Mr. James, the McDonald's Hawking Gaijin Parody
McDonald's Japan is currently running a bizarre promotion using a caricature of an American named Mr. James, who hails from Ohio and is living in Tokyo with his daughter Jennifer. The advertising campaign is promoting McDonald's All Stars, four premium hamburgers that will be available through November, starting with the current Tamago Double Mac. The fact that Mr. James speaks broken katakana Japanese and is called improperly ("Mr. James," just as I spent years being called "Mr. Peter" by my students) has some foreigners in Japan upset about the ads, even going so far as to make an anti-Mr. James group on Facebook. While I think the ads are silly, I'm not particularly offended by them or anything. I'm personally at peace with the fact that many Westerners often are walking parodies of themselves in Japan, bumbling around asking for directions and snapping pictures of public restrooms and vending machines because they look new and interesting to us, and we probably look even funnier than Mr. James to the Japanese. This is okay -- it's all part of the cultural communication process between East and West. I also know that the character of Mr. James is based on the overwhelmingly positive image that Japanese have of foreigners here, from that first overly exuberant eikaiwa (English conversation) teacher they had back in school. Japan making fun of gaijin is quite common, from anime series that feature oddly-accented foreigners in them to the bizarre OH! Mikey, a parody of Americans living in Japan made using fashion mannequins, and there's nothing vindictive about it at all.
Mr. James loves Japan and McDonald's hamburgers, but some foreigners hate him.
posted by Peter in Japan at 8:02 PM
11 Comments:
In Maryland, and probably elsewhere southward, it is no uncommon for children to refer to other people's parents as "Mr Jim" and "Miss Joanne"
6:31 AM
Mr. James doesn't look offensive at all. Some people just need to get a grip and loosen up a little.
7:04 AM
@Rawle Totally agreed. People have been conditioned in today's society to take offense to nearly anything. A parody like this rates pretty low on the scale, in my opinion anyway, and like you said, people definitely need to relax & poke fun at themselves sometimes. No one is infallible, and this campaign certainly doesn't look like it was done in any derogatory way.
And as far as the name thing, I think it's kinda rude/uneducated sounding to call someone Mr/Mrs/Ms and their first name. I cringe when I hear someone - especially children - do that.
7:21 AM
Yes, Japan is so careful not to offend most of the time. For example, we have a great (and terrible) tradition of coming up with rude names to describe the people we don't like, for example rude words for Mexicans, yet you never, ever hear any kind of rude epithet describing Koreans/Chinese/whoever. People should relax.
9:48 AM
I'm offended that he's wearing a tie with a polo shirt!
2:30 PM
I don't understand. Is it really that rude to call someone Mr/Ms/Mrs in the West? Do they really hate formality that much?
8:07 PM
seiray: It's not that it is rude or offensive in my opinion, its just that it is incorrect. For example my name is Jeffrey Weik. The correct form is Mr. Weik not Mr. Jeffrey.
Now granted James can be a last name it is most often then not a first name.
9:47 AM
To continue on from my previous post, you don't use Mr. with a first name you use Mr. and then a last name.
9:49 AM
I saw a few clips of a OH! Mikey on a BBC show and it scared the bejaysus out of me.
As for the Mr/Miss/Mrs with a first name, my parents spent time living in the Caribbean and there people used it as bridge between being respectful and friendly.
12:43 AM
Oh no, not the Tamago Double Mac! That had to have been the worst thing I ate in all of Japan. I would have rather eaten the basashi again (and my dislike of that was more "hmm, fatty/stringy, I'll pass on that next time, thanks" than "OMG Black Beauty!!").
The English honorific thing is interesting, especially for me since we call our children Mr. S and Miss T. And the daughter's ballet teachers are known as Miss Lisa and Miss Bonnie, even though Miss Lisa is Miss Bonnie's mother.
It really sounds like a classic case of Americans being upset about something because they can.
1:24 AM
I think the Mr. James/Mr. T might be something deeper, I find I dislike being called Mr. Peter but I'm not sure why. Maybe it's tied to children and sounds too childish or something for sophisticated adults?
9:59 AM
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