Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

‘Pacchigi Power!’: The ‘Coming-Out’ Melodrama

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Zainichi Cinema

  • 483 Accesses

Abstract

Expanding on the discussion of the ethnic closet, coding, and passing in the previous chapter, this chapter turns to the post-2000 discourse on the ethnic ‘coming out’ of movie stars and other public personas. In the wake of the Korean Wave, a series of entertainers and other celebrities whose Korean ethnicity had not previously appeared in official public discourse began to disclose and discuss their Koreanness, on television variety shows and across the pages of weekly magazines. This was usually described as a ‘coming out’ in the media. ‘Coming out’ has also been the default mode for mainstream dramas about Zainichi Koreans from the success of Go, both the novel and film (Yukisada Isao, 2001), onwards. This discourse reveals the media processes through which a star’s Koreanness was strategically occluded and a ‘pure’ Japaneseness was constructed. From this more open, post-Korean Wave vantage point, commentators could re-read the icons of post-war celebrity culture. This chapter focuses on the media narrativisation of this process of constructing a ‘Japanese star’, particularly in the Pacchigi sequel, Love and Peace (Izutsu Kazuyuki, 2007), and explores the question of whether the discourse of ‘coming out’ is merely another mechanism to regulate identity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Works Cited

  • Asahi geinō. 2007, June 7. Zainichi Korian geinōjin no Pacchigi-ryoku! [Zainichi Korean Entertainers’ Break-Through Power!], 30–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Asayama, Jitsu, Daisuke Habara, and Kazuyuki Izutsu. 2007. Pacchigi! Love and Peace. Tokyo: Kadokawa Group Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdaghs, Michael K. 2012. Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop, Kindle edn. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, Peter. 1995 [1976]. The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, Judith. 1991. Imitation and Gender Insubordination. In Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, ed. Diana Fuss, 13–31. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fan, Mingi. 1992, Summer. Rikidōzan densetsu (taminzokushakai wo ikiru) [The Rikidōzan Legend (Living in a Multicultural Society)]. Oruta 1: 49–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gluck, Carol. 2007. Operations of Memory: Comfort Women and the World. In Ruptured Histories: War, Memory, and the Post-Cold War in Asia, ed. Sheila Miyoshi Jager, and Rana Mitter, 47–77. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, Stuart. 1996. New Ethnicities. In Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, ed. Stuart Hall, David Morley, and Kuan-Hsing Chen, 441–449. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hwang, Yun Mi. 2011. Trans-Action: Epic Tensions and Ethics of Memory in East Asian Co-Productions/Yun Mi Hwang. In Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas: The Reel Asian Exchange, ed. Philippa Gates, and Lisa Funnell, 115–129. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Igarashi, Yoshikuni. 2000. Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945–1970. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ishita, Saeko, Kan Kimura, and Chie Yamanaka (ed). 2007. Posuto kanryū no media shakaigaku [Sociology of the Post Korean Wave Media]. Kyoto: Mineruva Shobō.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaneyama, Toshiaki. 1979, October. Naze, Kankoku/Chōsenjin tarento no “kokuseki” ga tabū nanoka! [Why Is the Nationality of Korean Celebrities Taboo?!]. Uwasa no Shinsō: 16–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kang, Sang-jung. 2004. 9/17 and After: Japan—North Korea Relations and Their Implications for Minority Rights and Media Discourse in Japan. Translated by Risa Tokunaga, Tim Amos, and Tessa Morris-Suzuki. Asia Rights, 3. http://rspas.anu.edu.au/asiarightsjournal/KangSangjung.htm

