Japan Forum ISSN: 0955-5803 (Print) 1469-932X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjfo20 Japanese scandals and their ritualization Igor Prusa To cite this article: Igor Prusa (2019): Japanese scandals and their ritualization, Japan Forum, DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2019.1599985 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2019.1599985 Published online: 16 Apr 2019. Submit your article to this journal View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjfo20 Japanese scandals and their ritualization IGOR PRUSA Abstract: On the theoretical level, this article aims to connect the theory of ritual and performance to the social phenomenon of media scandal. While focusing on the Japanese mediascape, this article aims to illuminate the ritualized means of scandal resolution, and the cultural realities of public shaming. This is important because most scandal denouements in Japan do not get by without a secular ritual of emotional confession, temporary exclusion, and eventual reintegration. While drawing from the methods of neofunctionalism, it is illustrated how the sociocultural act of confession, apology and exclusion is turned into an orchestrated pseudo-event with a high degree of ritualization. Keywords: Japanese scandal, Japanese media, secular ritual, social drama, confession, apologia 1. Scandal as performance and ritual 1.1. Approaching scandal as social performance In the past, research on scandals was conducted from various academic perspectives. The fields of study worth mentioning are sociology, anthropology, history, rhetorical linguistics, narrative/semiotic analysis, comparative law, political science, research on the media, communication and journalism studies. In this text, I aim to take a novel approach by connecting the performance/ritual theories to a broader conception of scandal. This is in accord with the neofunctionalist paradigm, where the materiality of social practices – including traditional rituals and modern scandals – is replaced by a more multidimensional concept of performance (e.g. Alexander 2006b, 2011). This is important, because social performance is coexistent with the human condition, and every performance (including religious rites, art/sports performances, and political negotiations) is constitutive for human communication as such. Japan Forum, 2019 Vol. 0, No. 0, 1–17, https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2019.1599985 Copyright # 2019 BAJS 2 Igor Prusa At both the macro and the micro levels, contemporary societies are still permeated by symbolic performances and ritualized activities. At the macro level, we can argue that the whole of our social world, constituted by objects, people and events, is one big meta-performance (or a ‘macrodrama’) in which spectators become performers and vice versa. At the micro level, human behavior becomes expressed in a form of individualized performances that are grounded on highly symbolic axiological systems. Needless to say, people are usually unaware actors on a metaphorical stage playing out their roles. The actor’s stage is any place that is bound to some degree by barriers to reception, while the front stage functions in a ritualized fashion to define the situation for the observer (Meyrowitz 1986; Giesen 2011). In media reality, the political discourse is particularly emblematic of dramaturgy and performance. Within the so-called theater of politics, power elites, producers, and stage managers craft discourse as drama, transform public into a stage, and unfold the script (see Edelman 1964; Apter 2006). Simultaneously, the journalistic ideology materializes depending on the way the newspeople ritually perform their routines (Tuchman 1972; Prusa 2017). The key dramaturgical aspect of a scandal performance lies in the presumption that one’s conduct is a staged activity that attempts to conceal some inappropriateness. While paraphrasing Erwin Goffman (1959), we can talk about a ‘dual presentation of self’ in scandal: the elites perform their role based on their delegated trustworthiness, but their private actions simultaneously deviate from a certain norm. Once this schism becomes exposed, the red-handed elites follow a new script: confession via apology, or manifestation of innocence via denial. The confessional performances are usually conducted in predefined categories (e.g. passivity, approval of authority or admittance of transgression versus refusing to admit guilt and shifting blame to others), but this is not fixed since the experienced elites skillfully combine these strategies. Generally speaking, all performances are grounded in any activity that takes place before a particular set of observers, while every dramatization implies the existence of a more or less responsive audience. The reaction needed to fuel a scandal is, from the most part, a reaction undertaken by the general public (it can be expressed by opinion polls or random street interviews). Large public segments are ‘invited’ to interrupt their daily routines and join in the media event. Some scholars claim that in media (post)modernity, the tide of information does not require a response by the recipient, so scandal performances are seen as ‘monologic’ media events (e.g. Adut 2008). Indeed, scandals do not require a fully participating public (at the most basic level, it is enough that the public simply watch). However, the