What Lies Behind the Vending Machine
Dear Dr. S.,
thank you for your notification. May I add a sidenote to my complaint about the ad, please?
Hornbach asserts that the ad refers to the 'fetish-vending machine' which allegedly existed in Japan. For your information: German daily newspaper FAZ reported on April 2, 2019 that there was once an attempt to install such a vending machine in Japan, yet the authority intervened and removed it right away. The fetish-vending machine is "an urban myth." (https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/baumarktkette-hornbach-erntet-rassismusvorwuerfe-fuer-werbespot-16119551.html)
Even if such a vending machine might be in Japan, however, its existence cannot be an excuse for representing Asian women in such a defaming way. Here are three reasons why:
1. European media often picks up something "gross" and "unusual" when representing Asian culture, which is only a marginal phenomenon in Asian countries.
As a result, such media products encourages recipients to combine Asian culture in general with overtly exotic customs and mentality, which is then used as evidences for the alleged inferiority of Asian culture and the superiority of European culture. Ever since the ad is online, I hear a lot from European colleagues and strangers if such vending machine really exists in Japan (although I'm from Korea) or the ad is okay because there is such vending machine in Japan.
What if Asian media would constantly reproduce images of European people pooing carefreely on the street as they used to do during the middle age? Or what if Asian media pick up how Europeans in general eat frogs, snails, and raw lever of duck on a daily basis? Such media representation distorts the images of other culture and its people. The prejudices of exotic Asians have a real impact on Asian people visiting and living in Europe: Asian children, who are born and raised here, are mobbed at schools; Asian tourists are confronted with rude questions or bullying on streets. Any attempt to offer an experience-based and balanced view on Asian culture is refuted by European people who use the exoticizing representation in media as an evidence. It's an evil circle.
2. Asian women don't want vending machines selling men's used laundries.
It's not fair to represent Asian women as the consumer of used laundries. The urban myth about fetish-vending machine in Japan is clearly marked by the imbalance of power between women and men in the country. Most Asian women, when they hear the rumor about the vending machine, are outrageous and feeling humiliated. They consider the vending machine as another example of sexual objectification and marketizing of women's sexuality for the male pleasure.
To my shock, Hornbach asserts that by making an Asian woman to buy men's used laundry, the company might have depicted her as a self-decisive and independent woman. It is a cynicism of the highest degree with the lowest intention about Asian women's effort to change such culture. Asian women don't want a vending machine selling men's used laundries. Asian women want to terminate such vending machines, if there were any such machines.
Furthermore, Hornbach asserted that the ad might be playing with cliché and implied thereby subversion of conventional gender roles. Because this time, it is not a woman but men who show their skin. However, the way Hornbach depicts the five men's bare skin implies rather male exhibitionism ("flash") than their sexual objectification. As any woman and reasonably thinking men would agree, men who undress themselves unasked do it for their own sexual pleasure, not for women. Please see the attached images. Hornbach posted a video using these two images on their facebook page, which is currently deleted. For about 3.9 seconds, these five white men look into camera in a challenging manner while the camera zooms into them. Then for about 0.1 seconds, the video literally "flashes" showing all five men revealing their underwears and laughing. When people watch this video, they experiences literally "flashing" of men showing their bare skins unasked for, which belongs to sexual offence that most women experience in their lives. This video "offers" Recipients with a similar experience with male exhibitionists on the street. This video evidences perfectly well that the male bareness in the campaign is not made for women's pleasure but to "surprise" viewers with flashing men in an unpleasant manner.
3. Focusing on the vending machine marginalizes another racist and sexist context in the commercial.
The ad campaign is built on a striking contrast between white men and an Asian women. At the "open" dialogue on April 1, 2019, the company explained that it was a coincidence that the role was played by an Asian woman. The company wanted to show a strong contrast to European men who work in gardens, Hence the big city, "exotic" landscape, and the young Asian woman. However, the company seems not to understand that placing Asian women as the contrast to European men itself is a huge problem. The company's excuse means that they intentionally represented the Asian woman as The Other of European men, which delivers us with a definition of Eurocentricism par excellence. We Asians have our own value and own right for existences. We do not exist as a counterpart of Europeans!
