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Introduction
Going to college, I was surprised to find the huge amounts of Hello Kitty elements in American adults’ life. Just like the prevalence of Hello Kitty during my entire East Asian childhood, she appears on people’s accessories, attires, and idols in the US as well, and people’s eyes will shine for her cuteness when they see Hello Kitty, signaling her as a transnational icon.
Hello Kitty was invented by the Japanese entertainment company Sanrio in the 1970s, storied to be a forever third-grader living in London (Yano). Despite her name as a “kitty”, she is designed and perceived to be a girl instead of a cat. Hello Kitty has every human feature except with a cat head, no mouth, and a more smooth contour. She also wears soft-colored clothing and has simplistic physical characters. All these features make Hello Kitty pioneer the “kawaii” culture in Japan, which refers to people’s craze for girlhood cuteness. Such a craze has been spread across nations starting from the 1980s and continuing till today, particularly in her original country Japan and Japan’s biggest ally, the US.
The icon first became popular in Japan when the “hikikomori” generation (people who refuse to engage in society because of social and economic pressure) started to thrive. In Japan, Hello Kitty’s representations have an emphasis on her London life, her submissiveness, and her stillness (Figure 1), providing Japanese people, especially the women in the strictly patriarchal context that encourages them to ultimately become housewives to comfort men from their pressure, with a privileged life faraway from Japan, a girlhood fantasy for their adulthood sorrows. Japan’s government also uses Hello Kitty as a form of soft power, selling her submissiveness to the US, Japan’s historical ally and controller, to show willingness of further cooperation with the West and thus gain greater international power. Therefore, Japan’s representations of Hello Kitty define girlhood through a repressive and sexist lens while fetishizing a falsely privileged Western culture.
However, Hello Kitty’s representations in the US are different. Delivered to the US through Japan’s diplomacy, few US audience are aware of Hello Kitty’s British story background, only viewing her as a representation of Japanese culture. Hello Kitty is fetishized in the US to signal appreciation for Asian softness, particularly among American women, in contrast to the toughness required by the masculine individualism characteristic of Western culture (Figure 2). Women idols use Hello Kitty’s cuteness as an orientalist exoticization of Japanese culture, distinguishing themselves from the Western individualistic culture, showing that they, like the stereotypical Asian women who are submissive, quiet, and small, are more “feminine” to gain social status. Thus, US representations of Hello Kitty misinterprets Japanese culture and specifically, Japanese women.
Therefore, my research question is to explore the reason behind the differences and similarities of Hello Kitty representations in Japan and the US: why and how the representations differ while both being sexist and exoticist?
Previous literature has shed light on some parts of my research question. For example, Sara Kovarovic concludes in her research “Hello Kitty: A Brand Made of Cuteness” that Japan represents Hello Kitty’s cuteness to fulfill highly pressured people’s desire of returning to their carefree childhood (2), while the US perceives her cuteness as a symbol of youth and strength to signal individualism (3). However, the research pays less attention to the role of institutionalized gender discrimination in Hello Kitty’s representations. What results in different representations of Hello Kitty is the two different ways of sexism in both patriarchal societies. More broadly speaking, previous research pays less attention to the social and cultural context that result in distinct representations of the same icon, ignoring how these gendered contexts create further harms to the society such as cultural misinterpretation through the representations.
Representations of Hello Kitty in Japan and the US are similarly sexist in that they both materialize girls into innocence and cuteness, but their sexism is displayed through different ways of exoticism due to the different cultural, social, and economic backgrounds of the two societies. In Japan, Hello Kitty is a symbol of escapism and submissiveness with her London background for women of the hikikomori generation when Japan economy degrades after the bubble, while in the US, she is a symbol of individualism with her East Asian background when US women strive for independence under the male-dominated individualism. Both kinds of representations have potential dangers of leading to girlhood fetishization and cultural approbation, increasing possibility of child sex abuse and enhancing the unfair structure of patriarchal power dynamics.
Hello Kitty in Japan: Selling Girlhood Innocence and Exoticism for Escape
In Japan, Hello Kitty is extremely popular among the 1980s-2010s generation (the hikikomori generation), with virtually every girl growing up owning Hello Kitty products (Tamura). Hello Kitty’s representations in Japan focus on her Western background and simplistic, static appearance to create a kawaii (cute) culture, satiating the desire of people, especially women, in the hikikomori generation, causing more understanding about girlhood as innocent and easily manipulated.
