Global Futures in East Asia: Youth, Nation, and the New Economy in Uncertain Times (Contemporary Issues in Asia and Pacific) (41 page)

This
dominant opposition between women as future homemakers who are not invested in pursuing a job outside the home, or as career women who devote themselves to their professions and are not interested in having their own families, became increasingly discrepant with social realities by the second half of the 1990s. The Cinderella path to marry a Prince Charming who will provide for his sweetheart for the rest of her life—the dominant scenario love dramas echoed—was an option for a decreasing number of women in the late 1990s. Many women would have liked to quit their jobs and to become full-time homemakers once they had married, but in the recession married women faced growing pressure to contribute to the household income. In postwar Japan, corporations relied on the system of lifetime employment and seniority-based pay that entailed constant employment training and transfers between remote branch offices. This system applied only to a stable core of male workers, who, in return, were expected to commit themselves to their companies (Rohlen 1979). Female employees were not part of this core workforce. Most typically, female employees in the corporate world were office ladies whose average tenure in their companies spanned three to eight years.
12
They performed mainly clerical work such as filing, the operation of office equipment, accounting-related work, reception, or document and data processing. These women could neither maintain a continuous labor history, nor could they reenter the labor force as career-track employees, because the systems of lifetime employment and seniority-based pay foreclosed their reintegration into the corporate hierarchy. These women were the target audiences as well as protagonists of love dramas.

During the postwar period, the turnover of these female employees was high, which saved money for companies because these workers received a minimum wage that did not increase at the same rate as the salaries of male employees. In addition, companies did not pay social welfare benefits or bonuses to their nonstandard employees (Broadbent 2002; Joohee Lee 2004). Thus, the flexibility that women’s underpaid labor provided offset the high costs of the lifetime employment system. Whereas the nonstandard workforce was overwhelmingly feminized throughout the postwar period, the 1990s witnessed a marked shift in the composition of this workforce. During this period, young men joined the nonstandard workforce in massive numbers.
13
Under the banner of the
freeter
phenomenon, popular as well as social-scientific discourses have explored the changing place of youth in the labor market.
Freeter
(a hybrid of the English word
free
and the German
word
Arbeiter
, or worker) refers to the twenty- and thirty-something young people who drift from one short-term job to another. The average
freeter
is reported to stay in a job for about nine months, during which period he or she earns about US$1000 a month.
14
In 2003, 20 percent of the youth population identified as
freeters
, and their number has been increasing (Driscoll 2007). In 2009, approximately 35 percent of young workers between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four were employed in temporary positions.
15

Many top-ranking trendy dramas such as
Long Vacation
(Fuji, 1996) or
Beach Boys
(Fuji, 1997) have glamorized the
freeters
’ flexible lifestyle and iconoclastic, antisalaryman attitude. This celebration of
freeters
was part of a broader popular discourse on the changing attitude of youth toward labor. A journalist has written, “If the icon of the 1980s was the salaryman who sacrificed his private life for his company, today’s icon is the
freeter
—the young Japanese who take odd jobs to make just enough money to enjoy their personal interest or choose their way of life” (Ōnishi 2004, A3). However,
freeters
are not always objects of celebration; they are also a source of moral panic. The sociologist Yamada Masahiro has played a key role in promoting a more unfavorable judgment. Yamada blames
freeters
for not paying their state pension contributions, thus putting further stress on a fund already burdened by a growing elderly population. He also accuses
freeters
of exacerbating Japan’s falling birthrate, as they marry later and have fewer children, if any at all. He refutes the image that
freeters
devote themselves to pursuing their dreams. On the contrary, he argues that
freeters
are just using such dreams as excuses not to work because it is rarely the case that they give up full-time jobs to realize their ambitions. He concludes that
freeters
indeed have no dreams and characterizes them as weak willed, lacking in ambition, irresponsible, spoiled, and self-absorbed (Yamada 1999). I would stress that both of these approaches are problematic because they discuss the
freeter
phenomenon in a vacuum disconnected from the economic recession and the decline of the socioeconomic structure that underwrote the high-growth era. It is not so much that young people in Japan are decreasingly willing to sacrifice their lives to their companies, but they often no longer get the chance to do so.

The diminishing prospects of youths for secure employment have led to the loss of a familiar scenario for a predictable future. In searching for new directions, different social institutions imagined different possibilities for youths, not unaffected by their own political and economic investment in this segment of society. And although these visions were not necessarily
consistent,
even within distinct institutional discourses, drama producers seemed to be in agreement in that they did not want to upset their sponsors by playing up concerns about the insatiable appetite of the new economy for flexible labor or the ideas that
freeters
were “a new economic underclass in the making” (Yoda 2000: 656). Instead, they suggested that young people should get the best out of their new freedoms not only in the context of consumerism but also in the realm of work. Trendy dramas, however, conveniently avoided the question of where this new freedom came from. They timidly suggested that it resulted from the diversification of choices as the high-growth economy with its promise of life-long employment came to an end (
Beach Boys
, Fuji 1997). The idea that freedom was indeed the new obligation (and the new mandatory life-course) for many did not seem compatible with the expectations of commercial sponsors for television networks to create a consumption-friendly media environment. Valorizing the link between freedom and choice was preferred over emphasizing the connection between freedom and obligation.

This indifference to the origins of freedom tended to conceal the connection between freedom and neoliberal initiatives in the rhetoric of commitment to ideals of personal freedom. David Harvey has noted that neoliberal initiatives, to which ideals of individual freedom were essential, have always been

. . . backed up by a practical strategy that emphasized the liberty of consumer choice, not only with respect to particular products but also with respect to particular lifestyles, modes of expression, and a wide range of cultural practices. Neoliberalization required both politically and economically the construction of a neoliberal market-based populist culture of differentiated consumerism and individual libertarianism. (Harvey 2005: 42)

In other words, while the encouragement of narcissistic consumerism in love dramas was merely supporting a neoliberal rhetoric, workplace dramas went a step further by mobilizing against hierarchical and highly bureaucratic institutional structures (that is, forms of regulation other than the free market) that, they stressed, stifled the realization of freedom and stood in the way of economic growth.

