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CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, I will explain more about the theoretical frameworks that

will be used in analyzing my reserach. This chapter includes Ryan Higa biography

and his YouTube channel; New Media and YouTube; the stereotype of Asian and

Japanese American men; Semiotic theory; misc-en-scene; and the theory of

stereotypes.

A. Biography of Ryan Higa and his YouTube channel “nigahiga”

Ryan Higa was born on June 6, 1990 in Hilo, to parents, Wendell

and LuciHiga. Ryan Higa has an older brother, Kyle. They compete both in

academically and athletically. Ryan did judo and wrestling in his school life. He

also loves basketball. He often showed his skills in his videos. He started his

video making hobby at the age of 14. He borrowed his mother‟s VHS camcorder

and collected some neighborhood friends to make a video. His early videos are

lip-syncing to songs that he made without any editing software or professional

stuffs. Ryan and his friends, called the Yabo crew, uploaded the videos to

YouTube just to share with theirschool friends because they did not know how to

burn to DVD.

“Nigahiga” is the YouTube account that Ryan made. His account is getting

popular because of his “how to” series. Most of his lip-syncing videos and some

of his “how to” series were removed because of the copyrighted issue. After

graduated from high school, he moved to , Nevada to study Nuclear commit to user

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Medicine in university. He did not like it and became very stressful. He found his

cure is making videos and uploaded to YouTube. He stopped studying Nuclear

Medicine and changed his major to Film.

“Nigahiga” was the first YouTube channel to reach 3 million subscribers

in the late 2010. As of August 2014, “nigahiga” has more than 12 million

th subscribers and currently ranked the 5 most subscribed channel all over the

world. His channel now consists of many programs such as, Advertisement

Spoofs (a parodical advertisement of a brand),Dear Ryan (an answer to fans‟

request from his account or YouTube comment), How To Be (a

compilation of various ways to do something), Movies in Minutes (a parodical

reenact of a famous movie), Off The Pills andRants (a video of anything he wants

to say without a storyline), Skitzo (a discussion among four different characters;

himself, a girl named Regina, a hiphop boy named R-Dizzle and an Asian boy

named Hanate), Parody Trailers (the same concept as Movies in Minutes but it is

only parodied the trailer), Word of the Day (an explanation of a slang famous

word), Dude vs. Wild (a parodical series of Man vs. Wild, showing him struggling

in the wild nature) and Music Video (a video of his own song; he often

collaborates with other YouTuber). Ryan is a part of a group consists of six other

American YouTubers, called YTF (Yesterday, Today, Forever) Legacy. Right

now, Ryan has his own team that helps him in making videos, called RHPC (Ryan

Higa Production Company).

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B. New Media and YouTube

There is a widespread development on new media because the influence of

internet. Computer and internet play an important role in expanding new media in

society. The term new media simply refers to everything that is distributed in

electronic way, such as web sites and e-books. The popular definition of new

mediaidentifies it with the use of a computer for distribution and exhibition, rather

thanwith production(Manovich, 2011, p. 43). New media provide users with a mix

of interpersonal and mass communication capabilitiesthat have not existed before,

with an emphasis on interactivity and mobility(Paxson, 2010, p. 151). New media

is close related to social media and online advertisements. Social networking is

considered as the fastest networking system that everyone is able to know what

happens in the other part of the world the time the event occurs. Social networking

really gives advertisers to promote their product faster. One kind of new media

discussed in this research is YouTube.

YouTube is basically the same with another social media such as blogs.

What makes it difference is that YouTube provides video sharing application that

let anyone upload and make their own entertainment channel. YouTube can be

said as new generation of television. While TV program only broadcast popular

programs and cannot let the audience take part in reviewing it, YouTube broadcast

various programs from various themes and let the audience to comment and rate

the programs they watched.

YouTube was designed and then released in 2005 by three previous

employees of the PayPal online payment service. Their names are Chad Hurley,

Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. These three came up with and designed the plan to commit to user

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have many producers of private works be able to supply the public with their

work(Feldman, 2007).Founded in February 2005, YouTube allows billions of

people to discover watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a

forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts

as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and

small(as cited in https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/). YouTube is the biggest

video sharing website. Even though there are many other video sharing websites

like DailyMotion and Vimeo, YouTube is still more popular.

C. The Stereotype of Japanese American Man

Culture has a big role in defining stereotype. People who live in the same

culture tend to have the same perception of something. People belonging to the

same culture tend to interpret certain images and symbols in the same way and

may arrive at a similar understanding(Cortes, 2013, pp. 6-7).Media has a big

contribution to spread stereotype to another culture. Although not all of the

stereotypes are wrong, but it causes confusion to people from another culture.