Hello Kitty was created in the 1970s, when the Japan economy was thriving after the recovery from WWII. However, the rapid economic growth soon led to a bubble in the 1980s, where inflation skyrocketed and a massive number of people were unemployed (Huffman). Japanese people suffered from heavy working pressure while having no solutions for their doomed future, resulting in the hikikomori generation in Japan (Kelts), completely rejecting to look for a job or form any social relations. Although Japan’s economy rebounded, it never returned to its climax and the trauma lives on, resulting in almost 1 in every 50 people in Japan becoming a hikikomori (“Japan’s “Hikikomori” Population Could Top 10 Million”).
Among the hikikomori generation, women suffer even more. The housewives culture, emerging after Japan’s industrialization that requires more male labor and expecting women to stay at home and take care of their husbands (Yoshimoto), has become even more depressing with the rise of the hikikomori generation. With more hikikomori husbands who retreat from the job market, housewives need to spend more time taking care of their husbands without having the chance to talk to other people outside of the household while saving money to sustain their lives (“Housewives Going Crazy Home Alone All Day Behind Facade of Normal Life”). With the patriarchal ideology educating housewives to serve their husbands, housewives of hikikomori husbands are also more prone to suffer from their husbands’ harassment as the men fail to excel in the job market. Young girls are also increasingly educated to become a housewife as their career goal, muted in the social context, only associated with the protective, domestic life. Therefore, girls are always misunderstood to be carrying a carefree life, exempt from career pressures from society, understanding nothing complex, but they are in fact suffering increasing pressure with the depressing social structure of the hikikomori generation. Such a gap in the society’s understanding of women’s role and women’s real status in the Japanese society has made Japanese women feel frustrated toward the Japanese culture, which causes their fetish with the individualistic Western culture that presents more agency for women (Barkham).
Therefore, Hello Kitty’s representations in Japan have always put an emphasis on her Western background, which, according to her designer Yuko Yamaguchi, is intentional, feeding Japanese women’s escapist desire and thus gaining profits (General). Hello Kitty’s classic suit is not in the feminine pink color, but in blue and red colors that resemble the national flag of the UK (Figure 1). The striped sweater and overall that Hello Kitty wears in her Japanese representations also originated in the West. Moreover, her Japanese home company Sanrio proudly claims Hello Kitty’s birthplace in London in its first sentence of their Hello Kitty introduction (“Hello Kitty”). Hello Kitty makes it easier for the audience to imagine her exotic, privileged life in Britain. The audience can easily project their lives in a seemingly carefree and distant country in Europe, away from the strict social rules and pressures from the Japanese society that they live in.
Japan’s representations of Hello Kitty are also static and simplistic, emphasizing her peace and comfort for the hikikomori generation’s pressures. They also emphasize her “kawaiiness”, which means cuteness, to increase the audience’s trust and intimacy with her, gaining profits from such attraction, while ultimately associating girlhood with a passive cuteness and ignorant innocence. Although Hello Kitty’s simplicity and innocent look was initially designed to target the children market, making Hello Kitty easy to recognize (General), the overemphasis on such girlhood characters eventually leads to the popularization of Japan’s kawaii culture (Yano), a culture advertising the cuteness and submissiveness of young female characters, stigmatizing women’s true character. Her skin color is pure white and her posture is usually fixated, portraying a submissive girl character that allows the audience to conjure all kinds of imaginations they have about her and to feel in control of her. Her head size is huge in comparison to her tiny body size, which represents the head-body size ratio of a baby and makes people think that she is cuter. Also, she doesn’t have a mouth, so she doesn’t have the agency to voice, always muted. In this way, Kitty cat’s simplistic innocence grants people a comfort place for the lost intimacy during their growth under the highly aloof and pressured social structure, allowing people to project their own fantasizations of what their childhood and thus their life trajectories could have looked like.
