Ethnocentrism & Xenophobia: Anime & Manga in America
One of the things that continually bugs me is the skewed way in which many people approach Japanese animation & manga. I mean how many times after naming anime & manga as interests have you received responses of along the lines of "tentacle porn? or "it’s that 'hen-thai' stuff right?". These kind of responses simply make me cringe and at times almost fear to mention my love for anime and manga to others.
The American media does nothing to remedy this with its ethnocentric view of anything foreign fanning every American parent’s xenophobia and fear of the unknown. How is the media ethnocentric? The mainstream media has the tendency to look at the world from the perspective of American culture and failing to account for cultural relativity.
It is natural to compare something new to something that is familiar to us I understand but after they put their ‘spin’ on things you often end up with distorted headlines such as “Anime that's not child's play” as was on one local paper. What was originally an article discussing Ukiyo-e, a genre of Japanese woodblock prints, and Shunga, erotic artwork, from the
People naturally compare something new to them to something familiar. When comparing cultures that is called Ethnocentrism. People naturally fear the unknown and when that concerns strangers and something foreign that is called Xenophobia. Both of these are very prevalent in
