Quote:
Originally Posted by Columbine
Yes yes this. One of my specialist subjects is cross-cultural psychology; you can get an AWFUL lot of cultural bias even when you're being very careful. Actually, one of my pieces of coursework was about images of masculinity in Japan. It's changing now, I think, but certainly prior to the millennium there was quite a different yard-stick for measuring masculinity; less focussed on physical characteristics and sexuality and much more on things like role within the family/work ethic/inter-personal relations.
|
It sometimes surprises me how willing Japanese media stars are willing to go on TV with no shirt on. I am not talking just about comedians, but major rock stars...and they have (to an American's eyes) much less muscle tone than I would expect...yet they are considered to be very sexy by their female fans.
This made me realize that to a Japanese fan's eyes, big muscles is not a necessarily positive feature, and a skinny physique is not necessarily a negative one, as it might be in the US and other places.
This is more than the emo whatnot...I don't see guys in emo bands in the US and Europe taking their shirts off...