Cultural Differences

Again, that's going to be the first of many generalizations of this article.

Recently, manga has overtaken regular American comics.

A lot of popular artists are African-Americans - hip-hop, rap, etc.

If this seems like it could also be the beginning for a Klan rally, stick with me.

There's two reasons as to why there is, I believe.

They have more fun and they have fun because they're less serious about stringent morality in fiction and being perceived as serious.

There is a popular show my brother watches - Gundam Seed. The theme songs - five in total - are ludicrous. They combine the power ballads of the 80s with the current pseudo-techno-pop.

If they were showed to a mainstream American audience, the American audience would be creeped out. But to the nerd community, they rock out.

There is also rappers rapping about how goddamn rich they are. They are evidencing a sense of fun and joy in material things. They either don't realize that this could easily be interpreted as being shallow, (but again, I'm not a Klansmen, so I won't give credence to this argument). Or, they realize that this is stupid to rap about, and they don't care.

I apologize for sounding like a Klansmen.

It's like Bugs Bunny vs. Itchy and Scratchy. In Bugs Bunny cartoons, he is always given a motivation for playing tricks. His livelihood, his home, his life, his cable subscription - these are always threatened, and so, he plays tricks to either gain justice or vengeance (mostly, the two ideas are interchangeable.) This is the American style of thinking.

In Itchy and Scratchy, no motivation is offered. Itchy hates Scratchy simply because. The natural motivation - that Scratchy is a cat and therefore Itchy the mouse's natural enemy - is only hinted at in the vaguest sense. But Itchy is the agressor. But we don't care for Scratchy. We are ironically detached. But we laugh just as hard at Itchy as at Bugs Bunny. This is the Japanese sense of the word.

I have just come to realize that this entire blog is quickly turning into a cultural discussion of Japan. For all none of you reading this, I apologize.

In American media the creator gives a wink when the going gets funny. "Don't worry, folks - all part of the show. Don't worry about being confused - we know it's weird, we know it's not what you are used to seeing. But we think you'll like it anyway."

This isn't as present in Japanese media. The creators don't acknowledge weirdness and irony - which makes it weirder, which can add to making a story more fascinating, which makes it more watchable.

Again, it's late, and I'm mostly typing out of my arse here, so I apologize.

I also apologize for the coming leap of logic.

It's our concept of pleasure. For this we have Puritans, Catholics, and other Christians who thought that denying ourself pleasures and making ourselves martyrs would make us better people. The greatest thing our guy did was die. So we celebrate our faith through denial and atonement - the eternal apology.

This Christianity never really caught on with blacks and the Japanese. We have the stereotypical Black Baptist choir, celebrating their faith. They did not experience the cultural mindset that said "joy is bad, because we're sinners" mindset that pervaded European thought since forever. Likewise, the Japanese never really caught on to Christianity in the large sense that we did.

I apologize for assuming that Black Baptists represent all black Christians.

Because of this, our cheap literature - the action movies, pop music, the cheap novels - is infused with different means of pleasure. White people are infused with the mindset that "Pure joy is a sin." That's why our bad guys are presented as fun guys.

This mindset isn't present in other cultures. And the 20th century broke away from the mindset that "Pure joy is sin" we are drawn to other modes of culture that embrace this mindset, and present pure joy as simply pure joy.

I apologize for all the stereotypes and for being artsy-fartsy.