Focusing on the vending machine, the company tries to sideline the problematic dynamic between five white men and one Asian woman. The five white men are unmistakably representing Hornbach's main customers and target group of the commercial: white men over 50s. Unfortunately, this population group is also the one that "orders" brides from Asian countries via catalogue in better cases. In worse cases, thousands of people who belong to this population group go to Asian countries as sex tourists, where the sex market booms, which itself roots from European and American imperial expansion. European sex tourists have very specific needs in Asian sex market, because they believe that they can do whatever they want with Asian women. They believe and coerce that Asian women are submissive. These men believe that from Asian women, they can get what they cannot require from other women (particularly white women). The result: unwanted pregnancy due to condom-free intercourses, rape, involvement of minors in sexual acts, and even death of Asian women (and men) after being forced to tourturing sex practices by European men. I'm not kidding.
The commercial perpetuates very dangerous fantasy about Asian women that they be so understanding and nice, thus would even love the odor of white men's used laundries. Doing so, the commercial broadended the catalogue of sexual harrassments targeting Asian women. The offenders choose always the "right" way to harrass each group of women. They harrass Asian women with different languages and gestures than other women, such as black or white women. Asian women living in Europe are fearing that some men would pick on the idea and harrass them by forcing them to smell their armpits or other body parts, or "making jokes" about how Asian women love to smell white men's body odor.
Focusing on the vending machine, Hornbach downplays the specific problem of white men's wrongful fantasy about Asian women. For Asian women who live in Europe or plan to visit European countries, this ad signalizes serious lack of problem awareness about anti-Asian racism and sexism in European society. Asians take the fact it as a sereious threat to their safety that European audiences have been very enthusiastic about the ad. How can we feel safe in a country where such dehumanizing representation of Asian women is not only accepted, but also so popular?
Best,
thank you for your notification. May I add a sidenote to my complaint about the ad, please?
Hornbach asserts that the ad refers to the 'fetish-vending machine' which allegedly existed in Japan. For your information: German daily newspaper FAZ reported on April 2, 2019 that there was once an attempt to install such a vending machine in Japan, yet the authority intervened and removed it right away. The fetish-vending machine is "an urban myth." (https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/baumarktkette-hornbach-erntet-rassismusvorwuerfe-fuer-werbespot-16119551.html)
Even if such a vending machine might be in Japan, however, its existence cannot be an excuse for representing Asian women in such a defaming way. Here are three reasons why:
1. European media often picks up something "gross" and "unusual" when representing Asian culture, which is only a marginal phenomenon in Asian countries.
As a result, such media products encourages recipients to combine Asian culture in general with overtly exotic customs and mentality, which is then used as evidences for the alleged inferiority of Asian culture and the superiority of European culture. Ever since the ad is online, I hear a lot from European colleagues and strangers if such vending machine really exists in Japan (although I'm from Korea) or the ad is okay because there is such vending machine in Japan.
What if Asian media would constantly reproduce images of European people pooing carefreely on the street as they used to do during the middle age? Or what if Asian media pick up how Europeans in general eat frogs, snails, and raw lever of duck on a daily basis? Such media representation distorts the images of other culture and its people. The prejudices of exotic Asians have a real impact on Asian people visiting and living in Europe: Asian children, who are born and raised here, are mobbed at schools; Asian tourists are confronted with rude questions or bullying on streets. Any attempt to offer an experience-based and balanced view on Asian culture is refuted by European people who use the exoticizing representation in media as an evidence. It's an evil circle.
2. Asian women don't want vending machines selling men's used laundries.
It's not fair to represent Asian women as the consumer of used laundries. The urban myth about fetish-vending machine in Japan is clearly marked by the imbalance of power between women and men in the country. Most Asian women, when they hear the rumor about the vending machine, are outrageous and feeling humiliated. They consider the vending machine as another example of sexual objectification and marketizing of women's sexuality for the male pleasure.
