Hollywood "Charisma Men" in Japanese Commericals

The appearance of male Hollywood stars in Japanese commercials involves more than famous buzz words such as American cultural imperialism and globalization. It is instead more closely an effect of:

1. A negative stigma within the United States that looks down on Hollywood actors who take jobs for TV advertising. (i.e. Hollywood/film is high-brow and should not mix with low-brow televisual content.)
2. A romanticized exoticism associated with the Western man.

In Japan, unlike the United States, celebrity appearances in commercials work to promote fame rather than stain it. Japanese companies put forth an agenda of associating stars with brands in order to sell products based on celebrity fandoms. This is true to an extent in the United States, as some stars will do big budget commercials for events such as the Super Bowl, but no one sees a blockbuster star starring in an ordinary coffee commercial among the majority of the American media landscape. However, one can certainly see it in Japan as Tommy Lee Jones has become grounded as the symbol of Boss coffee.

 

Therefore, why are Hollywood actors, such as Tommy Lee Jones, George Clooney, and Harrison Ford, taking face-time in Japanese commercials despite the negative stigma?

The answer is money – the bottom line. They can make a lot of money because the stigma is not in Japan. Even Dennis Hopper commented to Entertainment Weekly, “I couldn’t believe the money they were paying me. If I could do one of these every year, I could retire.” They also do it because the likelihood of the commercials becoming vastly visible in the U.S. is small. After all, media tend to go out of America, not in it.

Furthermore, the big money given to these male superstars is mostly for their exoticism as “Charisma Men.” “Charisma Man” is a stereotype in Japan that assumes Western men are more charming, doting, and easygoing than Japanese men, and it is both originated and perpetuated by the frequent Hollywood male presence within Japanese channels. The result is that Japanese women get to utilize media to fawn over actors like George Clooney, while Japanese men are left with a cultivated ideal that they may see as either competition or normative.

Sources:

• De Zoysa, Richard, and Otto Newman. "Globalization, soft power and the challenge of Hollywood." Contemporary Politics 8.3 (2002): 185-202. Print.
• "Hollywood's Secret Japanese Commercials Are no Longer Secret" - by Brian Ashcraft
• "Leonardo DiCaprio and the easy money of foreign commercials" - by Jeff Labrecque 
• "The return of Charisma Man" - by Lisa Gay