Television Histories in Asia by Jinna Tay Graeme Turner

Author:Jinna Tay, Graeme Turner [Jinna Tay, Graeme Turner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780815355205
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

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Working women and romance on Japanese television dramas

Changes since Tokyo Love Story

Alisa Freedman

Since their development in their current format in the early 1990s as a means to attract female viewers in their twenties, Japanese prime-time television dramas—known commonly as ‘dorama’1—have featured working women. Even police procedurals, medical dramas, and serials based on ‘shōjo manga’ (graphic novels for girls) depict women working outside the home. The dorama most watched by Japanese audiences older than age 25, and those that continue to attract global fans, present the daily lives of independent women working in Tokyo. The protagonists enact fantasies about female professionals while depicting real issues facing the larger generations they represent. Viewers may not want to be these characters, but they can see aspects of themselves in them.

While various categories of working women have emerged, the narratives through which they have been portrayed all support the family as the nation’s backbone, and work as a rewarding and necessary part of life. These stories show employment to be integral to women’s self-cultivation, a notion perhaps rooted in discussions about working women in interwar Tokyo (see, for example, Tipton 2013). I argue that dorama have played an important role in nation-building processes and the construction of gender norms, tending to support dominant discourses. Dorama cannot take controversial stances as easily as novels and other media, due to the need for mass audiences, advertisers, and state support of commercial networks. Yet dorama express women’s choices empathetically and thereby are a barometer of the emotional impact of historical change.

I will present an overview of working women on Japanese dramas and survey commonalities in their portrayals, especially from 1990 to the present. What has not changed is as illuminating as what has: both show how dorama negotiate social norms for women. Then I will analyze Tokyo Love Story (Tokyo rabu sutorī, 1991), which marked a turning point in the history of dorama and was popular because of its exuberant protagonist Akana Rika (played by Suzuki Honami). Tokyo Love Story had many television firsts: it was one of the first dorama to be based on manga, to attract global fans, and to have an unhappy ending in terms of love. Most notably, for the first time, the heroine aggressively pursued romance and took the initiative at work, a character type scorned in earlier series. Yet Rika’s inability to have all she desired was what captivated audiences. By watching this series with more than 20 years of hindsight, we can see the genesis of career women characters and television’s unwavering promotion of the family.

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