Post by Admin on Dec 5, 2015 17:18:06 GMT
This Japanese Life
thisjapaneselife.org/2014/05/21/avril-lavigne-japan/
On Not Being Offended by Avril Lavigne in Japan
Posted on May 21, 2014
If nobody in Japan thinks a racist video about the Japanese is racist, can anyone be offended?
The children’s novelty act known as ‘Avril Lavigne’ really struck offensive gold with her recent video, and criticism runs the gamut: It’s sexist, infantilizes the Japanese, and culturally insensitive. Some have even seriously suggested that the video’s problems were an intentional ploy to distract you from how terrible the song was. Meanwhile, the Japanese press is reporting on the controversy as an ‘overseas press response‘ to the video, and people in Japan think it’s just great, leading to a koan in the age of global media and political correctness: If nobody in Japan thinks a racist video about the Japanese is racist, can anyone be offended?
The most horrifying thing about watching ‘Hello Kitty’ is that Avril Lavigne is still acting like a 14-year-old girl and screeching about sleep overs with a sexual innuendo based on a perversely underage cartoon character. Or perhaps it’s her pronunciation of Japanese words, or use of them: The song starts with her screaming in Japanese, “Everybody Psycho, Thank You! Cute!” and it actually only gets dumber when she switches to her native language.
But, as Avril has pointed out, the song is produced by a Japanese label (Epic is owned by Sony), with a Japanese video director, choreographer and, obviously, a Japanese cast. (She also started that defense with ‘LOLOLOL!!!‘ – I’ll reiterate again that she is 29 years old).
Though this is precisely the ‘I can’t be racist, I have black friends‘ defense, it is more interesting than it seems, because it speaks to how ideology, the stuff that influences everyday culture, is carried through the images that culture produces. I’ll suggest that the racism of the ‘Hello Kitty’ video was actually imposed on Japan by the Japanese, in cohoots with an oblivious foreigner.
Japanese Racism Against the Japanese
Brian McVeigh, a Japan scholar, has written something that explains Japanese culture in a way I intuitively understood in my time there, but never could articulate: The idea which he calls ‘ethos nationalist identity.’ This connects one’s racial identity to a cultural identity and to a national identity; in his words, a belief that is
probably an instinctive reaction (rooted in deep ideological patterns) to categories that somehow ‘should’ be kept separate, ie, Japaneseness and ‘non-Japaneseness’. The consequence is that “Japanese culture” is something only the Japanese people themselves can possess.
This is not exactly racism against other groups of people – though xenophobia and ‘othering’ are a common concern among resident expats and others who live in Japan. It’s also weirdly self-Orientalizing: It is the belief, (by no means universal, but popular) that eating sushi with chopsticks, singing karaoke and going to onsen is ‘Japanese,’ and that other things are not Japanese.
To play with these ideas, for a Westerner to act like Avril Lavigne did – what we’d call ‘culturally appropriating’ the Japanese – is not really a threat to the Japanese cultural identity, because Lavigne isn’t Japanese. So of course, she likes sushi enough to clap her hands like a schoolgirl and gets to stare at a giant stuffed cupcake before petulantly throwing it to the ground (she is, again, 29 years old) but so should the rest of the world.
This goes a long way to explaining why Westerners are more concerned about Japanese cultural appropriation than the Japanese seem to be. That doesn’t mean the criticism of the video aren’t on target. So what about claims of cultural appropriation?
The Japanese Media Complex
Cultural appropriation is an interesting concern, and perfectly valid when it is rooted in a one-sided relationship of cultural exploitation. Middle-class white guys have always had a hard time in hip-hop because it’s a little weird for middle-class white guys to take an art form pioneered as a voice against oppression by middle-class white guys and use it to complain about their first-world problems. This is obviously complicated by class concerns – is it, for example, OK for a poor white guy to use hip hop? The success and ‘credibility’ of Eminem seems to say yes.
It’s a broader issue, rife with racial and class-based landmines, but you get the idea: The problem with cultural appropriation is more or less that it’s rooted in the powerful taking acts of empowerment away from another group in a one-sided way, and using it to their own ends, which is obnoxious. But by taking something into a new cultural context, it also risks reducing the sacred images, rituals and objects of a culture into kitsch: Consider taking the keffiyeh, a Palestinian symbol of unity, turning it into a fashion trend and eventually a joke about hipsters. Or consider Maori tribal tattoos on guys who can’t spell ‘Maori.’
Japan is a different story. The things that Lavigne are doing are already mass-produced kitsch, and many of them are part of a culture that Japan’s government was spending millions to export abroad, part of a package of media and entertainment exports called ‘Cool Japan’.
Is it really cultural appropriation if most of what Lavigne is showing off is precisely the image that Japan wants us to have? She’s not taking selfies at shrines, Bieber-style, or really participating in anything that ever actually happens in Japan. She’s being reductionist, for sure – presenting Japan in one particular way, the kawaii-and-wacky stereotype of the country that is completely independent of the country’s real culture.