Japan also sends its innocent and exotic representation of Hello Kitty to the West, particularly the US, its ally and controller, to signal willingness to cooperate with the US. After WWII, the US decided to ally Japan as its “Asian bulwark against the spread of communism” (Hirai), giving it substantial economic support to help secure the influence of the US power in East Asia. Meanwhile, the US has also been wary of Japan’s power growth, ensuring that Japan’s power is kept inferior to its own by demilitarizing it. Therefore, the Japanese government has used the “Cool Japan” project, a cultural promotion of cuteness centering the image of Hello Kitty (Yano), to send the message to the US of its willingness to cooperate and be taken care of instead of antagonizing the US. Thus, Hello Kitty has become a form of “soft power” for Japan. Soft power, according to Joseph Nye who coined the term, is a form of international power that a country creates by making itself look appealing, thus making other countries cooperate willingly instead of forcing them to do so (166). Yet, soft power is in fact an illusion of appeal that countries invent to win greater power. As Janice Mattern notes in her study, in this case, Hello Kitty is essentially a “representational force” (586) Japan uses to create a false attraction toward itself (590). Japan’s use of Hello Kitty to send a submissive message to the US again emphasizes the passiveness of girlhood and enhances the sexist stereotype of girls as unable and weak.
Japanese representations of Hello Kitty advertise her submissiveness and exoticity so that products of her can be bought by the hikikomori generation, particularly women, who seek escape from Japan’s sexist and oppressive culture and that the US can potentially grant Japan more power because of its cooperative image. Such representations of Hello Kitty are dangerous in strengthening and spreading the patriarchal culture in Japan. With the “mere exposure effect” termed by Robert Zajonc, repeated exposure to a certain pattern is a sufficient condition for the audience to enhance their attitude (21). Commercializing Hello Kitty with her submissive, muted, and girly appearance, the audience become obsessed with her exoticity and muteness, gradually associating girlhood with a lack of agency and voice, promoting more exploitation and restriction on girls.
Hello Kitty in the US: Selling Girlhood Softness for Fetishization
Hello Kitty’s representations in the US are rather different from those in Japan, despite that they similarly exoticize other cultures because of a sexist society. The popularity of Hello Kitty in the US is illustrated through her appearance with celebrities. Contrary to the Japanese representations of Hello Kitty as emphasizing her girlhood innocence for escapist projection, American representations of Hello Kitty emphasize her East Asian exoticity for individualistic expression. Americans, especially women, represent East Asian icons in an orientalist way to signal their distinction from the Western culture, usually juxtaposing Hello Kitty’s girlhood kawaiiness with the bold, “adult”, and sexual expression of the female body prevalent in the Western culture. Such representations allow American women to “make an important leap to becoming a young woman of a new generation, curious and bold in the big world, without having to leave home or transgressing the bounds of gentility” (Yoshihara 16), expressing their individuality and establishing their social status. Yet, despite Americans’ seemingly free representations of Hello Kitty, they are still using the submissive femininity of Hello Kitty as a tool to construct an orientalist personality, reflecting the oppression against women as they have to stress their false individuality in order to gain a decent social standing.
The US has historically valued individualism, an admiration for unique personalities. Such adoration of individualism exists because the country’s founding principles shape the US as a shrine for chasing “the American Dream” (Andre and Velasquez) to attract immigrants to build the country. However, US individualism is in fact an illusion that only allows the free expression of privileged people like straight white men. Women, as a historically marginalized group, have been oppressed by US individualism, and such oppression has been justified by the rhetoric of individualism that prizes equal expression of different identities. As former Massachusetts governor John Winthrop argued, “Liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority…[H]e is her lord, and she is to be subject to him, yet in a way of liberty, not bondage” (qtd. in Kerber 589). Educated in the individualistic context, US women attempt to topple the patriarchal oppression by redefining their own individuality, using exotic, feminine icons such as Hello Kitty to signal their difference from the masculine individuality that the US advocates for. Nevertheless, such individualistic expression of women is instead a gendered misunderstanding of Japanese culture and also furthers the sexist stereotype that describes women as soft and cute.
One example of a US representation of Hello Kitty is made by Avril Lavigne, a Canadian born pop-rock singer who gained recognition from the entire North America after her single “Girlfriend” that hit Billboard 100 in the US and became an American idol. “Hello Kitty” is from her self-titled album “Avril Lavigne” in 2013, a famously experimental album where she tries different music elements to suggest her innovation and individuality (Linzinmeir). In the lyrics of “Hello Kitty”, Lavigne juxtaposes the cuteness and submissiveness of Hello Kitty with rebellious and crazy scenes of parties: “Mom’s not home tonight/So we can roll around, have a pillow fight/Like a major rager OMFG…Come come Kitty Kitty/You’re so pretty pretty/Don’t go Kitty Kitty/Stay with me.” She also starts her lyrics with Japanese that, translated to English, do not make sense: “Mina saiko arigato, k-k-k-kawaii (Everyone is the best. C-c-c-cute).” These lyrics only showcase her admiration for the girlhood kawaiiness in Japan’s culture, illustrating her difference from the American culture instead of truly understanding Japanese culture.
