Griseldis Kirsch

Next-door divas: Japanese tarento, television and consumption

Japanese television has many peculiarities, one of which is the so-called tarento. The word is derived from the English word ‘talent’, but in fact refers to a ‘media personality’, often of no particular talent at all. All these media personalities need to do is to be present on the television screen. Locating tarento within the wider framework of celebrity studies, this article aims to analyse how stardom is understood and consumed in contemporary Japan. The article locates the contemporary television tarento as derived historically from the film ‘divas’ of the 1950s (all of whom were firmly rooted within the cinematic studio system), to the ‘everybody/anybody’, smiling at us from the television screen. These are the television celebrities who ooze a sense of natural authenticity and proximity to the viewer. I consider the extent to which these tarento have replaced the ‘divas’ of the heyday of cinema, or whether some of them are not simply ‘different divas’ from a different time and in a different medium.

Memory and myth: the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima in German and Japanese TV drama

Abstract Japan is often blamed for not coming to terms with its own wartime past and for focusing solely on its role as a victim of the war. Germany, however, is often seen as the model that Japan has to emulate, having penitently accepted responsibility. Thus, in order to work out how these popular myths are being perpetuated, the media prove to be a good source of information, since they help to uphold memory and myth at the same time. In this paper, it will be examined how the “memory” of the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima is being upheld in Japan and Germany − and what kinds of “myths” are being created in the process. In focusing on two TV dramas, it shall be worked out to what extent Japan and Germany are represented as “victims” and to what extent, if at all, the issue of war responsibility features in these dramas.