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□おねえキャラの假屋崎省吾が日本男児の代表になるおかしさ [ゲンダイ]
http://news.livedoor.com/webapp/journal/cid__1431806/detail
おねえキャラの假屋崎省吾が日本男児の代表になるおかしさ
●天才華道家で…
天才華道家にしてバラエティー番組で活躍しているロン毛の假屋崎省吾（４６）。最近は花に囲まれた都心の一等地での生活ぶりや糖尿病の体験などをトーク番組で語って人気だ。假屋崎は今年の“長者番付”で年収３億７０００万円を稼いだリッチマンとしても有名である。
その人物が意外なところに顔を出している。９月２２日付「ワシントン・ポスト」の１面。顔写真入りで「サムライの国の男が女っぽくなっている」という見出しで取り上げられている。しかし、假屋崎がおねえキャラで人気のタレントであることを知っている日本人にしてみれば、思わず「あれれ！？」と首をひねりたくなる話ではないか。
記事ではまず假屋崎の素性を紹介している。
「カリヤザキは日本でもっともリッチでセレブな華道家である。テカテカの唇、黒いシルクのシャツを着て“美こそ生の本質よ”と叫んでいる」
「カリヤザキはトヨタ最高幹部の１０倍のサラリーを稼ぎ、個人納税者としては日本最高ランク」
●記事はピンボケ
そして、ある日本人の識者が「男っぽさと、女性らしい繊細さの両方を持ち合わせたカリヤザキは素晴らしい」と持ち上げ、假屋崎が日本における“男らしさ”の定義を変えたというのだ。
記事では假屋崎のコメントも掲載している。
「サラリーマンですらガールフレンドのためという理由で、美やセルフプロデュースに関心を持っている。ゲイやノンケかどうかは問題ではありません。日本の男性が自分の中の女性的な部分を周囲に示すことに抵抗がなくなってきた」と語っている。
假屋崎がセレブで女性らしい部分があるという人物紹介はその通り。しかし、トンチンカンなのはそもそも彼は“男”としては見られていないことだ。その点で記事はピンボケである。ワシントン・ポストが男らしくなくなった日本の男性を皮肉ったのなら話は別だが。
【2005年10月6日掲載】
▽Men in Land of Samurai Find Their Feminine Side
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/21/AR2005092102434_pf.html
Men in Land of Samurai Find Their Feminine Side
Marketing Fosters Shift in Gender Roles
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 22, 2005; A01
TAKAMATSU, Japan -- A rose by any other name is still a rose, but in the hands of Shogo Kariyazaki -- the celebrity florist who has bloomed into one of Japan's richest men -- a rose is as good as gold.
One part Liberace, one part Martha Stewart, Japan's gender-blending home guru was greeted this week by a standing-room-only crowd in this sleepy western town. With glossy lips, flowing bleached-blond hair and a black silk shirt embroidered with birds of paradise in flight, the slight 46-year-old exclaimed, "Beauty is the essential thing in life!" He then tossed yellow roses and pansies into a vase as his audience offered enthusiastic "oohs" and "aahs."
An estimated 20,000 locals -- one in every 15 residents of Takamatsu -- paid $5 each to view his "fantasy forest exhibition" of day-glo trees and heart-shaped anthuriums at the city's largest department store. Kariyazaki is so popular through his TV appearances, live shows and corporate sponsorships that he ranked as one of the country's biggest individual taxpayers last year, earning 10 times the average salary of Toyota's top executives, according to Japan's National Tax Agency.
Kariyazaki's fame mirrors rapidly changing norms in the land of the samurai. Gender roles have been undergoing a redefinition in recent years as women enter the workforce as never before and men embrace less confining views of masculinity.
The so-called feminization of Japanese men has become a topic of TV talk shows, magazine articles, academic research, films and, perhaps most notably, public acceptance. When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a divorced father of three, requested a dance with Richard Gere during a meeting this year, no one blinked an eye -- even when Koizumi had Gere lead their waltz.
"There's no question that men are changing the way they think of themselves in Japan. Even salarymen are interested in beauty and looking their best -- either for their girlfriends or just for themselves," said Kariyazaki, referring to the country's male office workers. "It doesn't matter if they are straight or gay. We are simply not afraid to show our feminine sides anymore."
Openly gay entertainers such as Kariyazaki have achieved mainstream success even as heterosexual actors have sought to cultivate an image of gentle manhood.
