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Zeitgeist

The myth of a Japanese style of humour

This is an excerpt from chapter five of the book

Whenever I talk to people about doing comedy in Japan, whether I'm talking to Japanese or non-Japanese people, they use the words "Japanese comedy" as a matter of course. On top of the opinions they express, the phrase itself indicates an acceptance of the idea that Japanese comedy is a distinct and separate type of comedy from other comedy styles that exist around the world.

For some the assumption is an extension of cultural theories of comedy, in that they take it for granted that every distinct culture has a distinct comedy style to go with it. For others there is a particular focus on Japan because some feel that Japan, as homogeneous demographically and isolated geographically as it has been for much of its history, is particularly exceptional.

I've already debunked culture as being the foundation of comedy, but here I'd like to give particular focus to this concept of "Japanese comedy" because it highlights how all comedy in all cultures is founded on the current zeitgeist, and nothing more.

Most people, Japanese and non-Japanese alike, are exposed to "Japanese comedy" by television. A lot of comedy on television in Japan is based on manzai¹ , which, to most western people, seems reminiscent of the comedy in the fifties and earlier, when there were similar comedy duos like Laurel and Hardy or Abbot and Costello. On the other hand, the content of material, which can be very slapstick and with a large focus on being zany and different, looks like the kind of outsider foolishness that existed in the seventies as exemplified by Steve Martin and Saturday Night Live. There's also a heavy component of embarrassment and cruelty, in the game shows where people are routinely dunked into water and that sort of thing. Lastly, there are Candid Camera style² invasions of privacy.

What defines Japanese comedy as much as what it looks like is what it does not look like. You do not see any political commentary in Japan. There is no Japanese version of The Daily Show. There are no sitcoms. And there aren't stand ups doing personal, non character based, comedy like we take for granted as being standard fare in the west.

Of course, when I say "never" in all these cases, I'm allowing for a degree of exception. Just about no environment is ever 100% pure. So, for example, there is a Japanese comedy group called The Newspapers that does political comedy. They are literally one of only two³ that I know of, and I've looked pretty hard. They are rarely, as in "almost never", on television despite having been around for 20 years. Similarly, once in a blue moon there are sitcom-like shows, though whether or not they count tends to depend on how wide your definition of a sitcom is. And occasionally I've seen stand up comedians that do material that stands out from the usual fare. These exceptions, though, are far overwhelmed by the slapstick zaniness that dominates. No one, Japanese or non-Japanese alike, has any of these exceptional styles in mind at all when they toss about the term "Japanese comedy".

Before getting into why certain kinds of comedy dominate in Japan, we should first be clear that none of the comedy here is unique to Japan. Slapstick, prop comedy, and embarrassment humour exists and is appreciated elsewhere. The difference is not in style, it's merely a matter of degree. Even rakugo⁴ , which is taken to be an especially Japanese traditional form of comedy, is really just comedic storytelling. The accoutrements, like holding a fan or wearing a kimono, doesn't change the fact that it's basically just telling a funny story.

The fact is that most comedy you see on television in Japan is slapstick and silly largely because of business and political reasons.

First, the political reasons. The way broadcasting stations are licensed is constructed so that major networks are very hesitant to have any kind of political content that might jeopardize their ability to continue business. Each major network has a full time liaison at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology⁵ in order to keep the government in the loop on what content they air. While it's not clear⁶ to what extent the government directly permits or forbids content, they do have the power to revoke broadcasting licenses unilaterally. The result is the worst kind of censorship in that the television companies are simply not going to push boundaries, and so they self regulate. In this way, the government can claim, with plausible deniability, that they don't censor anything. And the television companies can stick to just trying to provide uncontroversial content of mass appeal. Political satire is unlikely to get the green light for appearing on television if it really does start to get too sharp. The comedy group The Newspapers, when I've seen them on television, tend to keep it mild⁷ .

The more significant influence on Japanese comedy, however, comes from the business end of things. Almost all the comedians on Japanese television work for a company called Yoshimoto Kougyou⁸ that essentially has a monopoly on comedic talent. Consider that in the United States, no one outside of the entertainment industry can even name one out of the dozens, if not hundreds, of comedy talent agencies. In Japan, however, Yoshimoto is a household name. Not only do they represent just about all comedy talent in mainstream media, they also run most theatres where comedy is performed live, and have schools that teach comedy. They have a huge amount of control over comedy as it is developed from the amateur level on up to the highest level of success. Not only do they largely promote their own house style, but comedians will be wary of making criticisms of sponsors and other talent, for fear of being ostracized by what is essentially the only employer in town.

It's not that Yoshimoto has any particular desire to see manzai or slapstick dominate over other styles of comedy. It's just a simple matter of having no particular motivation to do anything different or innovative, which is the case in any industry when there is a monopoly. You get substandard product developed because it's efficient and comfortable to keep doing the same old thing.

Why no sitcoms? Again, business reasons. I spoke to a writer who was contracted to work for Fuji television, one of the few major networks in Japan⁹ . She told me she had one month to write eleven episodes of a television series, all by herself. Consider that a top sitcom in the US can have as many as 20 writers coming up with jokes and writes over many months. The fact is that in the world of Japanese television, it's cheaper and easier to produce "variety" shows and game shows which consist of talents¹⁰ sitting around on a studio set just talking about anecdotes and asking each other questions. Japanese game shows, for all their elaborate sets, are a lot cheaper than other types of shows which require that you do more than ask people to perform the same challenges over and over, show after show. There's a lot of money to be made in television in the world's second largest economy, but it's not going to the writers or producers of shows that require multiple sets, or lots of time developing plots and witty dialogue.