To my shock, Hornbach asserts that by making an Asian woman to buy men's used laundry, the company might have depicted her as a self-decisive and independent woman. It is a cynicism of the highest degree with the lowest intention about Asian women's effort to change such culture. Asian women don't want a vending machine selling men's used laundries. Asian women want to terminate such vending machines, if there were any such machines.
Furthermore, Hornbach asserted that the ad might be playing with cliché and implied thereby subversion of conventional gender roles. Because this time, it is not a woman but men who show their skin. However, the way Hornbach depicts the five men's bare skin implies rather male exhibitionism ("flash") than their sexual objectification. As any woman and reasonably thinking men would agree, men who undress themselves unasked do it for their own sexual pleasure, not for women. Please see the attached images. Hornbach posted a video using these two images on their facebook page, which is currently deleted. For about 3.9 seconds, these five white men look into camera in a challenging manner while the camera zooms into them. Then for about 0.1 seconds, the video literally "flashes" showing all five men revealing their underwears and laughing. When people watch this video, they experiences literally "flashing" of men showing their bare skins unasked for, which belongs to sexual offence that most women experience in their lives. This video "offers" Recipients with a similar experience with male exhibitionists on the street. This video evidences perfectly well that the male bareness in the campaign is not made for women's pleasure but to "surprise" viewers with flashing men in an unpleasant manner.
3. Focusing on the vending machine marginalizes another racist and sexist context in the commercial.
The ad campaign is built on a striking contrast between white men and an Asian women. At the "open" dialogue on April 1, 2019, the company explained that it was a coincidence that the role was played by an Asian woman. The company wanted to show a strong contrast to European men who work in gardens, Hence the big city, "exotic" landscape, and the young Asian woman. However, the company seems not to understand that placing Asian women as the contrast to European men itself is a huge problem. The company's excuse means that they intentionally represented the Asian woman as The Other of European men, which delivers us with a definition of Eurocentricism par excellence. We Asians have our own value and own right for existences. We do not exist as a counterpart of Europeans!
Focusing on the vending machine, the company tries to sideline the problematic dynamic between five white men and one Asian woman. The five white men are unmistakably representing Hornbach's main customers and target group of the commercial: white men over 50s. Unfortunately, this population group is also the one that "orders" brides from Asian countries via catalogue in better cases. In worse cases, thousands of people who belong to this population group go to Asian countries as sex tourists, where the sex market booms, which itself roots from European and American imperial expansion. European sex tourists have very specific needs in Asian sex market, because they believe that they can do whatever they want with Asian women. They believe and coerce that Asian women are submissive. These men believe that from Asian women, they can get what they cannot require from other women (particularly white women). The result: unwanted pregnancy due to condom-free intercourses, rape, involvement of minors in sexual acts, and even death of Asian women (and men) after being forced to tourturing sex practices by European men. I'm not kidding.
The commercial perpetuates very dangerous fantasy about Asian women that they be so understanding and nice, thus would even love the odor of white men's used laundries. Doing so, the commercial broadended the catalogue of sexual harrassments targeting Asian women. The offenders choose always the "right" way to harrass each group of women. They harrass Asian women with different languages and gestures than other women, such as black or white women. Asian women living in Europe are fearing that some men would pick on the idea and harrass them by forcing them to smell their armpits or other body parts, or "making jokes" about how Asian women love to smell white men's body odor.
Focusing on the vending machine, Hornbach downplays the specific problem of white men's wrongful fantasy about Asian women. For Asian women who live in Europe or plan to visit European countries, this ad signalizes serious lack of problem awareness about anti-Asian racism and sexism in European society. Asians take the fact it as a sereious threat to their safety that European audiences have been very enthusiastic about the ad. How can we feel safe in a country where such dehumanizing representation of Asian women is not only accepted, but also so popular?
Best,
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