COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 351
The article spoke of the popularity of anime, and manga in Japan. All was going well. The writer stated that manga was popular because of the low literacy rate in Japan.
And then the article- whoa, wait, what the hell was that??? Low literacy rate? The Japanese are not stupid, illiterate people. They gave us Walkmans and affordable cars. I seriously doubt this alleged "low literacy rate."
As did the Associated Press, who bless their little hearts, posted a rebuttal, pointing out that Japan has a 99% literacy rate, compare to the 95%walkmans rate here in the United States. They suggested that perhaps our intrepid NYT writer check his facts before making blanket statements like that.
The writer retracted, claiming that it was a "cheap shot" at the New York Times, and that what he meant was the inability of many Japanese to read kanji (Chinese symbols generally representing entire words), because learning it is so very difficult.
Well, why didn't he just say that in the first place, instead of making it sound like Japanese were stupid hicks, or whatever. But wait... does he even have evidence to back that statement up? Ironically, when I viewed this story on the Japan Today website (not the original NYT article, but the fuss over his comment) the sidebar contained photographs from the National Calligraphy Contest. You know, where they write kanji for fame and fortune. The captions on the pictures claimed that the contestants were of "all ages." So maybe there isn't such a problem after all.
Silly New York Times writer, claiming the Japanese can't read because they prefer manga... whoa. This isn't just horrid racial stereotyping, but it's an attack on our beloved medium. To suggest that one of the most industrialized countries on this planet is illiterate because they read comic books... this is more than just a simple misunderstanding. It doesn't matter whether he meant kanji or not - he still promotes the idea that comics are unintelligent, base entertainment. He made a judgment based on his own preconceptions, rather than allow the evidence to reshape them. Other cultures often seem strange or weird to us, but that doesn't mean we can judge them by our own standards. Most cultures have a good reason for the things they do, what they like or practice. It's up to us as intellectual observers to try to understand the geopolitical reasons for those things we don't understand.
The funny thing is that Japan isn't all that different from the United States. They have large cities filled with people and technology. They like action movies and game shows. They have cellular phones and laptops. Japan is, like the United States, a developed country. They aren't some backwards people simply because they read comics, they don't read comics because they can't quite grasp the complexities of their language. Heck, they're probably smarter than us. Imagine trying to juggle four different alphabets. Most Japanese seem to do it with few problems.
Comics are a pretty big thing in Japan, and it's not because the Japanese can't read kanji. Maybe if our intrepid NET writer had actually bothered to research those "geopolitical reasons" I mentioned above he would see that the widespread popularity of manga is a product of World War II. History lesson: after we bombed the hell out of them, the Japanese people were trying to rebuild from what little they had. In all that, they needed a cheap form of entertainment (because people always need entertainment) and manga proved to be the answer. It's easily produced, and printed on the cheapest paper you could find (toilet paper is of better quality - yes, one-ply). So manga just ingrained itself into the cultural landscape.
A medium is always shaped by its cultural landscape. If the Senate wasn't on such a witch-hunt in the 1950s, if the Comics Code was never created, where would comics be now? Probably in a better place. Somewhere brighter and better, somewhere we could be proud of. Or not even proud, but just there... because if comics were as prevalent as movies or television, we wouldn't think twice about buying or not buying a certain issue, about acting a certain way in public, about declaring our likes and dislikes publicly. Because there wouldn't be any shame or stigma. Comics would just be there. It's a nice dream to have, maybe we'll realize it soon.
Moral of the story: pick one. Preconceptions are bad. Always research your articles more thoroughly. Don't piss off the Associated Press. Who knows? Maybe when it all comes down to it, we should simply know better.