In this research, I have compiled some mainstream stereotype of Japanese

American:

 Typically misrepresented as quiet, humble, passive, uncomplaining, and

dependent.(Endo, 1985, p. 11)

 Loyal to family, courteous, reserved, and quiet, and at the same time,

ambitious, industrious, efficient, and intelligent. (Maykovich, 1972, p.

888)

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 Shy, bashful, dainty, humorless, and square and do not speak

up.(Maykovich, 1972, p. 894)

 Sly, tricky, and not to be trusted. (Kitano, 1981, p. 130)

 “Yellow Peril”, the inscrutable oriental, and characterized as cunning,

deceptive, and loyal to Japan. (Endo & Della-Piana, 1981, p. 45)

 Anti-individualistic, mystic, passive, collective, and morally and ethically

opposite to Western culture. (Ono, 2005, p. 140)

As I stated above that I will use Brian Cortes‟ research to prove that Ryan

Higa tried to challenge the mainstream stereotype. I found that the stereotype of

Japanese American and Asian American are similar. So I will use Cortes‟ research

to confirm the efforts of Ryan Higa in challenging the mainstream stereotype in

his videos.

There are five stereotypes of Asian American men in media based on

Brian Cortes(Cortes, 2013, pp. 9-15):

1. Perpetual Foreigner

 Maladjusted immigrant who speak broken English with heavy foreign

accent.(Cortes, 2013, p. 10)

 Portrayed in clichéd occupation such as Chinese delivery boy or a

launderer. (as cited in Kwak, 2004)

 Unwilling to adapt American culture. (as cited in Rim, 2007)

 Disloyal to US. (as cited in Kawai,2005)

 Experts of martial arts and “Eastern Wisdom”. (as cited in Shah,2003)

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 Irredeemably alien and incapable of assimilating to American

Culture.(Cortes, 2013, p. 10)

2. Model Minority

 Academically talented, economically driven and hard working.(Cortes,

2013, p. 12)

 Intelligent, technology savvy, docile, unassertive, and deferential to

whites. (Cortes, 2013, p. 13)

3. Asexual Male

 Devoid of sexuality or lacking the qualities that women find attractive. (as

cited in Hamamoto, 1994)

 Sexually unappealing and devoid of interest in women. (Cortes, 2013, p.

31)

4. Nice Guys

 They are kind, gentle towards, and sensitive to the needs of women.

(Cortes, 2013, p. 32)

 Take an “old fashioned” approach to courtship. (Cortes, 2013, p. 52)

5. Generational Rift

 Involve portrayals of conflict or disagreement between Asian Americans

from different generations.(Cortes, 2013, p. 52)

D. Social Background of Japanese in America

Japanese started to migrate to America in 1860s. The first generation of

Japanese immigrant is called Issei and only spoke Japanese. The second

generation is called Nisei, the descommitcendents to ofuser the Issei and born in America.The

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next generations are called Sansei (third generation), yonsei (fourth generation),

gosei (fifth generation), etc. They are the descendent of the previous generation

and are having less contact with the Japanese culture. The rise of interracial

marriage in the 1970s emerges as one of the most dramatic indications of growing

intergroup contact (Kitano, 1981, p. 133).

The first Japanese immigrant traveled to Hawaii to work as labor in sugar

plantation. The harsh work (10 hours work day) and little monthly wage makes

them return to Japan before completing the 3 years. A year later, a group of

immigrant sailed to San Francisco. They started build a tea and silk farm in

California. The dry soil there made their effort failed. Some people of the colony

returned to Japan and some other stayed and became the first Japanese generation

(Issei). The Isseistarted to have a new beginning and slowly adapted to American

culture. There are many restrictions faced by Issei.They cannot work in some

occupation, having a land and become the American citizen. The next generations

after Isseiare treated better from the American society. They attend to American

school and have courage to do better jobs than farming. The Pearl Harbor attack in

1941 changed the life of Japanese Americans. They were resented by the society

and considered as traitor. The government even built internment camp to seclude

Japanese from the society, even though they were innocent civilian. After the

camp, they started new life and fight for their right. The Japanese American began

to enter politics and served in the House of Representative.