public too can become ‘performative ritualists’ rather than mere audience members (Grimes 2006). Some public upheavals in postwar history clearly indicate that Japanese audiences can Japanese scandals and their ritualization 3 indeed become proactive performers, rendering the whole communicative situation as ‘quasi-dialogic’.1 1.2. Bridging scandal and ritual theory If there is one universal cultural quality that marks the earliest forms of social organization all around the world, it is the centrality of rituals. In premodern times, many social processes were heavily marked by episodes of ritualized cultural communication. The basic function of these rituals lies in a shared mutual belief in the descriptive and prescriptive validity of its symbolic contents (Durkheim 1915; Turner 1967; Geertz 1973). To put it simply, the effect of premodern rituals was twofold: the neighborhood solidarity was strengthened, while the acceptance of authority flew from the enactment of a public ritual. Ritual as a specific category of social behavior has been perceived in various ways. For instance, traditional rituals were understood as re-enactments of mythical precedents (Eliade 1959) and safety valves that exhibit real conflicts in order to afford social catharsis (Gluckman 1963; Bell 1992). The gift-exchange rituals were rendered as having political significance, while the rituals of penal discipline were understood as the microphysics of power (Mauss 1966; Foucault 1977; Stockdale 2015). In religious discourse, the notions of purity and defilement facilitated the maintenance of order by ritually removing the sinful impurity (Douglas 1973; Blidstein 2015). In a similar vein, the modern rituals – such as scandals – became metaphysical containers that serve as ideological tools of social order and control (Leach 1954; Lukes 1975; Schechner 1985; Marvin 2002). This voluminous body of research indeed makes an impression that ritual is humanity’s basic social act (Bellah 2005). Emile Durkheim believed that both the archaic man and the secular man of today have their ‘civil religion’ which provides individuals with meaning and binds them into a community. The notion of civil religion (Durkheim 1915) and its modern applications (Bellah 2003; Alexander 2006a) can be used when discussing scandal as a secular ritual of civil religion that contains conflict and prevents community from degenerating into lawlessness. The same as religious/ folk performances, the social drama of scandal aims to mobilize collective sentiments based on the good–sacred/evil–profane binary. In other words, scandals metaphorically symbolize the sacred ‘inside’ (naibu or uchi) and the profane ‘outside’ (gaibu or soto) by ritually separating them. These separations are always ‘secular rituals’: they present doctrines and dramatize moral imperatives without invoking the other-worldliness of some mystical powers (Moore and Myerhoff 1977). While diverging from the Durkheimian understanding of the sacred, scandal is not the veneration of an object held to be sacred by a 4 Igor Prusa community, but it lies in a public separation from the transgressor, and a call to obey the commonsensical morality. In this context, Victor Turner’s performance approach becomes more useful (Turner 1969, 1980, 1990). Turner emphasized the role of ‘social drama’, during which frictions and conflicts are mitigated by a ritual. Out of many rituals discussed by Turner, the logic of Japanese scandal is semantically close to the so-called ‘ritual of affliction’, which served in premodern times as the means of purification forced on those who have been caught deviating from norm. The same as modern scandals, these events ritually re-establish the line between good and evil – a process made possible only by the act of punishment. Of course, the premodern models cannot be taken as a strict analogy for some processes of social life today. Nonetheless, some contemporary social symbols are like sacred ones, while the conflict between social values is like the conflict between the sacred and profane or pure and impure (Alexander 2010). The main affinity between premodern and (post)modern social dramas lies in their processuality. An ideal-type social drama follows this narrative pattern: 1. 2. 3. 4. breach of norm-governed social relationships, crisis, extension of the breach, backstage revelations, redressive mechanisms and public action by authorities, reintegration of disturbed social group, or recognition of a schism. This pattern media scandal: 1. 2. 3. 4. corresponds with the progression of an ideal-type scandal is triggered by a revealed transgression, the breach leads into a crisis that cannot be sealed off, purifying sanctions (symbolic/legal) are brought into operation, transgressor is publicly tried, sanctioned and eventually reintegrated.2 Turnerian social dramas and modern media scandals appear to share their fundamental narrative logic. After all, the basic components of premodern social dramas and modern secular rituals can be treated as the fundamental aspects of social behavior. The modern media only ‘repackaged’ ancient subjects and themes, where gossiping and telling stories was just a reassertion of tribal story gatherings (Barkow 1992; Estes 2004; Schwab and Schwender 2011). At any rate, both rituals and scandals can serve as instruments of social control that stand for the very production and negotiation of