The problem is, a Japanese director shot this video for a Japanese company, so it must reflect some idea of Japan that they felt comfortable with. And if you look closely at ‘Hello Kitty,’ it is precisely what Japan sees as ‘Japan for foreigners,’ which is really what the suite of ‘Cool Japan’ stuff is intended to be. The ideology here is that Japan is so unique and different that ‘authentic Japanese culture’ can’t be understood by outsiders – so here you go, guys, have a giant plush cupcake.
Mrs. Roboto
The other, more problematic concern with this video is the role of the women in the background, dancing stiff-faced like robots, the supporting cast to Lavigne’s prancing eyeliner party. This is a perfect rendering of the unconscious mind of the worst type of Japanese expat, the ones who see the country and all of its people as the supporting backdrop for their great white adventure in the Orient. It would not surprise me if Lavigne, who spends ‘half her time in Tokyo,’ was one of those worst kinds of expats.
The women here are identical and form the backdrop as dancers, candy sellers, and Lavigne’s entourage. They smile once, when shown the picture that Lavigne takes of them – as if they can only really recognize themselves in the images a foreigner has of them. What a metaphor! The vision of unending Japanese hospitality, an image Japan presents to the outside world and loves seeing the outside world reflect back, is more or less perfectly captured in these models being shown what they look like by Avril Lavigne and loving it.
This is all problematic on many levels, but perhaps not considered a big deal in Japan simply because of that ethos-nationalist self-orientalism. We’re being shown the idea of Japan that a Japanese director and Japanese company want foreigners to see. It’s riding a nationally arranged, corporate-supported advertising gimmick of ‘Cool Japan’ abroad as a giant shopping mall full of docile, identical women who only want to serve you and party while you consume a range of lifestyle products — essentially product placement for the stuff Japan assumes we’ll like.
The Verdict
I am going to leave the last word on the inherent racism, sexism and Orientalising in this Avril Lavigne video to the people who either are or aren’t offended by it. I’m confident, though, to say that this video got made because it is a perfect mix of a Japanese director and corporation trying to promote a specific, self-Orientalizing version of Japan rooted in the idea of ‘what foreigners think of us,’ and the culturally oblivious vision of 29-year-old-white-girl-in-Japan, Avril Lavigne, telling them that they are exactly right.
Likewise, it was probably a two-way street of cultural obliviousness, where Lavigne insisted on something or other and was met with a nod and a smile because nobody in Japan is going to say no to Avril Lavigne, and because the whole thing was set up to be about ‘Japan from Away’ that Lavigne had a unique insight toward constructing.
The result is an eye-numbing train wreck of a video for a traumatic plane crash of a song, making this whole ordeal one of the worst transportation disasters in the history of bad metaphors.
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www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2014/04/24/avril-lavigne-responds-to-racist-video-criticism-by-saying-she-loves-japan/
By Emily Yahr April 24, 2014
Avril Lavigne (Dan Steinberg/AP)
Avril Lavigne is going with an “LOLOLOL!!!” defense in response to those who are offended by her new Japan-themed song and music video, “Hello Kitty.”
“RACIST??? LOLOLOL!!! I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan,” Lavigne tweeted. “I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan.”
In case you missed it, the pop singer — who’s been off the grid for a while now, at least on the American music charts — attempted to make some noise this week with her latest single, “Hello Kitty.” In the video, Lavigne dances around in a tutu with a crew of unsmiling Japanese dancers; pours some sake; and claps her hands delightedly when a chef chops up some sushi. Plus, there are the lyrics, an ode to the famous Japanese animated character: “Hello Kitty, you’re so pretty/Hello kitty you’re so silly.” (Inspired.) She also randomly sprinkles in Japanese words like “arigato” and “kawaii” (cute or adorable). Lavigne is one of the co-writers on the song along with her husband, Nickelback lead singer Chad Kroeger.
Not surprisingly, the outrage came fast and furious: “racist” was a common complaint on Twitter. Billboard called it “a grating earworm that squeezes Gwen Stefani’s Japan fetishization into an even more unseemly package.”
Speaking of Stefani, how is Lavgine’s latest attempt to grab headlines any different than other cultural appropriation videos? Short answer: It’s not, really. Stefani has faced lots of criticism for touring with a group of Japanese “Harajuku girls” that also appear in her music videos; in 2006, Margaret Cho spoke out about Stefani’s act. “I mean, racial stereotypes are really cute sometimes, and I don’t want to bum everyone out by pointing out the minstrel show,” Cho wrote on her blog. (Racial criticism only continued with Stefani: She and No Doubt got harsh backlash with Native American groups over their “Cowboys and Indians.”)