Trendy dramas celebrated the courage of young people to steer clear of secure employment, which would require them to sacrifice their individuality by becoming a part of a homogeneous and highly disciplined workforce.
(Note
the resonance between this position and neoliberal theory that considers unemployment voluntary.) However, in the wake of diminishing pathways to regular employment and the growing dominance of irregular labor as the only available work option, the television industry’s position does not seem socially responsible.
Shomuni
was appealing because it reconciled the contradictory expectations young viewers were experiencing in the late 1990s. On the one hand, as
producers
these viewers were expected to continue sharing in the postwar work ethic that required them to subordinate their desires for a fun-loving lifestyle to their companies’ needs for a docile workforce that could revitalize the country’s underperforming economy. On the other hand, as
consumers
, they were encouraged to pursue their aspirations by experimenting with an ever-expanding multitude of consumer choices. Viewers’ responses suggest that workplace dramas—and
Shomuni
in particular—evoked their sympathy because the female protagonists transposed their “true” fun-seeking selves onto their jobs. By bridging the gap between these different expectations, the office ladies of
Shomuni
represented a new breed of workers whose willingness to connect fun and work resonated with neoliberal initiatives to push individuals to become autonomous and entrepreneurial. In the following section I continue interrogating how the struggles of Chinatsu (the heroine of
Shomuni
) to integrate fun and work articulated with the changing place of youth in the labor market.

The
Shomuni
Series: The Office Lady as the New Cultural Icon of Lifestyle Employment

The
Shomuni
series was based on a
manga
written by the young artist Yasuda Hiroyuki, who himself lived a
freeter
life. The series first appeared in the magazine
Shūkan Mōningu
, which targeted a male readership, and was published between November 1995 and June 1997. An article in
Tokyo Keizai Shinbun
in 1996 stressed that the story was popular because it featured a new type of office lady who was different from the protagonist of love dramas and did not sacrifice her interests to help the hero advance his. Instead, these women were portrayed as powerful, autonomous, and courageous enough to defy corporate hierarchy. The article concluded that male readers found it liberating to see these characters refusing to abandon their own personal values within the corporate setting (
jibun no kachi de ikiru
).
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Despite
this suggestion that
Shomuni
might appeal to a young male audience, producers did not have high expectations, as young men did not constitute a demographic known to be committed to viewing prime-time television (7 to 11 p.m.). The program’s exceptionally high ratings pleasantly surprised both the production team and the programming department. The serial did not feature any top
tarento
, without whom producers believed no drama could make it to the top of the popularity charts in the 1990s. Moreover, the serial was hastily put together when a new slot for dramas (Wednesday, 9:00 to 10:00 p.m.) was created shortly before the start of a new season. This slot had previously been reserved for variety shows, but the programming department decided to reassign it for dramas in response to the network’s success in the genre.

The hit drama maker of the programming department Ōta Tōru was in charge of assigning staff and of casting
tarento
to this drama and did not want to grant a huge budget to a serial that did not have much of a chance of achieving high ratings. He assigned the lead role to Esumi Makiko, who was not well known in 1998. (Indeed,
Shomuni
earned her fame.) The supporting cast was similarly assembled from second- and third-tier
tarento
, who were recruited randomly depending on their availability. He assigned the new serial to the producer Funatsu Kōichi, who was known for his affinity for unconventional “art-house” programs that drew low to moderate ratings. He was also one of the producers in charge of the more successful, but far from mainstream,
Yo ni mo Kimyōna Monogatari
(Weird Stories in the World), which had been broadcast as special features since 1990. These programs allow the drama production staff to do something more in the realm of the absurd, the cynical, and the artistic.

Director Suzuki Masayuki was the most experienced member of the production staff. Like the producer, he too had a flair for nontraditional drama formats. As Suzuki was an accomplished director with high credentials, Ōta entrusted him with the freedom to do whatever he pleased (Uesugi and Takakura 2001). At the same time, Suzuki had already been engaged in another project scheduled for the following season (
Sekaide Ichiban Papa ga Suki
, Fuji 1998, [I Love Dad, He’s the Best in the World]) that involved larger budgets and top-tier tarento. He concentrated on the preparation of
Sekaide Ichiban
, as the network expected it to draw higher ratings.
17
Not surprisingly, the two scriptwriters recruited for the project, Takahashi Rumi and later Hashimoto Yūji, were also neophytes in the field. Interviews with production
staff suggest that a reason for the high ratings was that the drama was produced in a vacuum. The programming department had modest expectations, and thus it refrained from exerting pressure on the production staff.

Why did then the serial become such a smash hit? Viewers claimed that the series was easy to follow as each episode offered a whole story with a resolution at the end, thus making each episode independently enjoyable. As already suggested, this reflected a conscious strategy to draw viewers who were not willing to commit to watching entire serials. Male viewers also stressed that they found female characters wearing uniforms with improbably short skirts particularly appealing. Here a brief mention of the widespread appropriation of work uniforms in the Japanese sex industry as a form of erotic costume play should suffice. And the more popular the serial became among male viewers, the shorter the skirts of the heroines grew and the more often the main character was found atop a ladder changing lightbulbs as the camera filmed her from below. Most important, however, viewers reasoned that they enjoyed
Shomuni
because they found the portrayal of office ladies appealing. They claimed that they derived pleasure from seeing these office ladies talking back to their bosses.