power relations. On the one hand, they integrate societies and evoke a renewal of social trust to authorities (Dayan and Katz 1988). On the other hand, they both reflect and perpetuate the principles of moral order by excluding the transgressor in order to alleviate the danger of protracted pollution. Japanese scandals and their ritualization 5 1.3. On the Japanese sense of ritual Mary Douglas (1973) postulated that ritual becomes an effective tool of social control in societies that are (1) closed social groups, with (2) restricted codes of linguistic and symbolic communication, in which (3) there is great emphasis on hierarchy as opposed to personal identity, and (4) yet a general social consensus still upholds the system. Japan arguably belongs to such societies. The extent of ritualistic behavior surpasses other cultures while some traditional rites have significant practical repercussions in contemporary Japan. We are mesmerized by the elegance of ritual which surrounds Japanese social performances, from religious parades and local festivities to royal encounters and business ceremonies (e.g. Hirano 1989; Davis 1992; Bremen and Martinez 1995; Steunebrink and van der Zweerde 2004; Murphy 2014). Further, various interactional rituals have become embedded in everyday Japanese practice while the relationship between group members and outsiders has a remarkably ritualistic character in Japan (see for example, Sugimoto 2010; Prasol 2010). In other words, many aspects of Japanese group life are highly ritualized, calling for a fixed behavior during admittance to a group, behavior inside the group, and when leaving the group. Unsurprisingly, some scholars believe that a smooth functioning of ritualized mechanisms of group life forms the foundation of the distinctiveness of Japanese society as such (e.g. Haley 1982; Pye 1985). It is, however, not the belief per se, which forms the core of Japanese faith, but more importantly it is the ‘praxis’ (shugy
o) combined with ‘feelings’ (kimochi) and the (quasi)religious aestheticism that surrounds them (Davis 1992). In this regard, Talcott Parsons noted earlier that Japanese social structure is permeated by both the magico-religious and secular aspect, while much of ordinary social obligation in Japan carries a directly sacred character (Parsons 1954). Being less restrained by any fixed religious dogmatics, Japan developed a strong civil religion (shimin sh
uky
o), grafting elements of Confucianism and Shintoism with their typical emphasis on ritual (e.g. Yanagita 1957; Bellah and Hammond 1980; Okuyama 2012). Consequently, many social obligations in Japan are directly ‘ritual obligations’ (Parsons 1954, 282), while protecting one’s ‘face’ (kao) guides daily life, from Japanese business etiquette to transactions in a village market. A loss of face stemming from disrupting some of these obligations has a negative impact on the social group one belongs to, and this infraction could be sealed off via a ritual of purification.3 While preparing a theoretical ground for the upcoming section, this first chapter stressed that in the Japanese cultural matrix there exist parallels between modern cultural practices and premodern social dramas that are informed by premodern rituals of pollution and purification. In premodern social dramas, as in modern media scandals, the myths, narratives, and performances of the ‘sacred’ are assembled in a dramatic form while reflecting the desirability of avoiding further profanation. The Japanese civil religion is the 6 Igor Prusa institutional basis for many social practices in Japan today, and scandal arguably belongs to these practices. 2. The dramaturgy of Japanese scandal The notions of purity and impurity shape each culture’s understanding of the world. Pollution (including simple uncleanliness) and purification are taken seriously in Japan and are still part of daily life. In particular, the social function of apology, confession and repentance in Japan diverges somewhat from its general understanding in the West. Generally, the Japanese police, prosecutors and courts traditionally place emphasis on confession. Admission of guilt is a necessary condition for ‘restorative justice’ (sh
ufukuteki seigi) in which a transgressor’s return to society is realized through behavioral correction instead of mere punishment (e.g. Haley 1982; Yamamoto 1990; Pontell and Geiss 2008). Second, Japanese apologies perform a ‘lightning conductor function’ (as termed by Stockwin 2008): being less a conduct of admitting guilt, a wellcrafted Japanese apology disperses tension in a ritual way and satisfies the damaged party. The idea behind Japanese scandals as dramatic rituals of restorative justice is reflected in the Japanese legal system’s inclination not to punish/retaliate but to correct/restore. The logic of such conceived justice emphasizes the act of confession (more or less forced), public shaming (more or less staged), and the ritual of exclusion (more or less temporary). The culprits’ performances are based on conditional rules, and all are aware of their constitutive elements. The processuality of these performances is underpinned by a set of prescribed patterns for proceeding in a given situation (kata). In scandal, kata can be clearly recognized both in verbal utterance (see below), and in nonverbal communication (e.g. an ideal apologetic bow is ninety degrees deep and should last