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This presentation traces the history of young Japanese women’s subcultures from the 1990s to the present day, in fashion and visual culture. Examining these materials, this paper shows how young Japanese women have empowered themselves by embracing and cultivating cuteness and hyper-femininity. In gyaru (“girl”) subcultures, which emerged in the 1990s and reached a peak in the early 2000s, young women became aware of their power of expression and creativity, established their identities, and took charge of their own representation. At the same time, this talk considers how these identities are vulnerable to being compromised and commodified. This is particularly the case for the young women who celebrated the gyaru culture as they grew up, later calling themselves joshi or jo (again, meaning “girl”); they built an empowering new culture, but later found their meanings distorted and turned into unfavourable labels applied by men. The vitality of young Japanese women’s popular culture is not to be silenced, however. The paper closes by examining the recent rise in popularity of yuri/GL (Girls Love) works in TV and anime, which celebrate the desires of queer women, along with the recent resurgence of gyaru culture and its intersection with queerness.

Posted on behalf of: Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities
Last updated: Thursday, 10 October 2024