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- Title
Camera Men: Techno-orientalism in Two Acts.
- Authors
MCKAY, DANIEL
- Abstract
During the years of Japan's "bubble" economy, writers and artists in the United States became increasingly susceptible to "Japan-bashing," a discourse that objectified Japanese for their trade practices, overseas purchases, and tourist presence. In the following article, I draw upon a range of cultural texts, from Truman Capote's novella Breakfast at Tiffany's to Michael Crichton's novel Rising Sun, in order to investigate how the trope of the camera-toting Japanese expatriate encapsulated the fears of the era. I then move to explore the ways in which Japanese Americans negotiated these tropes in their writings, paying particular attention to Ruth Ozeki's novel My Year of Meats. I hypothesize that Japanese Americans remained aware of the phenomenon of "Japan-bashing" throughout the era, yet did not confront it in a sustained fashion. Instead, tropes were either dismissed out of hand or, as in Ozeki's case, incorporated into a narrative before undergoing a process of gradual dismantlement.
- Subjects
JAPANESE in literature; TECHNOLOGY in literature; BREAKFAST at Tiffany's (Book); CAPOTE, Truman, 1924-1984; RISING Sun (Book); CRICHTON, Michael, 1942-2008
- Publication
Journal of American Studies, 2017, Vol 51, Issue 3, p939
- ISSN
0021-8758
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/S0021875817000548