nation: Japan

During WWII, many companies stopped producing the civilian goods that they were best known for. Instead, these companies contributed to the war effort by making products necessary for American soldiers. Scranton Craftspun Curtains, for example, switched from making lace curtains to camouflage covers, mosquito nets and parachutes. By touting their wartime conversions, companies kept their brands in the public’s mind, while achieving patriotic cachet.

Here’s a WWII-era ad for Scranton Craftspun Curtains. Click on the thumbnail to see it larger and read the narrative.

Scranton Craftspun curtains.
Scranton Craftspun curtains. Ad from Better Homes and Gardens, October, 1943.

The copy is written from the point of view of a trench soldier somewhere in Japan:

“Have you ever sat, inches from death, not daring to move a muscle, while Zeros zoomed overhead — looking for you — personally?

“Well — that’s my act out here. And it might be a whole lot worse, ’cause, you see, in between Tojo and me there’s a magic veil that even those dirty little squint-eyes can’t penetrate — a couple of yards of lace net that remind me of —

“Say, isn’t it the darndest thing what a fellow thinks of out here? Lace Curtains! Female stuff!

“Maybe. But, to me, Mom’s lace net curtains always spell home. Whenever it was curtain-washing time, round our house, it was like being caught with your camouflage down!

“And Mom loved her net curtains, too. Never forget her working on Pop for new ones for the living room. She, allowing that hers were five years old and completely out of style … and Pop telling her they were as good as new! That made her boil! She’d claim she’d never buy Scranton Craftspun ones again — they lasted too long, with their tied-in-place weave.

“I don’t guess Mom’s think much of my new net ‘curtains’ — and I’m sure she’d never go for swapping her window screens for my Scranton mosquito netting. But I have a hunch that this year she’ll be humming as she washes those old Scranton jobs — happy she’s helping keep that little extra something between Tojo and me.”
* * *

Right now, the great looms that gave you exquisite Scranton Craftspun* Curtains and Lace Dinner Cloths are weaving weapons of war for the boys out there … camouflage nets and mosquito netting. Skilled workers, who sewed in hems and headings, are building parachutes. For, Scranton’s new line is the front line. So why not hang up a couple of Bonds instead — just between Tojo and you.

You could spend a few hours talking about all the subjects and rhetorical devices brought up by this ad. The phenomenon of advertising without a product to sell is interesting, but you could go beyond that. You could talk about the gendering of war vs. housework, the racist characterization of the Japanese, the appeals to patriotism, the construction of a personalized, in-your-face theater of battle where homefront=front line, etc.

 

Lisa and I went to the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas today. We were not allowed to take pictures! However, we were inspired to post about the word “atomic.” Below are some pictures related to the U.S. bombing of Nagasaki during WWII. They are followed by some examples of the way in which the word “atomic” has been taken up in popular culture

The mushroom cloud over Nagasaki, Japan:

Nagasaki before and after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb (found here):

Together the bombs dropped by the U.S. on Nagasaki and Hiroshima killed between 150,000 and 220,000 people immediately (that is, not considering the long-term morbidity and mortality). For more on the science of atomic bombs and the structural and human casualties of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, click here. Our point here is to point out that at this point in history, the word “atomic” referred to something incredibly devastating to human life.

Given this, we find it fascinating that the word came to mean something like “cool,” “super extra much,” “hot and spicy” and numerous other vague references to awesomeness. Then, the adjective could be used to describe anything at all. Consider the following examples

Clothes and sporting equipment:

Music-related stuff:

Candy:

 

So at some time and for some reason, the word “atomic” came to refer not to something very, very serious and instead to something very, very fun. How odd. We did a search for the etymology of the word “atomic” and there was nothing to explain how the word came to be used that way in popular American culture. In fact, there was no reference to its non-scientific use at all.

P.S. – If you’re ever in Las Vegas and want to see something very, very weird (sociologically, we mean), we suggest the Atomic Testing Museum. There, you can learn about America’s proud “atomic testing heritage.”

UPDATE: Commenter Elena pointed out that before the creation of the atomic bomb, people thought radiation promoted health. An ad for a radioactive “solar pad,” basically a radioactive belt people were supposed to wear:

Found here.

A radium water filter:

Found here.

It seems odd to me that after the devastation the atomic bombs caused in Japan, the word “atomic” and atomic materials such as uranium retained any positive connotations in the public realm.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

CBS Sunday Morning had a segment on the new-ish phenomenon of “Maid Cafés.” I gathered from the report that they are most popular in areas of Japan where there are a lot of (male) “geeks.” Here’s a description from a Boston.com article on these restaurants:

“Welcome home, Master,” says the maid as she bows deeply, hands clasped in front of a starched pinafore worn over a short pink dress.

This maid serves not some aristocrat but a string of pop-culture-mad customers at a “Maid Cafe” in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, long known as a Mecca for electronics buffs but now also the center of the capital’s “nerd culture.”

“When they address you as ‘Master’, the feeling you get is like a high,” says Koji Abei, a 20-year-old student having coffee with a friend at the Royal Milk Cafe and Aromacare.

Here’s a wikipedia description— discussing how these cafés pull various cultural practices– Japanese manga, anime, Japanese geishas, and French (or English) maids. Apparently, there are now Maid Cafés in Canada and Hong Kong (the one in Hong Kong is called the “Master-and-maid café”). Here are some videos as well– from the U.S. news, and from Japanese news (sorry it isn’t translated). These might make for an interesting discussion on culture, globalization, and gender.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjNGX-jQS94[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0JmfyP4KPs[/youtube]

The Great Happiness Space is an amazing full-length documentary (available in full online) about “host” clubs in Japan. These clubs service women, mostly sex workers, who buy time with men (hosts, who also get a cut of all the money the women spend on alcohol) who pretend like they love them. The women establish long-term relationships with their hosts, spend sometimes 10s of thousands of dollars in a night, all to have the feeling that someone cares for them. So they earn tons of money giving sex to men and then they turn around and give that money back to men who give them affection (and sometimes sex). The hosts make between 10,000 and 50,000 a month. Also a great study in cross-cultural gender differences.