Racialized im/possibilities: Intersectional queer-of-color critique on Japaneseness in Netflix’s Queer Eye: We’re in Japan!

Abstract

This essay examines im/possibilities of Queer Eye: We're in Japan! that represents the concept of Japaneseness. More precisely, this essay is concerned with how Queer Eye: We're in Japan! reinserts U.S. exceptionalism while the Fab Five perform the makeovers of the four Japanese nominees (S1E1-S1E4). However, this essay also examines possibilities of Queer Eye: We're in Japan! that transgress issues of gender, sexuality, and the body. In so doing, we orient an intersectional queer-of-color critique as our analytic to intervene the logic of American liberal capitalism that circulates the patriotic imaginaries of homonationalism in the historical continuum of globalization. The overall goal is to critique Queer Eye: We're in Japan! that showcases im/possibilities of Japaneseness.

More than a makeover: Discourses of masculinity, hyposexuality, and marriage in Queer Eye: We’re in Japan!

“…are not as self-evident as one might presume. While, as Eguchi and Kimura (2020) note, Japan has expressed aspirations of Americanization, unlike the destinations of most travel shows, Japan is also a developed and technologically advanced nation that has served as a powerful player in the global distribution of popular culture, and has tried to harness the global appreciation of its media exports as a source of soft power (Lukacs, 2010). Moreover, this specialized season of Queer Eye is a Japanese-American co-production headed by Netflix, a multinational streaming service, which is invested in international expansion and courting global audiences (Lobato, 2019).…”

“…In addition, the show's emphasis on acceptance has led it to become more racially conscious, leading to the inclusion of multiple, albeit brief and somewhat stilted, conversations about racial oppression and intersectionality. According to Eguchi and Kimura (2020), the complex conditions and ideological orientations of Queer Eye: We’re in Japan! lead it to display some brief moments of sexual and gender transgression, but also to portray Japanese nominees, including Makoto, as socially inferior foreigners and feminine Others.…”

“…lead it to display some brief moments of sexual and gender transgression, but also to portray Japanese nominees, including Makoto, as socially inferior foreigners and feminine Others. In this article, I develop Eguchi and Kimura’s (2020) argument further by contending that the subject of male sexual inactivity, exemplified by Makoto's sexless marriage, is treated with a particular rigidity, which not only reaffirms heteronormative and Orientalist narratives, but which also leads the series to rely on its more paternalistic features. Such elements become clearer through paying attention to the particularities of the show's genre, and become more visible once contextualized and compared with the broader Anglo-American discourse featured in news articles.…”

“…This pattern of linking sexual inactivity to heterosexual Japanese men is also present in Queer Eye , in which the issue of Japanese hyposexuality is most explicitly discussed in relation to Makoto, the only heterosexual male hero of the season. Although the series, particularly compared to its original version, has become more conscious of issues relating to racial identities and racial stereotypes, this awareness has not led to an increased sensitivity in how the show portrays Makoto's masculinity, which, as Eguchi and Kimura (2020) note, perpetuates American racial imagining of Asian and Asian American men as feminine Others.…”

“…Within Anglo-American news coverage and Queer Eye , Japan is placed in global contexts in which it becomes linked to other industrialized nations. While Queer Eye links Japan to the U.S. by suggesting that Japanese people require American intervention to overcome their problems with physical intimacy (Eguchi and Kimura, 2020), Anglo-American news coverage speculates whether Japan's high rates of sexual inactivity represent the frightening sexless future of Western countries. The alarmist news reporting of sexual inactivity in Japan both within and outside the country can best be described as a moral panic (Cohen, 2002).…”