This series of events seems to repeat itself again and again with young pop stars. After Miley Cyrus twerked at the VMAs, Vulture.com’s headline read, “The 2013 VMAs Were Dominated by Miley’s Minstrel Show.” Various groups wanted Selena Gomez to apologize for wearing a bindi during a performance of her song “Come and Get It.” Katy Perry burned an Islamic necklace with the word “Allah” in her “Dark Horse” video, sparking people to demand it be taken off the Internet.
Just last week, Sky Ferreira defended herself on Facebook after charges of racism in her music video for “Night Time, My Time,” which, as Billboard says, “Features the singer palling around a torn-up Los Angeles neighborhood with African-American men, who engage in heated confrontations on the street before combining as her backup dancers.”
“Not only do I find it insulting towards myself but I also feel insulted for the actors & dancers & my family in the video,” Ferreira later wrote. “I did not use black back up dancers as ‘props’. I never have and never will look at any human being as a prop. That’s disgusting.”
Meanwhile, today, Lavigne ignored the criticism and was still proudly tweeting about the video:
"Come Come Kitty Kitty" ......
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Fan Army Face-Off 2015: The Play-In Round
7/8/2015 by Jason Lipshutz
www.billboard.com/articles/events/fan-army/6620341/fan-army-face-off-introduction-play-in-round
In 2014, Billboard.com hosted its first-ever Fan Army Face-Off, a bracket-style tournament that pitted the most dedicated music followers against each other to determine which group of supporters was the loudest in the world. While BIGBANG’s fan army, the VIPs, won the inaugural championship last year over Thirty Seconds To Mars’ Echelon, the real winners were the members of every fan army in the competition: with over 200 million votes cast during the five rounds of showdowns, the Fan Army Face-Off showed just how mighty the roar of 64 different fan groups in the same place can sound.
Vote in the Play-In Round of the Fan Army Face-Off
Now, Fan Army Face-Off is BACK, with all of the biggest fan armies in music returning to once again compete and a rules shake-up that adds some interesting wrinkles to the annual competition. We’ve rounded up 63 of the most notable fan armies today, and through six rounds, we’ll let the fans themselves determine which groups plow forward, and which ones lack the juice to reach the championship. That’s right, we’ve more than doubled the number of fan armies competing this year, and we’ve also divided the brackets by genre, so that pop, rock, R&B/hip-hop and K-pop will all be represented in the Final Four!
One last change: we have 63 out of 64 fan armies in place for the tournament, but one spot is still up for grabs! We’re kicking off this year’s Fan Army Face-Off with a play-in round, with eight “teams” competing for one last spot in the pop bracket before the actual tournament officially begins. Which of these fan armies -- Kesha's Animals, Adam Lambert's Glamberts, Ellie Goulding's Gouldiggers, Josh Groban's Grobanites, New Kids on the Block's Blockheads, Avril Lavigne's Black Stars, Little Mix's Mixers or Cher Lloyd's Brats -- deserves a spot in the big dance?
Voting begins July 8 at 12PM ET in the play-in round of the 2015 Fan Army Face-Off!
Round 1 begins July 9 at 3PM ET. Matchups Below:
Pop Bracket:
One Direction's Directioners Vs. Play-In Winner
Selena Gomez's Selenators vs. Demi Lovato's Lovatics
Katy Perry's Katy Cats vs. Bruno Mars' Hooligans
Lady Gaga's Little Monsters vs. Austin Mahone's Mahomies
Miley Cyrus' Smilers vs. Ed Sheeran's Sheerios
Taylor Swift's Swifties vs. Fifth Harmony's Harmonizers
Britney Spears' Britney Army vs. Ariana Grande's Arianators
Justin Bieber's Beliebers vs. Meghan Trainor's Megatronz
K-Pop Bracket:
BIG BANG's VIPs vs. B1A4's Bana
2PM's Hottest vs. Infinite's Inspirit
2NE1's Black Jacks vs. BTS' Army
TVXQ's Cassiopeia vs. Beast's B2Uty
CNBLUE's Boice vs. T-ara's Queens
EXO's EXO-L vs. Girl's Day's Dai5y
FTISLAND's Primadonna vs. GOT7's iGOT7
Girl’s Generation's Sones vs. Sistar's Star1
Rock Bracket:
Thirty Seconds to Mars's Echelon vs. Black Veil Brides' Bridesmaids and Ushers
Aerosmith's Blue Army vs. Motley Crue's Crueheads
The Killers' Victims vs. Grateful Dead's Deadheads
Tokio Hotel's Aliens vs. Kiss' Kiss Army
Muse's Musers vs. Paramore's Parawhores
5 Seconds of Summer's 5SOSFAM vs. Slayer's Slaytanic
Fall Out Boy's Outcast Kids vs. Slipknot's Maggots
Skillet's Panheads vs. Hillsong United
Hip Hop and R&B Bracket:
Beyonce's Beyhive vs. Future's Future Hive
Iggy Azalea's Azaleans vs. Azealia Banks' K--t Brigade
Chris Brown's Team Breezy vs. Janelle Monae's Fandroids
Mariah Carey's Lambs vs. The Weeknd
Adele's Daydreamers vs. A$AP Mob
Nicki Minaj's Barbz vs. Insane Clown Posse's Juggalos
Drake vs. Wiz Khalifa's Taylor Gang
Rihanna's Rihanna Navy vs. Trey Songs' Trey's Angels
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Fan Army Face-Off 2015: T-ara's Queen's Reign Supreme Over 64 Major Fanbases
8/19/2015 by Billboard Staff
www.billboard.com/articles/columns/k-town/6664071/fan-army-face-off-2015-t-ara-queens-win
The ultimate fan army has been found.