  • Katabira, Aki. 1973. Dai hitto shita “jingi naki tatakai” no yukue: Fukamaru aki ni [The Whereabouts of Blockbuster “Battles Without Honour”: Deep in Autumn]. Eiga Geijutsu 295: 70–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kitano, Ryūichi. 2007, May 20. Eiga “Pacchigi!” zokuhen de zainichi Korian josei wo enjita Nakamura Yuri san [Nakamura Yuri, Who Played a Zainichi Korean Woman in the “Pacchigi!” Sequel]. Asahi Shimbun, 2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Bong-ou. 2007. Pacchigi!-teki: Sekai wa eiga de kaerareru [Pacchigi!-esque: The World Can Be Changed with Films]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Hyangjin. 2008. Kanryū no shakaigaku: Fandomu, kazoku, ibunka kōryū [The Sociology of Hallyu: Fandom, Family and Intercultural Communication]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Bong-ou, and Sang-jung Kang. 2007. Cheju-jima de, nihon de kangaeta higashi-ajia to boku-tachi no koto (taidan) [On Cheju Island, in Japan, We Thought about East Asia and Ourselves (Discussion)]. In Ai, heiwa, Pacchigi! ed. Kazuyuki Izutsu, and Bong-ou Lee, 82–113. Tokyo: Kōdansha.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lie, John. 2008. Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lim, Youngmi. 2009. Reinventing Korean Roots and Zainichi Routes: The Invisible Diaspora Among Naturalized Japanese of Korean Descent. In Diaspora Without Homeland: Being Korean in Japan, ed. Sonia Ryang, and John Lie, 81–106. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Liscutin, Nicola. 2009. Surfing the Neo-Nationalist Wave: A Case Study of Manga Kenkanryū. In Cultural Studies and Cultural Industries in Northeast Asia: What a Difference a Region Makes, ed. Chris Berry, Nicola Liscutin, and Jonathan D. Mackintosh, 171–194. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lukács, Gabriella. 2010. Scripted Affects, Branded Selves: Television, Subjectivity, and Capitalism in 1990s Japan. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mōri, Yoshitaka. 2009. Reconsidering Cultural Hybridities: Transnational Exchanges of Popular Music in Between Korea and Japan. In Cultural Studies and Cultural Industries in Northeast Asia: What a Difference a Region Makes, ed. Chris Berry, Nicola Liscutin, and Jonathan D. Mackintosh, 213–230. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Morris, Mark. 2009. Melodrama, Exorcism, Mimicry: Japan and the Colonial Past in the New Korean Cinema. In Cultural Studies and Cultural Industries in Northeast Asia: What a Difference a Region Makes, ed. Chris Berry, Nicola Liscutin, and Jonathan D. Mackintosh, 195–212. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Nakamura, Ryūtarō. 2005, August 11. Jitsuroku: Wada Akiko “chi to hone” no burūsu [True Account: Wada Akiko “Blood and Bones” Blues]. Shūkan Bunshun 47(31): 208–213.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nanase, Kyōichirō. 2007, August. “_Pacchigi!” ga egaita geinōkai tabū no genjitsu wa… [The Reality of the Entertainment World’s Taboo Depicted in “Pacchigi!”…]. Kizu 37(8): 54–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nomura, Susumu. 1996. Korian sekai no tabi [A Journey Round the Korean World]. Tokyo: Kōdansha.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogawa, Shota. 2014. Revisiting Through the Night (2002): A Paradigm or Anomaly in Japanese–Korean Co-Production and Cross-Media Adaptation. Journal of Japanese & Korean Cinema 6(2): 152–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raine, Michael. 2001. Ishihara Yūjirō: Youth, Celebrity, and the Male Body in Late-1950s Japan. In Word and Image in Japanese Cinema, ed. Dennis Charles Washburn, and Carole Cavanaugh, 202–225. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogoff, Irit. 1996. Gossip as Testimony: A Postmodern Signature. In Generations & Geographies in the Visual Arts: Feminist Readings, ed. Griselda Pollock, 58–65. London; New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Samper, David. 2002. Cannibalizing Kids: Rumor and Resistance in Latin America. Journal of Folklore Research 39(1): 1–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Satō, Hideki, and Takayuki Ōtani. 2007. Pacchigi! Love and Peace: Another Story. Tokyo: Bajiriko.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shūkan Bunshun. 2002. ‘Ogoru na Wada Akiko: Omae wa jippu wo suteta! Kōkennin no oji ga ikari no kokuhatsu [Don’t Be Proud Wada Akiko: You Threw Away Your Real Father! Angry Complaint of Guardian Uncle], 44(7), 168–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tanaka, Keiko. 2003. Otto Rikidōzan no dōkoku: Botsugo 40 nen mibōjin ga hajimete akasu shōgeki hiwa [My Husband Rikidōzan’s Lament: 40 Years After His Death His Widow Divulges Shocking Secrets for the First Time]. Tokyo: Futabasha.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turim, Maureen. 1989. Flashbacks in Film: Memory and History. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wada-Marciano, Mitsuyo. 2009. Ethnically Marked “Heroes”: From Rikidozan to Shunpei in “Blood and Bones”. Post Script—Essays in Film and the Humanities 28(2): 101–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wada, Akiko. 1993. Go-nenme no haihiiru [A Fifth Year in High Heels]. Tokyo: Fusosha.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wender, Melissa L. 2005. Lamentation as History: Narratives By Koreans in Japan, 1965–2000. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Linda. 2001. Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White From Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamanaka, Chie. 2010. The Korean Wave and Anti-Korean Discourse in Japan. In Complicated Currents: Media Flows, Soft Power and East Asia, ed. Daniel Black, Stephen Epstein and Alison Tokita, 2.1–2.14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yomota, Inuhiko. 2006. Yamaguchi Momoe: Shinwa to zankyō [Yamaguchi Momoe: Myth and Reverberation]. In Joyū Yamaguchi Momoe, ed. Inuhiko Yomota, 7–19. Tokyo: Waizu Shuppan.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. London, UK

    Oliver Dew

Authors
  1. Oliver Dew
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Dew, O. (2016). ‘Pacchigi Power!’: The ‘Coming-Out’ Melodrama. In: Zainichi Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40877-4_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation