gaijin friends who are “well endowed” have been groped or “accidentally touched” at least once on Japanese trains. How about doing a survey and seeing if something one thinks is BS might actually be pretty damn common? But no, that would require actually working rather than wild speculation. I can get away with wild speculation here because I’m not getting paid to write this rant. What’s her excuse? Didn’t want to leave her desk? Didn’t want to spend more than 45 minutes writing the story? Writing a whiny piece about prejudice that is filled with one’s OWN prejudices is so ironic it’s golden.
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“Has the writer even BEEN to Japan?! ”
Who do you mean by the writer? Jenny Holt or an author at western media?
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well your “well endowed” female gaijin friends should stop swinging their fun bags around in small enclosed places
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>How about doing a survey and seeing if something one thinks is BS might actually be >pretty damn common? But no, that would require actually working rather than wild >speculation.
Isn’t the burden of proof on the accuser? Whatever happened to habeas corpus, innocent until proven guilty, etc,. etc., – concepts many westerners are happy to lecture Japanese about? If you want to make a case, make it yourself. Don’t just go on what a few of your mates say.
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OK, about this stereotype.
Stereotypes are an intellectual fraud. They fail to take the complete picture into account. It’s not whining to want to pull the stereotype to pieces and see what’s behind it.
Just doing a survey and finding out how many foreigners had been assaulted in Japan wouldn’t tell you much – and it certainly wouldn’t justify an assault on the national character or the kinds of generalizations about the Japanese that sometimes come out of the press. You’d have to ask numerous other questions to find out about the situation in general.
So, say a large number of foreign women were assaulted in Japan (which is debatable), you’d have to think about the following issues:
1. Do foreigners live in risky areas? (Yes – they may not be as aware as natives about which areas to avoid, they may have limited money for rent, and they may be placed in dangerous accommodation by unscrupulous employers).
2. Does lack of Japanese proficiency make foreigners vulnerable to crime? Does it impair their ability to judge whether a person is safe or not to be with. (Arguably, yes).
3. Do preconceptions about Japan (as a preternaturally ’safe country’) lead to foreigners taking risks they wouldn’t take at home? (leaving doors and windows open, walking alone at night, etc.). (Arguably, yes).
4. Do law enforcement agencies deal efficiently with offenders of this type? (No. So repeat offences are likely and offenders may be more bold).
5. Might foreign women overestimate their ability to overpower a Japanese man, based on preconceptions about Asian physique, and consequently take risks they wouldn’t take at home? (Possibly).
6. Might preconceptions and assumptions about the culture lead people to misinterpret accidental touching as deliberate harassment? (Possibly)
7. Do large numbers of foreigners work in places where behaviour might not come up to normal moral standards, for example, where people are frequently drunk? (Yes. Hostessing being one example).
8. Do companies and businesses recruit young foreign girls who have little Japanese proficiency and then fail to offer the pastoral support that is needed? (Yes).
All these factors may make women vulnerable to attack. They are nothing to do with the Japanese ‘national character’, and probably nothing to do with the attractiveness or otherwise of the foreign women. Foreigners are a vulnerable minority in every country because of social, linguistic and economic factors. And one of the ways women suffer – in every culture – is from harassment from men.
And it’s no good comparing foreigners employed in hostessing or teaching at Eikaiwa school with foreign students, overseas business people, etc.. These are not high-status jobs. They are like the waitressing and cleaning jobs which (overqualified) people from Latin America do in the States and which Eastern Europeans do in Western Europe (though as jobs they are not as arduous, of course). They leave people vulnerable and without social support, deprived of the middle-class status and lifestyle they’re accustomed to. In a way, these jobs offer foreigners in Japan a snapshot of what life can be like for minorities in their own countries.
You see. Social analysis gives insight. So much better than crude stereotypes.
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“I have lived in Japan for nine years, I have a Japanese husband and son, and I can honestly say that the most striking thing about people here is how downright normal they are. They talk about mortgages. They worry about the flu. They walk the dog and coo at babies on trains. I have never felt threatened, have never experienced “unwanted male attention” or been assaulted. We have harassment and gender equality rules at work, all conscientiously observed. Ichihashi is viewed as a freak, and his picture hangs in police boxes beside those of the Aum cult members. This is modern normality, and if foreigners who came here actually bothered to learn the language and find out what people what ordinary Japanese people think they would appreciate that.
“Is it such a big deal if the Daily Mail indulges a bit of mindless foreigner-bashing? I think so. It affects the way my husband is treated in Britain and may hamper my son’s ability to integrate into British society. The stereotyping also speaks volumes about the western psyche. It suggests that westerners resent and fear successful non-white cultures and that they cope by denigrating and dehumanising them. What Britain chooses to see in Japan says more about its own insecurities than about the Japanese, and if Britain wants any role on the world stage in the future, attitudes will have to change as Asia grows.”
Final two paragraphs of the letter.
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It wasn’t a letter to the editor. It was a commentary piece.
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