Idols, celebrities, and fans at the time of post-catastrophe

ABSTRACT

This article explores the ways in which activism was performed and negotiated by Japanese celebrities and idols after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster that occurred in March 2011. Post-catastrophe, humanitarian works, particularly visits to the affected areas, by celebrities and idols such as AKB48 were widely reported by the mainstream media. At the same time, there had been a social tendency within Japanese showbusiness to keep celebrities silent from making public anti-nuclear claims. While most celebrities kept their ‘neutral’ stance, there were a few instances where celebrities expressed clear anti-nuclear messages. Comparing idols’ politically ‘safe’ humanitarian work with other cases of celebrity activism, my article aims to examine the ways in which the nature of idols impacts the form of their activism. Aligning with the notion of ‘celebrity citizenship,’ ‘affective intimacy’ shared among celebrities/idols and fans plays a crucial role in identifying celebrity/idol activism. I argue that idol activism in particular mirrored the existing characteristics of the relationship between idols and fans.

KEYWORDS:

• Celebrity
• idol
• fandom
• activism
• disaster

Acknowledgments

This article is an extended version of a paper originally written for a graduate seminar COMM 577 Special Topics: Fandom, Participatory Culture and Web 2.0 taught by Professor Henry Jenkins for the spring semester of 2017 at the University of Southern California. The original version of the paper was featured on Professor Jenkins’ blog Confessions of an Aca-Fan (http://henryjenkins.org/). I would like to thank Professor Jenkins for the thoughtful and constructive feedback throughout the development of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Rio Katayama

Rio Katayama is a PhD Candidate in East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include contemporary Japanese cinema and media studies, modern Japanese literature, transnational cinema in East Asia, gender, and affect. Her dissertation, tentatively entitled ‘Narrating Bodies: (De) Constructing Affective Japan Through Disasters’ explores the multi-layered (de)construction of Japan-ness and its relations to affective bodily responses that are elicited through the depiction of continuous nuclear trauma in Japanese audiovisual media.