at least three seconds).4 In Japanese scandal performances, it is one’s emotions that are focused through bodily actions, the same as in verbal communication. Generally, the Japanese learn conformity predominantly through emotive means, whose impact is seen in frequent ‘emotive moralizing’ (e.g. Matsumoto 1996; Sugimoto 2010). The Japanese common sense has it that public expressions of feelings are not favorable, but many scandals reverse this sentiment: emphasized is emotional displays of atonement to provide the offended side with observable physiological evidence. In particular, the omnipresent tearful performances prove that tears are both natural facts and cultural realities of public symbolism in Japan. The source of this symbolism derives less from private psychology, and more from the Japanese cultural code. In Japan, where people are by nature rather soft on tears, the so-called tears test in a scandal proves the plausibility of transgressor’s self-reflection (hansei) under the scrutiny of a Japanese scandals and their ritualization 7 disciplinary gaze. In other words, the reason (risei), helps to deform the context by being overpowered by emotion (j
o) through lacrimation (Kishima 1991; Matsumoto 1996; Yano 2004).5 2.1. Confession: apology versus denial When people’s expectations are shattered and social trust damaged, a common response is to develop explanations of what went wrong in order to realign social relationships (Wuthnow 2004). Notwithstanding the actual share of one’s guilt, the act of confession lays the foundation for apology and expression of remorse. In confessing and apologizing, the offender is given a chance to correct for the offence, re-establish the expressive order, and to quell the scandal situation. Mediated confessions stand for the most spectacular part of Japanese scandal narratives. The final mediated apology, which is conducted by the transgressor as a sort of ‘interaction with the sacred’ is a top media commodity in Japan. Confession is a universal concept to be found in both Christian and Confucian traditions, and in the canons of the Western philosophy from Augustine to Rousseau. In most of these sources, confession is seen as indication of remorse and a step towards moral rehabilitation. In Japan, one’s willingness to confess is critical for Japanese justice as such. A complete confession serves to reconfirm the rightness of one’s reaction to deviation, while the defendant’s cooperation with authorities is considered as highly favorable (albeit some confessions are forced, leading to grave judicial errors). In order to illuminate the complexity of the act of a scandal confession, I distinguish between: 1. apologetic strategy (shazai no senryaku); 2. protective strategy (mamori no senryaku); 3. strategy breakdown (senryaku hatan). The apologetic strategy is typical for celebrity scandals and those power scandals where gathered evidence became overwhelming. The protective strategy is usually utilized by experienced elites and stubborn heavyweights. These strategies do not exclude each other and can be combined as a part of one’s damage control plan. Finally, strategy breakdown is a result of either losing control over the situation or over-performing one’s confession. It occurs rarely but has to be counted for another possible outcome of scandal.6 A typical Japanese apology expresses both humiliation and humility while shame and gratefulness are mixed in one single proclamation. In terms of verbal communication, transgressors use a highly polite form of Japanese, which is important because indirect strategies of Japanese politeness effectively alleviate the conflict situation (Baresova 2008). As a matter of fact, Japanese apologies 8 Igor Prusa often violate the Griceian maxims of linguistic utterance (cf. Grice 1999): public confessions are too ambiguous, too brief or too circumlocutory, and the explanation of the motive sounds irrelevant or doubtful. Japanese apologies are achieved through language and practices of purity and pollution, while the utterances formally follow a pre-scripted pattern (kata): the culprits apologize (owabi; shazai) sincerely (kokoro yori; makoto ni; fukaku) for failing their personal responsibility (sekinin) and causing inconvenience (meiwaku), worry (shinpai) and distrust (fushin) to citizens (kokumin), clients (okyakusan), fans (fan), investors (t
oshika), stakeholders (sut
ekuhorud
a), or simply to everybody they offended (subete no minasan). Others indicate gratefulness for learning a lesson (hansei), and readiness to prevent recurrence of the conflict (saihatsu b
oshi). Some add that a transgression such as theirs should not be permitted (yurusenai) while promising to undergo scandal investigation (ch
osa) via ad hoc committees. Others express in overtly hegemonic fashion their gratitude for cooperation (ky
oryoku) and support (sap