With more than 3.4 million votes cast for them throughout the competition, T-ara's Queen's are the winners of Billboard's 2015 Fan Army Face-Off.
T-ara & Their Queen's: 7 Sweetest Fan Interactions
Queen's are the fiercely loyal fanbase of the K-pop girl group who boast No. 1s in Korea (three on the K-Pop Hot 100), Japan (one on the Japan Hot 100), and made their debut on the domestic-based World Albums chart last year. Queen's have stuck by Qri, Eunjung, Boram, Soyeon, Hyomin and Jiyeon throughout the outfit's six-year history that's included loads of ups and downs.
T-ara Fan on How Scandals & Rumors Made Queens Stronger: 'It Weeded Out the Fake Fans'
On their road to victory, the Queen's beat extremely tough competition from Beyonce's Beyhive, 2PM's Hottest, Sistar's Star1, Girl's Day's Dai5y, CNBLUE's Boice and One Direction's Directioners. That last matchup was one of the most ferocious -- eliciting nearly three million voters to come support the teams -- and even caused a global hashtag to trend on Twitter, WeLove1DandKpop, to show there were no hard feelings in the end.
You can take a look at the full bracket for Billboard's 2015 Fan Army Face-Off that brought out 64 of the strongest fanbases among pop, hip-hop, R&B, rock and K-pop acts in the world right here.
T-ara Get 'So Crazy' as Sexy Sailor Girls for Funky Dance Single: Review
Congrats to the Queen's! See what their fans go so wild for by checking out their half-nerdy, half-sexy music video to their new single "So Crazy":
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From Avril's neck of the Woods...
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What ‘Going Clear’ means for the decline of Scientology
HBO’s documentary about Scientology finally crosses the border into Canada. What does it say about the Church’s future?
www.macleans.ca/society/what-going-clear-means-for-the-decline-of-scientology/
Rachel Browne
May 8, 2015
Listen to The Thrill, Maclean’s weekly pop-culture podcast, take on ‘Going Clear’. Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or Beyondpod, and check out our other audio offerings on the original webpage.
Nan McLean first joined the Church of Scientology in Toronto in 1969 when she was 46 years old. She was out driving and heard reporters on the radio discussing the religion she had never heard of. When one reporter mentioned that Scientologists believe in reincarnation, she got so excited she almost drove off the road. “I always believed in reincarnation, but wasn’t sure how I could practise it—until then,” she recalls. A few weeks later, McLean, her husband, and two sons made it official. She walked into the Church—at that time a house on Avenue Road before it moved to its Yonge Street location–and paid $500 for the first required course, excited to start this new chapter in her life. “I still remember that was the weekend Armstrong walked on the moon,” she says. “It felt good to be part of a community, something different.”
But after a year and a half of what she calls hypocrisy, and allegations of physical and mental abuse, the McLean family decided they wanted out. For 18 months before they left, her son John had been part of the Sea Org (short for Sea Organization)—an elite contingent of devout Scientologists who sign a billion-year contract dedicating their life to working for the church—working aboard the Apollo, the yacht that served as founder L. Ron Hubbard’s headquarters. John convinced Sea Org to let him go, and he joined his family back home. Since then, McLean has devoted her life to helping other Scientologists who want to leave, and stays in touch with former members across the country. “I know first-hand that members of this group are controlled by fear, that’s why people stay in it even when things are horrible,” she says.
Now 91, and still living in Toronto, McLean believes strongly that Scientology should cease to exist, but says that will take time—and public outcry. That’s why she has been anxiously following press coverage of Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, the new HBO documentary based on Lawrence Wright’s 2013 investigative book (it had its U.S. premiere in March but is only now being released in Canada in select theatres and on iTunes). The term “clear” is found in Hubbard’s 1950 bestselling book, and foundational Scientology text, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, referring to a state of mind Scientologists can achieve through study and practice. “My goal wasn’t to write an exposé,” Wright tells director Alex Gibney in an interview in the film. “It was simply to understand Scientology.” Ultimately, his book and the film serve both goals.
Gibney (known for his films that take on religion’s dark side) weaves details of Scientology’s complex, and often contradictory, history with interviews with eight ex-Scientologists, including people who made it to the church’s upper echelons, such as
Paul Haggis, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker from London, Ont., who in 2009—after 35 years in the church—left Scientology because of its support for an anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative in California.