The content of the music video highlights Lavigne as the central figure who dresses boldly with short skirts, punk-style hair, and tattoos while adding more “kawaii” elements to her attire: she has animated cake decorations on the pink skirt, and she wears a pair of light green glasses, representing a schoolgirl image (Figure 3). Moreover, in the entire music video, there is no actual appearance of Hello Kitty. Lavigne only uses the kawaii elements in the video to refer to its title Hello Kitty, forging a kawaii illusion and creating her fantasy of Japanese kawaiiness.
Compared to Lavigne who always takes the central position in the video, the Japanese actors seem more passive, having no expressions but to follow and admire Lavigne’s movements. Lavigne’s movements in the video also juxtapose swaggy, American-style dances with exaggerated expressions of Japanese “kawaii” (Figure 4).
Therefore, Lavigne’s representation of Hello Kitty in her song, instead of true appreciation for Japanese culture, is an exaggerated showcase of the femininity and cuteness in Japanese culture to display her difference from the Western individualism. Such a representation can be seen as a form of feminist rebel, but it is ultimately sexist, interpreting Japanese culture as feminine, soft, and kawaii in contrast to the masculinity in the US individualism.
Another case in point is Mariah Carey’s fancy for Hello Kitty. Mariah Carey is an iconic American singer-actress, holding the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist (Billboard). She advertises herself with a tenderness that brings people together, famous for warm songs like “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and a rather simple romantic history in the US entertainment industry. As Carey said, “I’ve only been with five people in my life, so I’m kind of prude, honestly, compared to most others in the field” (qtd. in Roth). Carey has frequently appeared in public with a Hello Kitty doll, and the most famous illustration of her love for Hello Kitty is her Kitty-themed bathroom (Figure 2), filled with luxurious, pink Hello Kitty decorations, which is a showcase of both her soft femininity and her wealthy power as an American idol. Although she advocates a cute, intimate image for herself, Carey in fact distances herself from average citizens by lavishly using Hello Kitty products, exoticizing Japanese culture as a symbol of privileged, idealized innocence to establish her central position in the complicated, capitalistic American entertainment industry.
Another American idol that has represented Hello Kitty is Lady Gaga with the famous photographer Markus Klinko who has worked with countless American idols. The context of the photoshoot was Sanrio’s invitation to Klinko for iconic Hello Kitty photos to celebrate the girl’s 35th birthday. Klinko quickly asked Gaga to cooperate, for he always admired Gaga’s individuality, taking control of her own life (“Markus Klinko: Lady Gaga ‘Hello Kitty’”). It is true that Lady Gaga has been known for her audacious attempts in appearance, but in the photoshoot with Klinko, Gaga is seen by him more as an object for gazing, a medium to carry the cuteness of Hello Kitty which is rare in the US culture to further promote the bizarre image of Gaga.
The pictures in the photoshoot juxtapose Gaga’s bold sexiness closely with Hello Kitty’s cuteness. In one of the photos, a Hello Kitty purse covered the feminine body part of Gaga (Figure 5). This draws a stark contrast with the US media that overuse women’s nudity to savor the audience’s desire for the lost, intimate, and physical touch in the connective generation (Berardi, 98-100).
However, although Hello Kitty elements cover some of Gaga’s body parts, the photoshoot still emphasizes her physical sexiness. Hello Kitty, rather than a rebel against the overuse of pornography, is represented as a stigmatization of the female body that in fact attracts more lavish desire for its covered sexiness. Therefore, although Hello Kitty is used here as a way of women’s expression, it still suffers from the US sexist culture of overusing the female body for “individuality” and the Japanese sexist culture of stigmatizing the female body.
Similarly, the US diplomatic perception of the Hello Kitty message that Japan brings does not completely coincide with Japan’s original intention. In 2015, the US renewed another security treaty with Japan that requires Japan to host US military resources without having its own automated army (“U.S. Relations with Japan”), which further restricts Japan to the complete control of the US. The US also solidifies the image of their partnership relationship in global affairs (“U.S. Relations with Japan”), establishing stable power by allying Eastern and Western powers. The US still takes its domination over Japan for granted, perceiving its message asking for power as a chance to further strengthen US power by expanding its reputation in Asia. The Hello Kitty diplomatic image becomes a feminine, supporting element of the father-like, dominant image the US possesses internationally.