oto) from the authorities. It is, however, not only the voice but also the body of the apologizer that becomes the site of struggle. In other words, nonverbal communication becomes closely observed and scrutinized as well. The auxiliary criteria for judging the performance of one’s body are usually those artificial extensions of personality, such as hair color, make-up style, dress code, and other ‘standardized expressive equipment’ (as termed by Goffman 1959). Furthermore, the struggle for renewal can be seen in the demonstration of one’s moral and physical transformation, which is substantiated by the transgressor’s rehabilitation (e.g. hospitalization, divorce, withdrawal from one’s post). By doing so, the transgressor alleviates public outrage by exhibiting clear symbolic evidence of his/her commitment.7 An average Japanese will likely apologize to maintain good relationships even when he/she was not in the wrong (e.g. Baresova 2008). However, many power holders opt for a reverse strategy when controlling the scandal fallout: they submit their own scandal-narrative instead of admitting guilt and asking for forgiveness. Related to this, Kenneth Burke (1969) noted that the ultimate motivation for all public speaking is to purge ourselves of a sense of guilt, while Lucien Pye (1985) insisted that the Japanese leaders, who follow the rule, merely apologize, so as not to have to explain. The protective strategy lies in refusing to explain and denying responsibility. For instance, the Japanese heavyweight politicians Tanaka Kakuei and Ozawa Ichir
o were effectively employing the protective strategy of denial and attack in order to preserve their political capital (Prusa 2012b). While opting for a protective strategy instead of straight apology, these politicians make their scandal look like an affair, i.e. an ambiguous site of contestation and conspiracy. In such cases, the defendant accuses the ‘invisible politics’, complains about his/her character assassination, Japanese scandals and their ritualization 9 or he/she shifts the blame onto other actors (most often the personal aides). To compare, many Western apologizers act rather self-confident, casual and relaxed (both in word and action), thereby trying to avoid the ‘sacred’ realm of values. Such a scenario is however rare in Japan, where arbitrary acting and excessive frankness connote immaturity.8 The protective strategy is chosen by those politicians who know that their professional platform (the cabinet in case of ministerial scandals) will try to protect them, since admission of guilt could cause even bigger damage. The most common protective move is to claim innocence via ‘televised vindication’ (keppaku kaiken). In such cases, the transgressors insist that there was no illegality involved or that they did not know that a certain practice was illegal. Politicians typically claim that they did not know about the transgression (shirimasen deshita; sh
ochi/ninshiki shinakatta; mattaku/hakkiri to wakarimasen), they cannot comment (nanitomo ienai; komento ha hikaesaseteitadakimasu), or that they simply do not remember (kioku ni gozaimasen; wasureta). More offensive reactions include ‘unnecessary to answer’ (kotaeru hitsuy
o ga nai) or ‘I left the matter up to my secretary’ (hisho ni makaseta), while the less offensive politicians admit to their share of responsibility (sekinin) and emphasize their duty (ninmu) to investigate (kent
o) the issue in question. In inevitable cases the designated executives offer resignation (jinin). Once televised, the ritual of confession is turned into a media pseudo-event with an added degree of dramatic spectacle. The media attempt to offer a window onto the mental and physical states directly relevant to apologetic meaning while evaluating the trustworthiness of the performance. The media anticipation is centered on the wording of confessional statements, while the transgressor’s glances, gestures and postures become closely scrutinized. Demonstrating affect and emotional breakdown of one’s physical control over body (lacrimation, sweating or blushing) represent a decorum that becomes closely associated with scandal denouement. In any case, once confessions are concluded, the denouement usually does not get by without the ritual of exclusion. 2.2. The ritual of exclusion In traditional Japanese ethos, recognition of harm to one’s group is ideally expressed by a more or less voluntary disassociation from it. The topic of social exile is a recurrent narrative in the myths and legends of Japan (Stockdale 2015). In a similar vein, ostracism based on pollution was one of the crucial themes in Greek tragedy, and it became an important act in many other areas of Greek life. In modern scandals, where dissociation is, in principle, involuntary, the aim of such ritual is to display a transition from conflict to resolution by publicly shaming the defendant. The aim of the hegemony is to show that ‘the system worked’. To paraphrase Garfinkel (1956), the polluted transgressor 10 Igor Prusa has to be made to stand as ‘out of the ordinary’ and is separated from a place in the legitimate order. As argued above, the persistence of quasi-religious (liminoid) sentiments gets reflected in Japanese scandal performances. The aforementioned rituals of affliction were conceived as a form of exorcism in order to appease deities, while today they are enforced with a similar reasoning, that offenders need to cleanse themselves to conform to social order (e.g. Sugimoto 2010; Blidstein 2015). In Japanese civil religion, the non-routine group punishment of social ostracism (mura hachibu) was a traditional form of public boycott of the transgressor, and a punitive foundation for regulating group behavior. The punitive phase of exclusion after scandal seems to be informed by this traditional punishment of severing community ties with the offender. The retention of earlier forms of social control, including the modern version