Most of the immigrants were Buddhist or Shinto but now, some of them

became Christian because it helps them to adapt in American society. Many of the

Japanese tradition that they brought from Japan has been abandoned or changed. commit to user

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The younger Japanese American generation is following the lifestyle mostly use

in America. Japanese were found to be more likely to maintain independent

households when they could live with their spouses (Xia, Do, & Xie, 2013, p.

716). It is different from other Asian American who has extended family with

them because they had shorter length in living in America. Japanese and Chinese

are the two dominant Asian ethnicities in America. Although some Asian

American groups, suchas Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Americans, havebeen in

the United States for many generations,they are still considered foreigners due to

theirphysical characteristics(Xia, Do, & Xie, 2013, p. 708). Because of the long

living period in America, the Japanese generation today is more „American‟. The

biggest number of Japanese American society is found in Hawaii and .

They had adapted very well to the American culture. They had contributed in

some American fields, such as sport, art, academic, science, entertainment, etc.

Japanese American now is more comfortable than the older generations.

E. Barthes‟ SemioticTheory

Barthes was interested in applying the method of semiotics into the

reading of everyday life phenomena and, in particular, popular culture since he

was convinced that objects and events always meant more than themselves

(Guimaraes, p. 2). Semiology argues that everything can never be accepted the

way it is. There is always meaning behind it. This meaning is never „innocent‟,

but has some particular purpose or interest lying behind it, which semiology can

uncover (Strinati, 2004, p. 100). Barthes notes that „any semiology postulates a

relation between two terms, a signifier and a signified‟ (Strinati, 2004, p. 103). commit to user

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Therefore, the signifier becomes „form‟, the signified „concept‟ and the sign

„signification‟ (Strinati, 2004, p. 105). Many semiological systems (objects,

gestures, pictorial images) have a substance of expression whose essence is not to

signify; often, they are objects of everyday use, used by society in a derivative

way, to signify something(Barthes, 1968). The sign can be interpreted as the value

of the expression, and is a product of exchange and comparison among dissimilar

words and ideas(Schnupp, 2007).The other indicator of Barthes‟ theory is the

difference of denotation and connotation. Denotation stands for the collectively

agreed upon meaning of an image or text – comparable to the signifier– and

connotation represents the accompanying ideas and concepts –much like the

signified and the ensuing process of signification (Schnupp, 2007). For example,

„pig‟ denotes a certain omnivorous animal that can eat wide range of food, while it

connotes a greedy man who eats anything.

F. Mise-en-scene

In order to analyze Ryan Higa‟s videos, I combine Barthes‟ semiotic

theory with mise-en-sceneelements. Mise-en-scene or “world of film” is a term

used to look the cinematography of film. I use it because it will help me to

understand more about Ryan Higa‟s videos.I will look up to mise-en-scene

components in analyzing the video because it describes the feel, detail and the

sense of reality that shows the representation of the video. There are five

components of mise-en-scene that I will focus on: setting and properties; costume

and make-up; figure behaviour. I will use all of these components to help me

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analyzing the videos. These components are chosen because they give a better

explanation to the analysis of the videos.

Setting is the location where the scene takes place. Props (short for

“properties”) help to amplify a mood, give further definition to a setting, or call

attention to detail within the larger scene (Villarejo, Film Studies: The Basic,

2013, p. 30).Costume and make-up also play an important part of film making. It

makes the actor become more realistic and gives more feeling to the character.

Figure behavior means to describe the movement, expressions, or actions of the

actors or the other figures (Villarejo, Film Studies: The Basics, 2007, p. 35).

G. Stereotype and Media

Stereotype will be the main focus in this research, Japanese American

stereotype to be exact. Stereotypes are psychological representations of the

characteristics of people that belong to particular groups(McGarty, Yzerbyt, &

Spears, 2002, p. 2). Stereotyping is used to categorize a group by people. Our

impression of a group is based on the difference and similarities of one and other

groups and stereotypes make us easier to understand a group‟s identity. Shared

stereotypes […] are useful for predicting and understanding the behavior of

members of one group to another (McGarty, Yzerbyt, & Spears, 2002, p. 5).

Language plays an important role in constructing the stereotype of a group

because the characteristic of the group can be seen from their communication. We

define stereotypes as associations and beliefs about the characteristics and

attributes of a group and its members that shape how people think about and

respond to the group(Dovidio, Hewstone, Glick, & Esses, 2010, p. 8).These days, commit to user

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the media plays an important role in relaying stereotypes. Movies and many

articles about a specific ethnic group can be found easily. People who watch, read

or listen the same media across the world will share the same stereotype of the

group portrayed in it.

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