Spanky Taylor, a woman who was a Scientologist for 17 years, and was assigned to work with John Travolta after he first joined in 1975, says in the film that she was sent to the church’s “Rehabilitation Project Force,” what she described as a prison camp on the seventh floor of the Scientology headquarters for members of the Sea Org who criticized the church, after she confronted the church for not providing adequate medical treatment for her boss. She describes brutal living and working conditions—30 hours on, three hours off with little food—and how she was forced to hand her daughter over to other members so that motherhood wouldn’t compromise her devotion. She wonders why Travolta, her close friend at the time, didn’t help her get out sooner even though she says he knew about the abuses she faced. “I often wonder what could possibly keep him there,” she says.
Much of the film focuses on the auditing sessions—a cornerstone of Scientology—that Scientologists participate in as part of their spiritual journey. An auditor listens as the person being audited divulges their feelings and life experiences. The auditor takes meticulous notes while the whole thing is recorded. According to former members quoted in the film, Travolta’s auditing sessions were secretly recorded, even though he requested they not be. In an interview, Wright describes how a Scientologist was tasked with compiling a “black PR folder” that allegedly contained every salacious detail from Travolta’s sessions to use against him should he decide to leave.
McLean was disappointed when she couldn’t find Going Clear online or on TV—the documentary has yet to air on HBO Canada—but she hopes it might signal the final stages of the church’s demise. “Each moment like this is a new step in the right direction,” she says.
The Church of Scientology has withstood countless allegations of abuse, corruption and fraud ever since it was founded in 1954 by 43-year-old L. Ron Hubbard, a sci-fi writer from Nebraska. A brief timeline of its history paints a picture of the young religion’s resiliency:
During the 1970s and 1980s, Scientologists infiltrated government agencies in the U.S. and Canada and stole hundreds of documents as part of Operation Snow White, the church’s mission to get a hold of any potentially damning documents about them and Hubbard; 11 Scientologists were convicted of conspiracy in 1980. But the church recovered from the scandal quickly, still managing to convert an impressive roster of celebs, including Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Tom Cruise, who joined in 1990.
It was shortly after that, with the rise of the Internet, that many ex-Scientologists took to chat rooms and forums to document their stories of alleged exploitation and to protest the church’s rigid hierarchy. Since then, the church has tried every trick in the book to combat the deluge of negative posts. In 2009, it became the first group officially banned from Wikipedia after creating numerous accounts dedicated to deleting anything disparaging. The church has also been in a heated battle with hacktivist group Anonymous, which has targeted it since 2008 after the church tried to remove a video of Tom Cruise that Anonymous posted to YouTube. In Germany, government ministers have been trying to ban Scientology, as critics there deem it a cult. And in 2009, a French court convicted the church of fraud and slapped it with an $800,000 fine.
Then there are the scathing films and tell-all books: the 2010 Australian documentary Scientology: The Ex-Files follows ex-members of the church’s Sea Org as they describe what they claim were slave-like living conditions, forced abortions and torture (a 2010 FBI investigation into Sea Org yielded no charges). And in 2013, ex-Scientologist Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of the leader of the Church of Scientology David Miscavige, published her memoir, Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape, where she delves into stories of brainwashing and child labour while she was part of the church.
For Stephen Kent, a professor at the University of Alberta who specializes in Scientology and new religious movements, the revelations in Going Clear might not be entirely new, especially since it’s based on a two-year-old book, but will likely contribute to preventing prospective members from joining. And Wright and Gibney’s combined credentials give new weight to claims that have been circulating for decades.
“For years, people have been predicting the demise of Scientology,” Kent tells Maclean’s. “That hasn’t happened. But we do know it’s under siege and on the decline. Most new religions don’t make it beyond a few generations, and Scientology is definitely in that cycle.”
Religions emerge in relation to and reaction against historical and cultural circumstances, and when those change, as they already have, the religion becomes less relevant and will have diminished appeal, says Kent. “In order to be successful, a religion has to successfully cultivate its children.” Kent claims that Scientology, especially at the upper levels, is quite harsh on children; it has been reported that, since 1987, members of Sea Org are prohibited from having kids.
When Kent first arrived in Edmonton in 1984, the Church of Scientology had a large, high-profile office downtown, but now operates in a tiny office outside of the city. A 2012 Maclean’s e-book on Scientology describes Scientology’s relationship with Canada. In 2011, the Church announced plans to set up one of its few retreats—and new Sea Org base—at a golf resort in Mono, Ont., near Orangeville. But with only seven churches and an estimated 2,500 members in Canada, Scientology isn’t exactly thriving here. Even though it claims to be the world’s fastest-growing religion, the American Religious Identification Survey reported 25,000 Scientologists in the U.S., down from 45,000 in 1990.