of village ostracism, are still among the most prevalent means in social ordering in contemporary Japan (e.g. Haley 1982; Prasol 2010). The primary aim of putting a scandal-tainted party through a shaming ritual of exclusion today is to succeed/prevent failure in upcoming elections. Political parties seek resignation or retreat to background for those members who became polluted by corruption beyond the possibility of immediate recovery. Resignation from the party or from the parliament is a common outcome for Japanese politicians involved in fully disclosed corruption scandals. They may step down, but they keep on pulling strings behind the scenes. (The typical case of this was again Tanaka Kakuei who became more powerful after his corruption scandal.) Meanwhile, the opposition publicly attacks the alleged transgressor in order to secure political capital while profiting from his/her fall from grace.9 In a similar vein, Japanese celebrities are excluded from their entertainment agency (jimusho) and are not seen onstage unless their punitive exile has been lifted (the length of their suspension is usually determined by the agency). Needless to say, the function of such exclusion is primarily capital-related: it ‘purifies’ the agency in the eyes of advertisers, and it makes audiences believe that other stars in the same agency are prevented from contamination by the ‘transgressive spirit’. This is also why the agency in question immediately disassociates from the transgressor. Nonetheless, following the logic of restorative justice, most transgressors become eventually reintegrated. 2.3. Toward reintegration In Japanese scandals, a dramatic confession followed by one’s exclusion from professional platform is one of the milestones in restorative justice, which values transgressors’ rehabilitation and return to society. The ritual of exclusion may appear damning for one’s career, especially when transmitted by the Japanese scandals and their ritualization 11 mainstream media. However, most transgressing celebrities are later allowed to proceed with their career, while scandal-tainted politicians return to highprofile politics, or are parachuted in to less visible ranks (cf. amakudari). It is rather rare for Japanese politicians to resign from ministerial/party posts or to quit the Diet altogether. Corrupted politicians are often re-elected, resorting to (Shintoist) metaphor of purification (misogi) and scheming their comeback as a completion of such ritual. Reintegration is particularly typical for the higher echelons of Japanese politics. For instance, a corrupt politician in Japan, Suzuki Muneo was expelled from the Liberal Democratic Party in 2002, but he apologized and returned to the Diet three years later as a representative of his regional constituency in Hokkaido. The Finance Minister Hashimoto Ry
utar
o resigned in 1991 over a stock market scandal, but after a few years became the Prime Minister of Japan. The ex-Prime Minister Mori Yoshir
o was tainted by the Recruit scandal (1988), was involved in Nishimatsu scandal (2009), and discredited by his frequent slips of tongue. Nonetheless, Mori was, in 2014, appointed to the head of the organizing committee for the 2020 Summer Olympics. As a matter of fact, the restorative dialectic of exclusion and reintegration has been commonplace among the postwar prime ministers. For instance, Tanaka Kakuei and Fukuda Takeo were indicted in the Sh
owa Denk
o scandal (1948), while Ikeda Hayato and Sat
o Eisaku were implicated in the shipbuilding bribery scandal (1954), but all of them were soon reintegrated to the system and later became Japanese prime ministers. Miyazawa Kiichi who resigned in the wake of the Recruit scandal (1988) returned to government in 1998, serving a three-year term as Finance Minister. Abe Shinz
o was forced to resign in 2007 partly because many of his Cabinet Members were involved in corruption, but he was re-elected as Prime Minister in 2012 (and again in 2017 despite his own scandal). In the same year, Maehara Seiji and Noda Yoshihiko from the Democratic Party of Japan had their donation scandals pending (the former resigned as Minister for Foreign Affairs), but they had little trouble being reelected in the 2012 election. Further, the scandal-tainted Obuchi Y
uko resigned in 2014 from her post as the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, but soon she returned to high politics. Her ministerial colleague from the Abe cabinet, Amari Akira stepped down in 2016 after accusations of political bribery, but as soon June of the same year he announced that he will resume his political activities. Many male celebrities get away with their scandals rather easily. For instance, consider the popular entertainers Shimizu Kentar
o and Tashiro Masashi, who were arrested multiple times during their careers on charges of stimulant possession, but made their comeback each and every time while promising never to do it again. Similarly, the popular actor and vocalist Oshio Manabu reappeared back on stage in the beginning of 2016 despite the fact 12 Igor Prusa that in 2011 he was embroiled in a drug scandal that was connected to the death of a hostess who died after taking drugs with him. The same narrative of exclusion and reintegration can be found in sex/infidelity scandals. For instance, the prominent Japanese celebrity Yaguchi Mari, who became famous as a former member of the idol group Morning Musume, fell from grace after her infidelity scandal in 2013, but made her TV comeback in 2015. Similarly, the weekly tabloid Sh
