• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Graduate Theses, Dissertations and Projects
    • Queen's Graduate Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Graduate Theses, Dissertations and Projects
    • Queen's Graduate Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    A Critique of Critical Race Theory: a Textual Analysis of the ‘Mr. Gaijin’ Mask

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Sakata_Fumi_201208_MA.pdf (729.4Kb)
    Date
    2012-08-22
    Author
    Sakata, Fumi
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    The thesis suggests the toy-like mask of a white man, ‘Hello, Mr. Gaijin,’ as a site of analysis where the culture of racisms is (re)produced in the specific context of contemporary Japan. Sold as a gig gift in Japan, the mask, consisting of two stickers for blue-eyes and a prominent plastic nose, embodies the popularized image of whiteness in Japan, and presents it as a source of fascination as well as ridicule and mockery. Approaching this mask as an analytical text, I ask: How is race manifested in the Japanese culture? C. W. Mills (1997) suggests that there exists a global system that privileges whites and normalizes their beneficial racial position. This trend is certainly omnipresent in contemporary Japan, where one observes the sense of superiority being affixed to the white body in the frequent use of white models in the media (Creighton, 1997). Yet, how is this theory of white supremacy significantly complicated by the particular representations of whiteness seen in the ‘Hello, Mr. Gaijin’ mask? Through mimicry, the power of whiteness is mocked and commodified into a sleazy toy mask. Critically engaging with these primary questions, the thesis situates the analysis of the ‘Hello, Mr. Gaijin’ mask within the particular history of racialization developed in Japan where the culture of whiteness holds its unique complexity and significance in the society. Drawing largely on the idea of ‘the culture of racisms’ that Goldberg (1993) suggests, the thesis argues that the seemingly contradictory sentiment towards whiteness embodied in the mask presents the key to the holistic understanding of Japan’s particular culture of racisms. Specifically, it analyzes three levels of transformation that the mask presents in embodying the particular culture of racisms: the discursive transformation of whites into gaijin; the temporal physical transformation of the user into Mr. Gaijin; the visual and material transformation of whites into the toy-mask.
    URI for this record
    http://hdl.handle.net/1974/7387
    Collections
    • Queen's Graduate Theses and Dissertations
    • Cultural Studies Interdisciplinary Graduate Program: Theses
    Request an alternative format
    If you require this document in an alternate, accessible format, please contact the Queen's Adaptive Technology Centre

    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2015  DuraSpace
    Contact Us
    Theme by 
    Atmire NV
     

     

    Browse

    All of QSpaceCommunities & CollectionsPublished DatesAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypesThis CollectionPublished DatesAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypes

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage StatisticsView Google Analytics Statistics

    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2015  DuraSpace
    Contact Us
    Theme by 
    Atmire NV