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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, Hawaii 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 Las Vegas, 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 twitter 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 California.
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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