Cutlural Differences in the 4th Wall

[naanima]

Interesting meta post titled - The Long-Delayed Fourth Wall Meta. It discusses the crumbling 4th wall between fans and celebrities, and the possible repercussions of this disappearing wall.

As I said in my comment I find this topic unbelievably fascinating because this concern for the crumbling of the 4th wall seems to be a very western concept. Asian pop culture pander to their fans to the point that there don't seem to be an existence of the 4th wall; pop artists purposely play up the popular 'couples' within bands for their fans, fanfic and the love of m/m couples are so well known that they are often exploited for generating money and/or popularity on variety and talk shows.

Lately I have been saturated by Korean celebrities and their antics. After much viewing I have come to the conclusion that there is no 4th wall between fans and their favourite celebrities in the Korean entertainment industry. Celebrities are very open on television; embarrassing experiences are shared, sob stories come out, and an idea of their real personalities shines through. Stars share and let their vulnerabilities show, and fans latch on those moments with ferocity, creating a connection between them and their favourite celebrities.

There is a sense self-awareness on the parts of most celebrities, especially boy bands where the norm is to hug, pretend kisses (from certain angles they seem to be honestly going for it), and basically attempting to get fans (predominantly female) to scream out their little hearts. An example; Dong Bang Shin Ki parodied a scenario of a m/m fanfic about them in a short drama series, couple talks has been filmed and delivered in their official DVD release (they go so far as to use fan created acronym/shortened names to describe different couples). Super Junior members play kissing games with one another, pretend to kiss on national television, and fool around like romantic couples on camera. They know what they are doing, and they know there are fan followings based on a perceived closeness on the part of the fans, and they play it up to drive their fans to a near frenzy.

Both sides are quite aware of this; the Korean celebrities entertain their fans, love their fans, attempt to be truthful to their fans, and in turn their Korean fans love them, protect them and are the most organised and obsessive fans on Earth. There is a level of organisation on the part of the Korean official fan clubs that borders on the militaristic; presents for celebrities reaching 10s of thousand dollars, fan meetings that are regimented with booklets and schedules that your average OCD/perfectionist would kill to obtain, and a level of dedication to their icons that most dictators in the world would sell their soul for.

It is absolutely fascinating how differently the 4th wall is treated by western and eastern fans. I’d love to hear some feedback from people who are involved in RPS in both a eastern and western fandom.

Comments

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Personally, I find a lot of the traditional conventions of yaoi pretty homophobic and sexist. And I don't particularly enjoy jpop or most manga art, although I enjoy other styles of Japanese music and art (less fandom-creating ones, however). If I could read Chinese, I'd probably be a big fan of wuxia novels.

I'm sure there are yaoi fandoms that aren't saturated with dominant/submissive dynamics and weepy ukes, but I personally don't have the energy to go looking for them. I don't think it's racist to prefer to avoid fandoms where stereotypes are held up as ideals.

I don't read Western romance novels much, either, for much the same reason.

[naanima.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's racist to prefer to avoid fandoms where stereotypes are held up as ideals.

Fair enough, as I said in reply to worldserpent, if could just be a case of laziness. And I definitely agree with you when it comes to avoiding fandoms that are not to your taste.

[the-raddy.livejournal.com]

Your comments remind me of a really interesting conversation I read a few years ago, when ponderosa121 still had her LJ. She made a post about power dynamics in yaoi and invited discussion on the topic. Her main argument was that yaoi isn't really yaoi unless it has a certain Dominant/submissive quality to the work. She said that yaoi stories that lacked this quality were actually "slashified yaoi" stories, aka they had Westernized concepts of gay sex. I wish I could read the post again, it was really interesting (especially since one or two male yaoi fans joined in on the conversation).

I can understand why yaoi wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea...since D/s isn't everyone's cup of tea. Me personally? I have no problem with it, because I love reading stories that involve power dynamics and sex.

Also, there are certain manga authors that are well-known for not following traditional yaoi formulas. Naono Bohra sometimes panders to the old demographics, but the way she draws mens' bodies is far more realistic than some of the stylized "bishounen" types you usually see. I've also recently discovered Saiki Keita, a male artist who creates both yaoi and hentai manga. I've only read a couple of his yaoi stories, but they don't seem to follow the old formulas at all.

[naanima.livejournal.com]

Ohhh. I remember that post on ponderosa121's journal. It was fascinating because it reflected a lot of my own thoughts. I know exactly what I’m getting into when I pick up a yaoi title, and it is probably one of the reasons why I have stopped following BL titles (still in love with shounen) and started reading more slash.

Naono Bohra is probably one of my all time favourite yaoi managaka, for all the reasons you listed. I must check out this Saiki Keita.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I had a discussion once with a slash fan on this topic, and what the_raddy talks about above was pretty much the argument that I made: not so much that the essential quality of yaoi/BL is D/s, but that in the BL worldview (which I think equates to the Japanese or pan-Asian worldview) any relationship inherently implies a power dynamic and the negotiation thereof, and it would just be baffling to ignore it and pretend the two people in the relationship are "equal" in everything that they do/are. There is an observation made in cultural studies, that the polite fiction of American society is "we are all equal" even if we're not, and the polite fiction of Japanese society is "you are above me" even if this is not the case; but in both cases these are simply that - fictions.

In fact, this means that two people - one a slash fan, the other a BL fan - can read the same story and perceive it differently. The first will see a couple negotiating their relationship with the understanding that they are ultimately equal-but-different; the second will see a couple negotiating with the understanding that one will ultimately have more leverage over the relationship in some ways, the other will have more leverage in other, complementary ways. I.e. the power dynamic isn't as simple as seme = dominant = powerful = manly, uke = submissive = powerless = weepy/effeminate; in the vast majority of cases where the writing is good, I would venture to say the negotiation is far more complex than that.

I don't agree that BL holds up stereotypes as ideals, either. ^^; It is a product of a different culture, and sexual relations (heterosexual and homosexual) in Japan are codified in such a way that BL is actually reversing/toying with/deconstructing many of said stereotypes. (supacat had a great post about this recently that she locked after it was unfortunately slashdotted.)

[the-raddy.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU FOR THIS COMMENT!

It's fascinating how slash and yaoi deconstruct "normal" sexual scenarios in such different ways. I think many slash writers are often aggravated with the way hetrosexual characters and relationships are portrayed in film/TV/literature...so they try to "fix" the heteronormal flaws of these straight male characters by putting them in a gay relationship, thus tipping the balances. On the other hand, yaoi seems to be a kind of "revenge" on Japanese men -- here their sex is exploited for the enjoyment of women, in the same way Japanese women have been exploited for years in hentai and even in your run-of-the-mill anime. Yaoi seems to have a common theme of "make the pretty boy suffer, so his gay lover can make it better, and we'll watch and cheer," and you don't find that nearly as much in slash.