Not much time for commentary (see previous post), but here are some good links: From the blogs: Tak at Savage Minds discusses the implications of racial stereotyping in regards to Gwen Stefani’s latest image, which includes Harajuku girls. John Hawks…

I’ve actually heard the opposite. Which makes sense to me since most of Japan’s economy is based on a “just-in-time” strategy where the aim is to anticipate changes in a very fickle market such as Japan’s, where changes in the market don’t happen from the top-down, but from the bottom-up. As far as the rest goes I agree with what he says. Its not really about individualism so much as it is about simply making a little excitement for yourself, since most of these kids come from outside of the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, to escape the drudgery of the countryside. The girls who do come from inside Tokyo often act as “ins” for those who wish to plug in to the social circles at Harajuku.

Just like Stephani I think many people overestimate the effect that Harajuku has on Japan. It’s a costume ball, more or less, and girls will make costumes and pose with friends or for photographers on one Sunday, and the next Sunday they’ll probably show up in a different costume and do it all over again.

A few other comments:
–Stefani is continuing a pop-orientalism that goes back at least to Janet Jackson (“If” video) and Madonna (“Nothing Really Matters”… “Rain”… )
–Is *Stefani* doing any of this or is it really just an *army of stylists* at work? (I think the latter actually.)
–I love the contrast drawn above between the ardent moralism of American attitudes toward cultural exchange (‘You can’t re-appropriate that (e.g. hip-hop, voguing, new age spiritualism)’ it *belongs* to us!) versus a world in which people freely exchange styles, ideas, dances, practices, and other cultural stuff because it inspires them, because they think it’s *cool*, a mode of cultural appreciation that has been popular even outside capitalist consumer culture for epochs (see, e.g., almost all the ethnography of Melanesia…).

Tak — I totally am sympathetic to what you are saying, but at the same time I wonder how much of the audience for Stefani’s music even gets that she’s actually ripping off a specific cultural anything. Her whole look and style is sort of a mishmash of elements (Marilyn Monroe! Ska! Harajuku!) but where these things come from or what they might represent are probably pretty fuzzy around the edges for a lot of her public — I think she gets it, and smart commentators in their 30s (or 20s, wherever you are) get it, in a different way than the kids at home get it. they probably think “sexy Asian chick” (has its own problems, of course) rather than “hmm, I never knew *that’s* what contemporary urban Japanese girl culture looked like! golly!”

Anyway, the point is this, what Stefani has done with her cultural zoo of Harajuku girls doesnt fly in America because we see this kinf of commodofication of a cultural persona as a rascist/sexist thing. I havn’t got a chance to talk to many Japanese people about how they view Stefani’s Harajuku fetish, but my hunch is that they see nothing wrong with it, because they do it all the time themselves. That doesnt let Stefani off teh hook in the US though, and I’d really like to punch her in the face if anyone could get me close enough :)