Oh Golly Gosh!

I read Sam's blog and I was reminded of a conversation we had at work about political correctness in Japan and England. In Britain it's popular to say that "political correctness has gone mad" because of the uproar over potentially slightly offensive remarks by famous people or members of the royal family dressing like Hitler. But in Japan there is no concept of political correctness at all. I was watching TV last year and there was a mature female singer performing, her backing singers where Japanese men in full golliwog outfits, basically blackface. Now, the history of minstrel show, black-face and the golliwog is something everyone knows about in the west, and the use of blackface now is limited to comedy shows and movies where it is done in a very self-conscious way. This still draws offence from some people, who angrily tell people to "read the history of blackface". But the use of blackface today (Robert Downey Jr.'s character in Tropic Thunder, for example) is informed by it's history and the stupidity of blackface is always the joke. But over on prime-time Japanese TV, it was just guys in blackface, with no self-consciousness or cultural context, and certainly no offended viewers.

Well, which is more desirable? The use of black-face being rightfully viewed in the context of it's dark (get it?) history, even when it's used for humour, or the use of blackface in 2009 as though it's still the 1850s. The western mind-set might lead to a radio DJ getting in trouble for using a racial stereotype to do a comedy bit, or, on city council promotional materials the number of black and Asian people being obsessively balanced, but there's no straight up blackface on TV.

Political correctness is really just an attempt to find a common code of behaviour for everyone to adopt in a changing society. When new people and cultures arrive, and as it becomes more and more okay to being a raving homosexual, the society has adapt in order to survive. In "Gone With The Wind", one of the greatest films of all time, Rhett Butler, the hero, says "darkie" for the entire movie and it was totally accepted in 1939. In modern times, Ron Atkinson resigns immediately for saying n*gger on TV and his career is dead. The media frenzy surrounding that event was maybe over the top (there was even a TV documentary called "What Ron Said" analysing the aftermath) but few would question that the status quo now is not to say n*gger or darkie. The constant back and forth between what terms are acceptable for ethnic groups is tiring but it's necessary if people in Britain are to approach a new appropriate terminology.

That's in England, but what about Japan? Well, there's hardly even a debate is there? There are hardly any black people to worry about, so the society doesn't need to make any changes to it's code of behaviour at all. And it's media can go on presenting ancient stereotypes because the reality of blacks and Indians in the society isn't something that people have to deal with. Stereotypes are broken by actual experience, befriend a homosexual, a Muslim, or a Chinese girl and stereotypes quickly fade away. But if the train you're on is full of only Japanese then how can you question stereotypes? And why worry about making TV shows, or designing Pokemon characters based on stereotypes when there are no blacks around to make it wrong? Wait, is it wrong? Is it even wrong when the society is so homogeneous that no-one is around to be offended by golliwogs on TV? If everyone in Japan is ignorant of the history of blackface (they are) then no-one will squirm with discomfort and shame when they see it. Ignorance is bliss, yeah?

To conclude I'll defer to Stewart Lee: