Abstract
In contemporary Taiwan, the influence of the 1990s Japanophilia phenomenon is gradually transforming into a generalized reception of Japaneseness. Based on this context, I aim to clarify the relationship between Taiwanese audience and Japaneseness from the reception of Japanese media products. Focusing on the popularity of a Japanese TV drama “Ossan’s Love” I conducted a discourse analysis of related articles posted on the bulletin board system “PTT”, and analyzed how it reflects Taiwanese audience’s gaze toward Japaneseness.
I first reviewed previous studies on Japanophilia with a focus on “the gaze toward Japaneseness” and conceptualized the results under the framework of “the fantasy of Japaneseness”, which refers to a multi-layered, dynamic structure which is continuously shaped by the collective imagination of Japaneseness across generations. I further examined the discourse of “Ossan’s Love” using this framework and clarified the structure of “the fantasy of Japaneseness” reflected in Taiwanese audience’s gaze toward this drama. This structure was constructed and strengthened by the concentration, repetition, modification and conversion of discourse, therefore it was also fluctuating and unstable. It was framed by the following three dimensions. A utopia about homoeroticism/homosexuality and an expectation of an ideal image of the TV drama were clarified from audience’s discourse about the drama’s inner structure. Furthermore, the collective imagination of Japaneseness as an “important Other” was analyzed from the abstracted discourse outside the drama. The fluctuated, self-strengthening and self-recovering characteristic of the discourse reflected in Taiwanese audience’s gaze toward Japaneseneess clearly visualized the structure of “the fantasy of Japaneseness”.