Lastly, the pervasive nature of the dominating comedy style is self reinforcing. When I tell people the above causes of the state of Japanese comedy, they often point to the fact that Japanese consumers continue to consume it. Doesn't that indicate that they like it? Maybe partly, but I always respond that a thirsty man will drink dirty water. If the average Japanese consumer doesn't like the current brand of comedy, where else can they go? Not many other places. Again, this isn't an original concept, it's just the standard effects seen in any industry when too few companies have too much control. And you can go pretty deep into a discussion about how much people will shape their ideas around what they like based on what's available¹¹ .

We won't go that deep, as it strays outside of the scope of this book and into larger socioeconomic issues related to the impact of monopolies on the marketplace. We just need to recognize that there are reasons why there isn't much room for anything but the silly slapstick one sees so much of in Japan¹² .

One argument that has been made to me is that maybe Japanese comedy is actually all ironic, in the same vein as how much comedy in the late 1970's and early 1980's in the US was ironic stupidity which was born out of a commentary on the state of the entertainment industry itself. The whole point, it is said, of Steve Martin's act was for the audience to participate in the joke by laughing at themselves for laughing at such stupidity. Or something like that. The motivations aren't so clear, but the deliberate choice to act "stupid" is. Some defend the currently popular Japanese comedy styles by extending that model of ironic stupidity.

While I can agree that there are probably some comedians in Japan who work within that mould, the fact is that the bulk of control over what kind of comedy gets promoted is outside the hands of most comedians and decided by business interests, and so is suspiciously unlikely to be the result of some pervasive movement of innovative comedians.

Unfortunately, the act of being ironically stupid is hard to distinguish from actual stupidity, and since the more mundane type of stupidity is more common and accessible to those who would book them, it's near impossible to be certain if it's the comedian is offering that kind of comedy, or the booking agency filtering for it. It probably is both, in a self perpetuating cycle. In any case, the defence that most Japanese comedy is ironically stupid is indistinguishable from a convenient excuse to perpetuate business as usual. The ironic stupidity trend in the US was not the only one at the time, and it lasted at most ten years. In Japan, it overwhelms other comedy styles, it has been going since at least the seventies, maybe before, and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

As you can tell, I am completely unimpressed with what is understood to be "Japanese comedy". Even though the term does not accurately refer to any kind of source of comedy, it does refer to the results. And I think the current results of comedy in Japan suck.

However, that's only true in the mainstream media of Japanese television and large scale media enterprises. There is interesting Japanese comedy within the world of Japanese manga and anime. Why there? Because in the Japanese manga and anime industries there are countless companies competing for attention. Competition means innovation, and within competition there are outlets for creative expression and innovation.

Also, there are underground clubs where comedy can take different forms. The comedy group I work with, The Tokyo Comedy Store, has a group of Japanese improvisers who are trying to bring "western style" improv comedy to Japan. They are gradually expanding their audience, indicating a potential for audiences to appreciate things outside the monopoly, if given the chance.

I've gone a long way into describing the comedy landscape as it stands in Japan. However, what is there about it that we can extrapolate to learn about comedy in general?

I hope I've discredited the idea that what is seen as "Japanese comedy" is some kind of culturally derived style that is particular or unique to Japan. Really the comedy that exists here is just a different assortment of the same threads of comedy that can and do exist everywhere. Humans are the same everywhere with the same biological potential for humour, we just make different collective decisions on how we'll utilize it. It's like we all have the same deck of playing cards, but we can choose which games to play, and we're not limited to sticking to just one.

The real important revelation, however, is that the selection of which games to play, or which comedy styles, does not lead to culturally fixed definitions of comedy. In other words, its not the case that having come to this point in Japan's cultural development and having had all sorts of influences shape the comedy landscape that there is now a particular Japanese style locked in.

To make that clear, I'd like to compare against a different time and place than Japan. Consider that back in the late 1800s and through to about the 1920s, the main venue for comedy performance in the United States was travelling vaudeville shows. In those days, a comedy performer could literally buy collections of jokes in books and go from town to town telling the same jokes over and over again. Different performers had more or less the same material.

When radio and movies came along, those same jokes could be broadcast over a wider area than any one comedian could ever hope to cover on their own. That meant it was no longer good enough to be the person who just conveyed the jokes that people had already heard in the media, so the comedians had to evolve their act. They had to write their own material, or at least bring something unique, their own personal take, or a way of delivery that made it important to see that particular comedian doing it. A development that I think we're still seeing the effects of to this day.

The technological development of mass media, which of course affected society in general, affected the type of comedy that was offered. When comedians could perform reliable standard jokes and get laughs, that's what they did. For better or worse, when that was no longer an option, they delivered different styles.

And so it is in Japan right now. The current environment creates a context in which people explore comedy within a particular framework. It's only one point on a continual flow of change, and the next zeitgeist of comedy may come with the next significant change in human communications, the internet. Now it is possible for content creators in Japan, as elsewhere, to be seen and heard without as much constriction as when they had to appeal to a producer at a major television network. Sounds like a nice thing, although no one has any idea what the future will hold. I hope for the best, but comedy isn't going in any particular direction. It could very well turn out that whatever Japan, or any other country, turns to as its dominant style of comedy in the next generation will be lamer than what's around now.

All said and done, the point is that human beings like to laugh, and will seek to do so in whatever way they can. They'll take whatever they can get, and if society, technology, or culture constricts or promotes conditions that effect what kind of comedy can be seen, that's what people will laugh at. There is no "Japanese comedy", no "American comedy", or comedy anywhere that is limited to its place of origin. There is just the potential for audiences to select funny jokes out of all the jokes offered. Constrain the range of offerings, and you constrain the range of laughter.

But if you expand the offerings, anything can happen.

footnotes

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