ukan Bunshun published in 2013 an infidelity scandal of Minegishi Minami from the idol group AKB48. Minegishi shocked the audience after shaving her head in a self-imposed act of contrition and was allowed to make her comeback within a few months. Finally, the Japanese TV personality Becky was discredited in 2016 by the same magazine because of her infidelity scandal. She was allowed to come back in less than half year – despite the relentless media frenzy surrounding her case for months. Most Japanese celebrities are allowed to return to the stage after their scandal, albeit with a different agency or with a modified image. Moreover, many of them write in their time away their ‘scandal memoir’ – a sort of commercialized post-scandal auto-therapy. For instance, the aforementioned Tashiro Masashi was, in 2002, no exception when he wrote a bestselling book entitled Jibaku – The Judgement Day, while in 2009 the disgraced popstar Sakai Noriko released her cheesy post-scandal confession entitled Setsuna (‘The Moment’). 3. Concluding remarks In this article I have looked at scandals as a ritualized means of communicating elite transgressions to the public via mainstream media channels. I argued that modern scandal performances are informed by the punitive rituals of Japanese civil religion, and I approached Japanese scandals as secular rituals of pollution and purification via confession and exclusion. Further, I aimed to demonstrate that there is a link between Japanese scandals as ‘culturally meaningful products’ (to borrow from Geertz), and scandals as media-manufactured constructs. On the one hand, the scandal-rituals are social dramas that reflect both natural facts and cultural realities of public symbolism in Japan. On the other hand, they represent a strategic quest for managing social order. The elites’ confessions became mere sociopolitical tools and a rhetorical stratagem, while the overall impression is that one is apologizing less for the violation in question and more for the nuisance caused by public exposure. Besides, scandals are profitable media commodities since they always sell papers and increase TV ratings. Once transmitted as a televised performance, the act of confession and apology is turned into an orchestrated media pseudo-event with a high degree of spectacle, but empty of content in terms of clarifying the transgression. Eventually, the deviating elites get ‘recycled’ during their punitive exile in order to be reintegrated to the system. Obviously, the Japanese scandals and their ritualization 13 political/cultural capital of those elites is often too precious for the system to be wasted by symbolically annihilating the transgressor altogether. Nonetheless, this ritualization of scandal, accompanied by media over-exposure, may aggravate political apathy and moral skepticism in Japan. Finally, Japanese scandals are themselves largely regressive. They represent popular media commodities if and only if they are exposed, but in terms of their sociopolitical impact they are rather non-transformative media rituals that have little power to prevent future transgressions. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Notes 1. The most effective strategies of public engagement in Japan are social networking, ‘flaming’ incidents in online forums (enj
o jiken), sending angry letters to media companies, and organizing public rallies. For instance, the 1976 Lockheed scandal forced the president of NHK to resign after this national TV broadcaster received over 1200 angry phone calls regarding the president’s links to the corrupt Prime Minister, Tanaka Kakuei. In 2004, more than a million Japanese households refused to pay the television fees after what they perceived as the mild treatment of an NHK producer tainted by an embezzlement scandal. In the aftermath of the 1992 Sagawa scandal, the Japanese public exerted enormous pressure on the prosecution via rallies, petitions, and even hunger strikes. 2. This narrative pattern also indicates that every social drama is simultaneously an ‘aesthetic’ drama that works itself out in the way a dramatic plot works. The processuality of social dramas is not only analogous to classical Western drama, but it also parallels the Japanese aesthetic notion of jo-ha-ky
u, with breach (jo), eruption of crisis (ha), and rise to climax that displays the conflict (ky
u). 3. There exist three Japanese concepts related to pollution and purification: the sacred (hare), the ordinary (ke), and the polluted (kegare). Hare refers to something that is public and common, but also extraordinary and special. The opposite is ke, which is associated with private, informal things. Kegare (or tsumi) originally pointed to ‘defilements’ such as death, birth, or even menstruation, but can be related to any moral violation of norms. The traditional Shinto, which itself represents ‘body of spiritual rituals’ (Hirano 1989) teaches about the act of becoming impure (kegare) and the necessity of purification (misogi or harae) stemming from a forbidden behavior that brings about impurity and pollution. Kegare is, however, less a form of moral judgement, and more a spontaneous reaction to the amoral (natural) forces. While paralleling the ontology of modern scandal, the uncleanness (kegare) and pollution (tsumi) points to a taboo violation that needs to be undone via a purification ritual (misogi). 