Japanaphile

The above photo is cropped from the controversial photo of Hanna Montana doing that slanty eyes thing people used to do to me when I was in elementary school.

For those not in the know, the word "weeaboo" was the replacement word for "wapanese" after the world "wapanese" was used so often to insult other users on various online message boards, a filter was set up to block it. The word "weeaboo" itself is a reference to a fairly funny web comic "Perry Bible Fellowship".

I'm not entirely sure, but there seems to be a fairly large taboo with folks who are not Japanese (by ethnicity or nationality) who are highly interested in Japanese people and things. This "anti-weeaboo" sentiment is so strong it creeps in to mainstream media pretty often. The following video is from the new DLC of GTAIV, and although it is a satire of the Japanese animation industry, I feel that it strongly looks down upon the audience of the people interested in such media.



This video seems to be able to be insulting on two fronts.

First, it makes an extremely unfair generalization of Japanese animation as only poorly produced, over sexualized marketing tools. Almost in turn insulting the Japanese as a people as strange others who live weird lives and have weird interests. Reinforcing the long standing tradition of creating the Japanese as the exotic other.

Secondly, it insults the various people who are have an interests in Japanese animation. That surely we can't control what those strange Japanese people make, but why would red blooded Americans want to watch such things unless they were weird too.

This cuts across all facets of life from academic research (Why is that white woman studying geisha?) , political interests (What does that white guy think he's doing in the Japanese Embassy?), dating preferences (Rice Queens), travel (Another trip to Tokyo?) , and consumption ($500 dollars for a sword?) . It seems that there is constantly a strong rejection of people who are interested in Japanese related subjects. (or even just Asia as a whole.) So its a strange line to walk along, would people be more or less forgiving if Miley Cyrus was doing that slanty eyed thing because she wanted to be more Asian. Is it equally racist to love another people's lifestyle?