The shift is in part a product of changing fashion. The market for male aesthetics has grown fourfold in the past seven years to $400 million annually, including day spas for slimming treatments, facials, manicures and painful sessions of eyebrow plucking. The largest such chain -- Dandy House -- has doubled in size since 2000, with 60 locations across the country.
Skin treatments have become particularly popular for bridegrooms, while many men are opting for costly electrolysis procedures for permanent removal of unsightly facial hair.
"Japan has never really stressed the concept of being macho in a Western sense, but what we find now is that men are actively seeking the soft and smooth look that is considered so attractive now," said Marco Shimomura, vice president of Dandy House. "They aren't scared of getting their hairs plucked. And believe me, it hurts."
On busy Tokyo subways these days, it is not unusual to see men fishing for packs of Virginia Slims cigarettes in European-style male purses. They have many models to choose from at Isetan Men's -- the successful 10-story department store in chic west Tokyo that opened two years ago and is now the cathedral of masculine vanity.
The store sells more than 100 types of male purses, including jade-colored alligator clutches and rhinestone-encrusted knapsacks, along with hats with peacock feathers, pink leather card holders and thousands of pieces of exotic designer clothes. Sales have outpaced Isetan's other major Tokyo stores, where the emphasis is on women's apparel, according to company officials.
Japanese marketers say they have learned one thing: Soft men sell. In a new commercial here for skin care, Shido Nakamura, a 33-year-old married actor and father-to-be, grasps a white calla lily as the scene fades to him glancing at himself coyly in a bathroom mirror, gently applying lotion under soft lighting. Members of the best-selling boy band SMAP, who sometimes don women's clothes for TV shows, star in a cooking program where they invite famous guests like Koizumi and Shinzo Abe, the nationalistic acting secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, to taste their home-cooked delicacies. The group now has a best-selling recipe book.
"Waterboys" -- a film about a real-life high school in the Tokyo suburbs where male athletes formed the nation's first men's synchronized swimming team -- became a smash hit in 2001. Since then, male synchronized swimming has become a national sporting event in Japan, with scores of high school boys across the country now going toe-to-toe in an annual competition.
A poll by Shiseido, the Tokyo-based cosmetics giant, found that more than half of Japanese men in their twenties and thirties said it was important to be "gentle" while only a third said the same of being "intelligent." Perhaps most inexplicably, male thugs in the yakuza -- or Japanese mafia -- are now known to wear pink women's sandals and floral-patterned shirts while prowling the streets late at night.
Nagami Kishi, 60, head of the Research Institute for People and Corporations, who has lectured on the feminization of Japanese men, insists the movement is tied to a generation of absent fathers who "abandoned" their sons in a woman's world of mothers, sisters and aunts to spend all their time at work during Japan's post-World War II economic miracle. "When I was young, we were trained not to cry, but nowadays, men in their twenties freely express their emotions and cry even in front of women," Kishi said. "Young Japanese men are gentle, shy and sensitive; they've turned into a bunch of . . . mama's boys."
Yet Japanese men are softening at least in part, analysts say, because that's what Japanese women want. With record numbers of women here financially independent for the first time, the dating game has become a buyer's market for single women -- who, polls show, prefer men who are gentle and squeaky clean.
Kariyazaki, the celebrity florist, credits the changing definitions of masculinity for national acceptance of him and a number of other openly gay performers. Unlike in the United States, where gay entertainers still have problems receiving endorsements from large companies, Kariyazaki is a spokesman for some of Japan's platinum brand names, including All Nippon Airways and Mitsukoshi department stores.
"We have become more sophisticated about how we define masculinity," Kariyazaki said.
Preparations for his exhibition in this seaside city were a snapshot of Japan's changing gender roles. Kariyazaki directed a staff of mostly female assistants in tool belts as they lugged around heavy materials at the local Mitsukoshi. Famously temperamental when he works, Kariyazaki barked orders like a drill sergeant. One of his exhibits was a re-creation of his living room, including gilded rococo-edged sofas and floral Queen Anne chairs.
His demeanor changed when he greeted his adoring admirers. He lavished good wishes on fans who ranged from kindergartners to grandmas. They were equally effusive about him.
"Mr. Kariyazaki is amazing. You can see the power of masculinity in his work, but also the delicacy of his feminine side," said Yoshifumi Sasaki, 53, a construction company owner with a salt-and-pepper bouffant and a clutch handbag who attended the exhibition with his 47-year-old wife. "I think it's wonderful. The best of both worlds."
2005The Washington Post Company
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