No Fun Being a "Talento"

When I mentioned a while back the unforgiving nature of Japan's entertainment industry, stories like this one were precisely what I had in mind. Where America idolizes celebrity misbehavior, and the more egregious the better, Japan punishes the slightest infractions severely.

Suspension may see ex-Morning Musume star's career go up in smoke

Ex-Morning Musume member Ai Kago was suspended indefinitely late Thursday night after her talent agency confirmed a scandal sheet had caught her smoking while underage.

Friday, a weekly photo journal that specializes in paparazzi shots of celebrities, caught 18-year-old Kago puffing away at a restaurant in Tokyo's trendy Ebisu district on Jan. 28, a spokesman for her talent agency said.

Friday's coverage of the event will hit the stands on Feb. 10.

Talent agency officials said that they are continuing to discuss Kago's career path with the teenager and her parents. Since leaving Morning Musume, Kago has joined "W," another all-girl group.

Minors in Japan are banned from smoking. The legal age of adulthood is 20 and smoking before then is outlawed.

Hey, I'm no fan of cigarettes by any means, but as infractions go, this has got to be one of the most minor imaginable, and the idea that the average Japanese smoker waits until reaching 20 before lighting up is up there in the realm of science fiction: to have one's career ended for such an inconsequential breach of the law ...

As strange as it might be to hear it, I actually feel sorry for Japan's celebrities (usually referred to as "talento" 「タレント」 or "geinoujin" 「芸能人」): pop-tarts, pretty-boy bands and one-note freaks like Hard Gay notwithstanding, many of them are actually very talented performers, and yet for all of the stringent conditions placed on what they can or cannot do even in their private lives, as well as the ceaseless work they're loaded up with by their management agencies - being expected to spend all their non-acting time doing round after round of TV variety show appearances, product launches, event openings, charity programs and other such scuttlework - even the most popular stars are paid shockingly little for the audiences they bring in, and the typical setup is that the greater share of the little they do get goes to their management.

Consider, for example, Nakama Yukie, star of the popular comedy series "Gokusen 2", which consistently brought in a more than 25% audience share throughout its airing last year, and that in an environment in which a drama which brings in a 15-17% share is regarded as a bonafide hit: all she got for her efforts was ¥2 million (~$17,000) per episode, perhaps a third of what someone like Kristen Kreuk earns for doing little more than being pretty on an appallingly stupid, at best middlingly-popular show like Smallville, and it hardly bears comparison with the $120-150,000 the lead on a show like CSI: New York takes home per episode. Granted, Japan's domestic entertainment audience isn't as huge as America's, nor do Japanese TV and music producers have nearly as big a foreign market for their wares as Americans take for granted, but Japan still is the world's second-biggest TV and music market, and there are no problems selling Japanese shows and Japanese music throughout the rest of East Asia. The average British performer on a TV soap or in a manufactured band probably gets paid more than his or her Japanese equivalent despite catering to a domestic market only half the size and having far more free time (and far more freedom to actually dispose of that free time as he or she sees fit). Even someone with as solid a track-record as Kimura Takuya only managed to rake in an estimated ¥234 million ($2 million) for the 2003 tax year, and that's including appearances in commercials, TV dramas, being a regular on SMAPxSMAP, etc - see this page for more figures for the very top of the top earners.

When I look at Japan's entertainment industry, especially the way in which it manages talent, the dreaded "E" word can't help but cross my mind, by which I mean "E" as in "Exploitation": it isn't so much culture which drives the ridiculous lifestyle restrictions, punishing work schedules and shitty pay, but an insanely concentrated talent management business in which the tail gets to wag the dog, and even the most popular celebrities dare not disobey the Svengalis who run their lives for fear of being thrown out and subsequently blacklisted by the rest of the good ol' boys. Considering the bad working conditions and the extremely short length of the typical geinoujin's career in fickle, fad-driven Japan, Junichiro Salaryman probably makes out better financially over a lifetime than most of the guys who get their names in all the papers for a few years only to then disappear forever into oblivion - and it's not as if they even get to really enjoy that fame during the short interlude they do have it.

Now, getting back to the story of Ai Kago, the young woman who inspired this post, I'll say odds are that she'll have precious little to show for her prematurely terminated career other than a rosy glow of knowing she was famous for a brief while: if she earned even $60,000 a year while a member of Morning Musume, she'd have counted herself fortunate.

Comments

[Chuckles]

True dat.

