Friday, April 20, 2012
Final Project Update.
For my project, I have decided to research on the Gyaru subculture/fashion. For additional sources, I feel like the last few articles we were required to read really fit in with my topic. Like Professor Mizenko suggested, I will be using ideas from the Laurie Miller article as well as "Japanese Fashion Subcultures" and "Japanese Street Style". I feel like I will be comparing the western ideal of what beauty is and how it influenced Japanese culture, and how Japan evolved it into their own brand of beauty. Along with those articles, there is also a book called "Bad girls of Japan" by Laurie Miller that goes more in depth with this subculture. "Globalization, Culture, and Inequality in Asia" is another book I will look into for more information and ideas. The gyaru look has spread across the globe and people can be seen all around the world recreating the look.
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Helen,
ReplyDeleteThings are looking good. I like that you are using "Bad Girls." There is also a pretty interesting tongue-in-cheek book called "Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno."
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Schoolgirl-Inferno-Subculture-Handbook/dp/0811856909/ref=pd_sim_b_12
I would suggest not getting too deep into a comparative study, because those are often of limited utility. That is, it's interesting and important to consider such issues, but for me the most important thing is to think about gyaru as a subculture in Japan, and how identity is produced and maintained through visuality, etc.