The Onion ... on YouTube

I wasn't too surprised to find out that Tokyo Breakfast was initially created by two white guys from Ohio who had written for The Onion and MTV in the past. The humor seemed all too American, something that a film made by Japanese writers/producers wouldn't be able to grasp as comfortably. Knowing that it was in fact made by Americans, and furthermore two guys who had written for the Onion, changed my interpretation of the clip dramatically.

We picture Japanese people as being very proper and reserved, so seeing them act like overly energetic and extroverted stars of a rap video created a juxtaposition that Americans find funny. This aspect basically drove the humor of the clip (at least on the surface). However, the creators have portrayed these actors in such a way so as to bring out our ingrained stereotypes towards Japanese culture. Maybe thats part of its genius -- ignorant Americans who harbor these stereotypes think its a hilarious comedic clip while that very clip is a piercing social commentary aimed at them. Reading viewer reviews of this clip on sites like youtube and imdb.com makes this ignorance painfully clear.


Also, to relate this to the documentary we watched last class, the use of the word "nigga" occurred only in the context of the Japanese family mocking hip-hop culture. It was used so frequently (and in so many different ways) that it was clearly meant to show that these people did not really assign any meaning to the word. Additionally, the use of the softened version of the slur, where the -er ending is replaced by the -a ending takes away a lot of the racist connotations in my opinion.

Overall, while Tokyo Breakfast may seem like a lame attempt at comedy at first, being able to view at it as a social satire rather than one of the dumb non sequitur-driven skits that appear on SNL these days, makes it a lot more worthwhile.