Further, Kent says the film could change the ways academics study Scientology, particularly when it comes to using testimony from former members, which he says academia is often quick to dismiss. “There has been a very odd but persistent reaction against using the accounts of former members of Scientology in academic work,” he says. “They can be seen as disgruntled former members. And I’ve used accounts of former members and have had others attempt to discredit me. Of course [the former members] could be lying, but it’s up to experts [academics] to corroborate what they say.” Kent hopes Going Clear might encourage academics to take these various perspectives more seriously.
Kent tells Maclean’s he believes the biggest misconception about Scientology is that it’s even a religion at all. “I define it as a multi-national conglomerate, only one part of which is religious,” says Kent. But he doesn’t go so far as to call it a cult. “I’m more concerned about groups that cause harm regardless of what sort of label we put on them. And that’s the sort of thing Going Clear is about.”
Filed under:
Canada, Church Of Scientology, Editor's Picks, Going Clear, HBO, Religion, Scientology, Tom Cruise
thisjapaneselife.org/2014/05/21/avril-lavigne-japan/
On Not Being Offended by Avril Lavigne in Japan
Posted on May 21, 2014
If nobody in Japan thinks a racist video about the Japanese is racist, can anyone be offended?
The children’s novelty act known as ‘Avril Lavigne’ really struck offensive gold with her recent video, and criticism runs the gamut: It’s sexist, infantilizes the Japanese, and culturally insensitive. Some have even seriously suggested that the video’s problems were an intentional ploy to distract you from how terrible the song was. Meanwhile, the Japanese press is reporting on the controversy as an ‘overseas press response‘ to the video, and people in Japan think it’s just great, leading to a koan in the age of global media and political correctness: If nobody in Japan thinks a racist video about the Japanese is racist, can anyone be offended?
The most horrifying thing about watching ‘Hello Kitty’ is that Avril Lavigne is still acting like a 14-year-old girl and screeching about sleep overs with a sexual innuendo based on a perversely underage cartoon character. Or perhaps it’s her pronunciation of Japanese words, or use of them: The song starts with her screaming in Japanese, “Everybody Psycho, Thank You! Cute!” and it actually only gets dumber when she switches to her native language.
But, as Avril has pointed out, the song is produced by a Japanese label (Epic is owned by Sony), with a Japanese video director, choreographer and, obviously, a Japanese cast. (She also started that defense with ‘LOLOLOL!!!‘ – I’ll reiterate again that she is 29 years old).
Though this is precisely the ‘I can’t be racist, I have black friends‘ defense, it is more interesting than it seems, because it speaks to how ideology, the stuff that influences everyday culture, is carried through the images that culture produces. I’ll suggest that the racism of the ‘Hello Kitty’ video was actually imposed on Japan by the Japanese, in cohoots with an oblivious foreigner.
Japanese Racism Against the Japanese
Brian McVeigh, a Japan scholar, has written something that explains Japanese culture in a way I intuitively understood in my time there, but never could articulate: The idea which he calls ‘ethos nationalist identity.’ This connects one’s racial identity to a cultural identity and to a national identity; in his words, a belief that is
probably an instinctive reaction (rooted in deep ideological patterns) to categories that somehow ‘should’ be kept separate, ie, Japaneseness and ‘non-Japaneseness’. The consequence is that “Japanese culture” is something only the Japanese people themselves can possess.
This is not exactly racism against other groups of people – though xenophobia and ‘othering’ are a common concern among resident expats and others who live in Japan. It’s also weirdly self-Orientalizing: It is the belief, (by no means universal, but popular) that eating sushi with chopsticks, singing karaoke and going to onsen is ‘Japanese,’ and that other things are not Japanese.
To play with these ideas, for a Westerner to act like Avril Lavigne did – what we’d call ‘culturally appropriating’ the Japanese – is not really a threat to the Japanese cultural identity, because Lavigne isn’t Japanese. So of course, she likes sushi enough to clap her hands like a schoolgirl and gets to stare at a giant stuffed cupcake before petulantly throwing it to the ground (she is, again, 29 years old) but so should the rest of the world.
This goes a long way to explaining why Westerners are more concerned about Japanese cultural appropriation than the Japanese seem to be. That doesn’t mean the criticism of the video aren’t on target. So what about claims of cultural appropriation?
The Japanese Media Complex
Cultural appropriation is an interesting concern, and perfectly valid when it is rooted in a one-sided relationship of cultural exploitation. Middle-class white guys have always had a hard time in hip-hop because it’s a little weird for middle-class white guys to take an art form pioneered as a voice against oppression by middle-class white guys and use it to complain about their first-world problems. This is obviously complicated by class concerns – is it, for example, OK for a poor white guy to use hip hop? The success and ‘credibility’ of Eminem seems to say yes.
It’s a broader issue, rife with racial and class-based landmines, but you get the idea: The problem with cultural appropriation is more or less that it’s rooted in the powerful taking acts of empowerment away from another group in a one-sided way, and using it to their own ends, which is obnoxious. But by taking something into a new cultural context, it also risks reducing the sacred images, rituals and objects of a culture into kitsch: Consider taking the keffiyeh, a Palestinian symbol of unity, turning it into a fashion trend and eventually a joke about hipsters. Or consider Maori tribal tattoos on guys who can’t spell ‘Maori.’