To conclude, Hello Kitty’s representations in the US are different in that she is used to display women’s individuality against a male-dominated individualistic culture. Yet, the seemingly feminist use of Hello Kitty is an orientalist view of Japanese culture as the opposite of Western individualism, signaling girlhood innocence, purity, and cuteness. These representations fetishize girlhood femininity, which is a stereotypical understanding about the characteristics that girls should have. The fantasization that US women idols have of using Hello Kitty in their images also illustrates women’s conundrum in the US society where the gender equality movement first started (Burkett). In a society that strongly values individualism and is the hub for universal gender equality movements, women have to improve their social status by proving that they are individualistic in a way that is recognized and approved of by men. To do this, they look to orientalism as a way of free expression, while ultimately falling into the trap of stereotyping and limiting women’s freedom.
Conclusion
Hello Kitty, a form of soft power, has been brought to the US by Japan, but the representations in two countries vary, though similarly based on cultural misinterpretation because of sexism. Both kinds of representations reflect the desire that people seek in the debilitated society: Japan’s hikikomori generation seek childhood innocence and exotic privilege for comfort in the highly pressured workplace, while American women seek individuality through Hello Kitty’s East Asian purity under the male-defined individualism that overexposes the female body. Both of these representations further patriarchy. They label cuteness, innocence, and muteness unto girlhood and women. In Japan, Hello Kitty’s muteness and exoticity strengthen the stereotype that girls are to be restrictively protected and should become carefree housewives or live in the idealized Western world. In the US, Hello Kitty representations heighten the belief that women have to create a soft, “East Asian” identity to distinguish themselves from the common sexiness of Western women, thus gaining individuality. The two countries also have a gap in understanding the diplomatic message that Hello Kitty conveys. While Japan sends Hello Kitty as a signal for more autonomy and cooperation, the US sees the message as a way of boosting its Asian image.
Admittedly, both representations signal some degree of rebellion and women liberation. The popularity of Hello Kitty among Japan’s hikikomori generation can be explained by their desire to topple the suffocating working pressure; American women’s obsession with Hello Kitty can be interpreted as a way of freeing themselves from the male-dominated Western culture of individualism. Yet, my personal experience has propelled me to recognize the potential harm that icons like Hello Kitty bring. Growing up with icons like Hello Kitty in East Asia, I have been bred to be submissive and “good”, but such restrictions on girls have made me feel suffocated, and I started to reflect upon the toxic representations of muteness and cuteness in East Asia culture. Transferring to the US seeking to escape from the Asian sexism, I have found that sexism equally prevails in the US, and under the guise of cultural equity, the US, as the global hub of pop culture that harnesses enormous media power, distorts my culture significantly through their representations of Hello Kitty. It can’t be denied that my identity has made me feel more vulnerable against mass representations of East Asian culture, particularly women and girlhood in East Asia. However, as icons have the influence to intuitively arouse obvious, common perceptions in people (Fridell and Konings 11), their meanings should be carefully evaluated to prevent massive stereotypes. Despite the potential benefits of Hello Kitty representations, it is essential to view such representations critically and analyze their misleading perception conveyed toward the audience.
Hello Kitty representations lead to massive obsession with innocent girlhood cuteness and fetish with exotic cultures. Such fetishization can potentially lead to child sex abuse, stricter patriarchal oppression against women, and cultural approbation. The cuteness of Hello Kitty does bring joy to the audience, but we need to denormalize her representations to uncover the institutional oppression of gendered cultures that potentially harm every one of us. The gap between Japanese representations and US representations of Hello Kitty in fact connects the underlying gender inequality problems of the two countries together. Deconstructing the representations of Hello Kitty, we are able to see the institutionalized sexism intersecting with both cultures as they use gender discrimination to exoticize and misinterpret other cultures. Such findings in my research have opened up a gap missing in the transnational appreciation for Hello Kitty, which raises more questions in cultural studies: How to communicate potential harm of cultural icons to a broader audience? What are other implications of the cute icons? What is the role of cuteness in the future of women’s social status? These are questions that I hope my research sheds light on for future studies.
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