Becoming inauthentic
Capitalism, commodification, and performance in Wataya risa’s Insutōru
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6194753 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christopher Smith (0000-0002-6049-5514, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 434-455 |
| Publication date | 2023-08-08 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Japan Forum (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0955-5803 • E-ISSN: 1469-932X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09555803.2023.2248148 |
| OpenAlex | W4386560707 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
Asako, the protagonist of Wataya Risa's 2004 novel Insutōru (Install), is a seventeen-year-old high school student who becomes fed up with the unrelieved sameness of late capitalist Japan. She is intensely aware of the value capitalist society places on her body, bearing as it does the desirable 'brand' of joshikōsei (female high-school student). As an act of defiance she stops attending school and throws away all her belongings and furniture, becoming a kind of hikikomori in order to remove herself from alienating Japanese society and capitalist mediation of her body and find some kind of authenticity. However, she comes to the realization that late capitalism is exitless, and her rebellion is doomed to failure. Salvation comes from an unlikely source: a neighbor elementary-school student who introduces her to a part-time job selling chatroom 'sex' on the internet. This paper argues that it is precisely the move into a social environment that is highly anonymized and heavily mediated by capital that allows Asako to come to terms with society. Online she plays the role of a 26-year-old housewife, allowing her to perform a different and adult femininity. Asako realizes that both capitalism's discipline of her productivity and patriarchal society's discipline of her body into a valuable commodity can be satisfied by inauthentic performance. In the end, Asako overcomes her angst by giving up on the need to discipline her authentic self into someone that can be accepted by a community or society that will provide meaning. Instead, she realizes that all of her interactions with friends, teachers, and society as a whole can be mere transactional performances. For Asako this is a kind of liberation, as she need only perform for society rather than discipline herself to become an authentic member of it.Keywords: literaturewomen writerswataya risapostfeminismpostmodernism Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 My translation, as are all excerpts from Japanese sources.Additional informationNotes on contributorsChristopher SmithChristopher Smith Christopher Smith received a PhD in Japanese literature from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and is currently an Assistant Professor of Modern Japanese Literature at the University of Florida, where he teaches courses on modern Japanese literature, Japanese culture, manga, and anime. His research focuses on postwar Japanese literature, particularly contemporary literature (Heisei-Reiwa), as well as Japanese pop culture, including manga and anime. He is especially interested in examining how contemporary literature and culture represents, manipulates, challenges, and ultimately plays with Japanese history and identity. He recently published a translation of Tanaka Yasuo's Somehow, Crystal (Kurodahan Press). E-mail: [email protected]
Aesthetics · Capitalism · Commodification · Commodity · Economics · Market economy · Media studies · Political science · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · History · Law · Social Media and Politics
| Highly cited | No |
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