Japan is a different story. The things that Lavigne are doing are already mass-produced kitsch, and many of them are part of a culture that Japan’s government was spending millions to export abroad, part of a package of media and entertainment exports called ‘Cool Japan’.
Is it really cultural appropriation if most of what Lavigne is showing off is precisely the image that Japan wants us to have? She’s not taking selfies at shrines, Bieber-style, or really participating in anything that ever actually happens in Japan. She’s being reductionist, for sure – presenting Japan in one particular way, the kawaii-and-wacky stereotype of the country that is completely independent of the country’s real culture.
The problem is, a Japanese director shot this video for a Japanese company, so it must reflect some idea of Japan that they felt comfortable with. And if you look closely at ‘Hello Kitty,’ it is precisely what Japan sees as ‘Japan for foreigners,’ which is really what the suite of ‘Cool Japan’ stuff is intended to be. The ideology here is that Japan is so unique and different that ‘authentic Japanese culture’ can’t be understood by outsiders – so here you go, guys, have a giant plush cupcake.
Mrs. Roboto
The other, more problematic concern with this video is the role of the women in the background, dancing stiff-faced like robots, the supporting cast to Lavigne’s prancing eyeliner party. This is a perfect rendering of the unconscious mind of the worst type of Japanese expat, the ones who see the country and all of its people as the supporting backdrop for their great white adventure in the Orient. It would not surprise me if Lavigne, who spends ‘half her time in Tokyo,’ was one of those worst kinds of expats.
The women here are identical and form the backdrop as dancers, candy sellers, and Lavigne’s entourage. They smile once, when shown the picture that Lavigne takes of them – as if they can only really recognize themselves in the images a foreigner has of them. What a metaphor! The vision of unending Japanese hospitality, an image Japan presents to the outside world and loves seeing the outside world reflect back, is more or less perfectly captured in these models being shown what they look like by Avril Lavigne and loving it.
This is all problematic on many levels, but perhaps not considered a big deal in Japan simply because of that ethos-nationalist self-orientalism. We’re being shown the idea of Japan that a Japanese director and Japanese company want foreigners to see. It’s riding a nationally arranged, corporate-supported advertising gimmick of ‘Cool Japan’ abroad as a giant shopping mall full of docile, identical women who only want to serve you and party while you consume a range of lifestyle products — essentially product placement for the stuff Japan assumes we’ll like.
The Verdict
I am going to leave the last word on the inherent racism, sexism and Orientalising in this Avril Lavigne video to the people who either are or aren’t offended by it. I’m confident, though, to say that this video got made because it is a perfect mix of a Japanese director and corporation trying to promote a specific, self-Orientalizing version of Japan rooted in the idea of ‘what foreigners think of us,’ and the culturally oblivious vision of 29-year-old-white-girl-in-Japan, Avril Lavigne, telling them that they are exactly right.
Likewise, it was probably a two-way street of cultural obliviousness, where Lavigne insisted on something or other and was met with a nod and a smile because nobody in Japan is going to say no to Avril Lavigne, and because the whole thing was set up to be about ‘Japan from Away’ that Lavigne had a unique insight toward constructing.
The result is an eye-numbing train wreck of a video for a traumatic plane crash of a song, making this whole ordeal one of the worst transportation disasters in the history of bad metaphors.
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www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2014/04/24/avril-lavigne-responds-to-racist-video-criticism-by-saying-she-loves-japan/
By Emily Yahr April 24, 2014
Avril Lavigne (Dan Steinberg/AP)
Avril Lavigne is going with an “LOLOLOL!!!” defense in response to those who are offended by her new Japan-themed song and music video, “Hello Kitty.”
“RACIST??? LOLOLOL!!! I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan,” Lavigne tweeted. “I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan.”
In case you missed it, the pop singer — who’s been off the grid for a while now, at least on the American music charts — attempted to make some noise this week with her latest single, “Hello Kitty.” In the video, Lavigne dances around in a tutu with a crew of unsmiling Japanese dancers; pours some sake; and claps her hands delightedly when a chef chops up some sushi. Plus, there are the lyrics, an ode to the famous Japanese animated character: “Hello Kitty, you’re so pretty/Hello kitty you’re so silly.” (Inspired.) She also randomly sprinkles in Japanese words like “arigato” and “kawaii” (cute or adorable). Lavigne is one of the co-writers on the song along with her husband, Nickelback lead singer Chad Kroeger.
Not surprisingly, the outrage came fast and furious: “racist” was a common complaint on Twitter. Billboard called it “a grating earworm that squeezes Gwen Stefani’s Japan fetishization into an even more unseemly package.”