4. The notion of kata usually refers to conventions that are used repeatedly in the production or practice of Japanese art forms. It is, however, not only the traditional art (e.g. martial arts or the classical theatre) where kata becomes indispensable: the adherence to kata is a notion equally respected in Japanese social everydayness. More than 14 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Igor Prusa in any other country, the apparently insignificant practices of daily life gain potency through incessant repetition, effectively sustaining cultural systems. The Japanese typically need to feel familiar with the nature and sequence of any process they are about to undergo, which makes them ‘adhere to algorithms’ (see for example Sugimoto 2010; Prasol 2010). In the Japanese media environment, emotive moralizing is the domain of the tabloid weeklies (sh
ukanshi) and private TV broadcasters. Their journalists discuss tirelessly to what extent did a certain scandal apology present an inherent moral value (i.e. the apology proved that it speaks directly to the identity of the transgressor), and to what extent was it more emblematic of a purely instrumental value (i.e. the apology served merely as social tool with utilitarian benefits). For instance, The Japanese weeklies often use pie charts to illustrate the overall quality of one’s scandal performance. The chart is determined by factors such as gravity of transgression (jiken no
okisa), impact of the press conference (kaiken no inpakuto), and the depth of one’s bows (ojigi no fukasa). If the instrumental value is judged as prevailing over the moral value, the transgressor in question is additionally accused of obscuring justice by merely conducting a skillful performance. One example of the strategy breakdown, which went viral and global in 2014, was the infamous press conference of a provincial politician Nonomura Ry
utar
o, who ended up crying hysterically and banging his fists on the desk while trying to hide his profligate use of public funds. For instance, the disgraced popstar Sakai Noriko, in the wake of her drug scandal in 2009, underwent a psychological health check, wrote a post-scandal autobiography, attended university e-courses, was divorced from her husband, and participated in antidrug campaigns (Prusa 2012a). Nonetheless, there are exceptions to this rule. Consider, for example, the notso-apologetic press conference of the popular TV host Shimada Shinsuke, who in 2011 resigned over links to yakuza but showed little remorse during the televised event. In another scandal, the Olympic logo designer Sano Kenjir
o shocked the public in 2015 after he had vehemently denied guilt in his pending plagiarism fraud. Finally, the Japanese actor Takahata Y
uta surprised the public in 2016 by his arrogant stance after his alleged rape scandal. He looked extremely upset upon his release from detention and refused to conduct official press conference. (In order to save his face, his mother, the veteran actress Takahata Atsuko conducted the apologetic ritual in his name.) The interpellations during the Budget Committee meeting (Yosan Iinkai) are attended by all ministers and broadcast live on television and radio, and these meetings are one of those ‘free’ occasions where rival politicians can grill their counterparts on the grounds of their alleged wrongdoings. Some interpellations in the past did influence the course of large-scale scandals (e.g. the 1989 sex scandal of Prime Minister Uno S
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Wuthnow, R. 2004. “Trust as an Aspect of Social Structure.” In Self, Social Structure, and Beliefs: Explorations in Sociology, edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Gary T. Marx, and Christine L. Williams, 145–167, Berkeley: University of California Press. Yamamoto, Y. 1990. “A Morality Based on Trust: Some Reflections on Japanese Morality.” Philosophy East and West 40 (4): 451–469. Yanagita, K. 1957. Japanese Manners and Customs in the Meiji Era. Tokyo: Obunsha, Yano, C. R. 2004. “Letters from the Heart: Negotiating Fan-Star Relationships in Japanese Popular Music.” In Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan, edited by William W. Kelly, 41–58. New York: SUNY Press. Igor Prusa is currently currently affiliated with the Metropolitan University Prague (Department of Media Studies). Prusa received his first PhD in Media studies at Prague’s Charles University (Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism), and in 2017 he defended his second doctoral thesis ‘Scandal, Ritual and Media in Postwar Japan’ at the University of Tokyo (Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies). Prusa’s research interests include Japanese media culture, scandals, and cultural representations of antiheroism. His texts include ‘Mediating Scandal in Contemporary Japan’ (French Journal for Media Research, 2017), ‘Heroes Beyond Good and Evil: Theorizing Transgressivity in Japanese and Western Fiction’ (Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 2016) and Megaspectacle and Celebrity Transgression in Japan: the 2009 Media Scandal of Sakai Noriko (Palgrave Macmillan 2012). Apart from his academic activities Igor Prusa is a music composer and guitarist. He may be contacted at igorprusa@gmail.com.