Pop-Idol concerts in Contemporary Japan - Queering Gender, Sexuality and Ethnicity

Abstract

Young pop-idols, many of whom cannot even carry a tune, reigned in the present-day Japanese music industry. Concerts constitute an important aspect in the career of a pop-idol, but besides fostering fan-star relationship, what else can pop-concerts do? In this dissertation, I adopt a Performance Studies approach to Japanese pop-idol concerts. Through conducting performance analysis of the concert-performances of the boy-band, SMAP, and drawing on gender theories, camp and queer theories, I seek to examine how these performance texts 'behave', interact with, influence, and are influenced by the socio-cultural conditions under which they are performed. In particular, I am interested in discerning how gender, sexual and ethnic identities are performed, challenged and de/re-constructed. Ultimately, I wish to bring across the point that concerts can function as a site for the contestation of dominant forms of identities as well as fostering the negotiation of new ones.