Let me theorize on culture for a while here: The crux to me seems to be something far more ingrained - as to be almost unnoticeable in Japanese life. It is that Japanese "longing" for something beyond the drab, dreary and otherwise shoddy details of everyday life. One finds this "longing" manifested, not only in the generality of Japanese literature - but also in the manga, anime, and the pop scene. I am convinced, to a large extent - that it is the "longing" to be "beautiful", "innocent" and "violable" that informs the exagerrated prettiness in much of Japanese art - as well as the whole "kawaii" culture.

When one performs a cursory survey of Japanese pornography for instance: It seems to me that a large percentage of it is based on the violation of innocence: Yes, this is a staple of most porn, but am I alone in thinking that it is, ahem, disproportionately invoked in Japanese pornography?

The images foisted on public figures, perhaps, serve as psychological avatars for the Japanese masses.

I can surely go with good ole economic exploitation when it is proposed; but the beatified images of art in Japan generally, insinuate to me that perhaps, what is at work here, is not just a lusting for the $$$ on the part of producers.

Super Flat Arter, Takashi Murakami, makes some interesting observations along these lines: As to how, since after the war, cute, insipid, saccharine infested images have proliferated in Japan as some form of analgesic: But is this phenomenon rooted in the war experience - or does it lie deeper in occurences during Japan's ancient past?

Marilyn Monroe was pretty, yes, as are any of the dime a dozen "Actresses" out there: But to a certain extent, they typified qualities that could be found within the population they are drawn form: This is hardly the case with respect to the Japanese art and media scene - which, to put it quite simply, is freaky.

What do the "visualists" in Shibuya want? The Yamanban - and their now proliferating male clones? What exactly do they want and what are they trying to achieve? The meticulous fashion, the attention to detail - the sheer God squeakiness of it all: When I see things like a solid performer being fired because she puffed away at a stick while underage - I just wonder if something deeper isnt at work here. Kate Moss did coke, went into rehab and is back, but a teenager smokes, in a country where many teenagers smoke, and it is a scandal?

From a Western perspective, yes, there are any number of gothic scenes, skater subcultures and general weirdo cliques to be found lurking in the invisible spaces of youth and adult life: What is different then, is perhaps, the prominence of Japan's versions of these: and their artistic influence. One might be accused on focusing on the "exotic" here - but this is simply not the case with regards to Japan: Freakiness is everywhere in Japan. And it is simply impossible to miss: and an emphasis on "cuteness" is unparralled anywhere in the world; i.e. "cuteness" with regards to a certain childish, innocent, violable quality - as compared to beauty.

Enough armchair theorizing on this: I am off to buy Morizo & Kiccoro Aichi collectibles on Ebay.

[Abiola]

"am I alone in thinking that it is, ahem, disproportionately invoked in Japanese pornography?"

Ahem, no, not at all. 強姦、監禁、ブッカケ、ロリコン and 痴漢 videos, anyone? (All terms are in Japanese to protect the innocent ...)

[Kenji]

It's kind of funny the extent to which the Japanese press will pretend to protect the identity of a minor even when it's so obvious. See the reference to 未成年タレントＡ:

http://www.nikkansports.com/ns/entertainment/p-et-tp0-060210-0013.html

[Chuckles]

Ah yes:

The Japanese and their \"conplexes\". Interesting isnt it that lolicon, shotacon etc do not carry the pejorative weight of say, pedophilia or pederasty in the West: for all its \"sexual liberation\" and \"open societies\"; artistic confinements in the West with regards to stuff like this are a minute fragment of boundaries in Japan. Witness the furor over Nicole Kidman and Cameron Bright in in Birth. I wont be making out a check to NAMBLA anytime soon, but I find State sanctioned ages of consent to be dubious. Japan is evidence that Gomorrah wouldnt suddenly lie \"over yonder hill\" should newly pubescent individuals start getting it on with individuals old enough to be their ancestors.

[Abiola]

"It's kind of funny the extent to which the Japanese press will pretend to protect the identity of a minor even when it's so obvious."

It's the thought that counts, I guess ... Note that the good old MDN has no qualms about printing out her name.

http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/shakai/wadai/news/20060210k0000m040136000c.html

Seriously, though, I'd guess it's just one more newsman's trick to drive traffic - it gives people a cheap thrill of being part of some big mystery (albeit one anybody with two brain cells to rub together should be able to figure out), even as it allows the papers which engage in it to indulge in a bit of sanctimonious NYT-style moral posturing ("WE have high journalistic standards to uphold", etc.)

[Scott Wickstein]

Shit, with my smoking, drinking, swearing and general obnoxious behaviour, I'd be stuffed in Japan.

Thankfully Australia has looser standards and I can opine in obscurity without being harrassed by anyone.