Speaking of Stefani, how is Lavgine’s latest attempt to grab headlines any different than other cultural appropriation videos? Short answer: It’s not, really. Stefani has faced lots of criticism for touring with a group of Japanese “Harajuku girls” that also appear in her music videos; in 2006, Margaret Cho spoke out about Stefani’s act. “I mean, racial stereotypes are really cute sometimes, and I don’t want to bum everyone out by pointing out the minstrel show,” Cho wrote on her blog. (Racial criticism only continued with Stefani: She and No Doubt got harsh backlash with Native American groups over their “Cowboys and Indians.”)
This series of events seems to repeat itself again and again with young pop stars. After Miley Cyrus twerked at the VMAs, Vulture.com’s headline read, “The 2013 VMAs Were Dominated by Miley’s Minstrel Show.” Various groups wanted Selena Gomez to apologize for wearing a bindi during a performance of her song “Come and Get It.” Katy Perry burned an Islamic necklace with the word “Allah” in her “Dark Horse” video, sparking people to demand it be taken off the Internet.
Just last week, Sky Ferreira defended herself on Facebook after charges of racism in her music video for “Night Time, My Time,” which, as Billboard says, “Features the singer palling around a torn-up Los Angeles neighborhood with African-American men, who engage in heated confrontations on the street before combining as her backup dancers.”
“Not only do I find it insulting towards myself but I also feel insulted for the actors & dancers & my family in the video,” Ferreira later wrote. “I did not use black back up dancers as ‘props’. I never have and never will look at any human being as a prop. That’s disgusting.”
Meanwhile, today, Lavigne ignored the criticism and was still proudly tweeting about the video:
"Come Come Kitty Kitty" ......
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Fan Army Face-Off 2015: The Play-In Round
7/8/2015 by Jason Lipshutz
www.billboard.com/articles/events/fan-army/6620341/fan-army-face-off-introduction-play-in-round
In 2014, Billboard.com hosted its first-ever Fan Army Face-Off, a bracket-style tournament that pitted the most dedicated music followers against each other to determine which group of supporters was the loudest in the world. While BIGBANG’s fan army, the VIPs, won the inaugural championship last year over Thirty Seconds To Mars’ Echelon, the real winners were the members of every fan army in the competition: with over 200 million votes cast during the five rounds of showdowns, the Fan Army Face-Off showed just how mighty the roar of 64 different fan groups in the same place can sound.
Vote in the Play-In Round of the Fan Army Face-Off
Now, Fan Army Face-Off is BACK, with all of the biggest fan armies in music returning to once again compete and a rules shake-up that adds some interesting wrinkles to the annual competition. We’ve rounded up 63 of the most notable fan armies today, and through six rounds, we’ll let the fans themselves determine which groups plow forward, and which ones lack the juice to reach the championship. That’s right, we’ve more than doubled the number of fan armies competing this year, and we’ve also divided the brackets by genre, so that pop, rock, R&B/hip-hop and K-pop will all be represented in the Final Four!
One last change: we have 63 out of 64 fan armies in place for the tournament, but one spot is still up for grabs! We’re kicking off this year’s Fan Army Face-Off with a play-in round, with eight “teams” competing for one last spot in the pop bracket before the actual tournament officially begins. Which of these fan armies -- Kesha's Animals, Adam Lambert's Glamberts, Ellie Goulding's Gouldiggers, Josh Groban's Grobanites, New Kids on the Block's Blockheads, Avril Lavigne's Black Stars, Little Mix's Mixers or Cher Lloyd's Brats -- deserves a spot in the big dance?
Voting begins July 8 at 12PM ET in the play-in round of the 2015 Fan Army Face-Off!
Round 1 begins July 9 at 3PM ET. Matchups Below:
Pop Bracket:
One Direction's Directioners Vs. Play-In Winner
Selena Gomez's Selenators vs. Demi Lovato's Lovatics
Katy Perry's Katy Cats vs. Bruno Mars' Hooligans
Lady Gaga's Little Monsters vs. Austin Mahone's Mahomies
Miley Cyrus' Smilers vs. Ed Sheeran's Sheerios
Taylor Swift's Swifties vs. Fifth Harmony's Harmonizers
Britney Spears' Britney Army vs. Ariana Grande's Arianators
Justin Bieber's Beliebers vs. Meghan Trainor's Megatronz
K-Pop Bracket:
BIG BANG's VIPs vs. B1A4's Bana
2PM's Hottest vs. Infinite's Inspirit
2NE1's Black Jacks vs. BTS' Army
TVXQ's Cassiopeia vs. Beast's B2Uty
CNBLUE's Boice vs. T-ara's Queens
EXO's EXO-L vs. Girl's Day's Dai5y
FTISLAND's Primadonna vs. GOT7's iGOT7
Girl’s Generation's Sones vs. Sistar's Star1
Rock Bracket:
Thirty Seconds to Mars's Echelon vs. Black Veil Brides' Bridesmaids and Ushers
Aerosmith's Blue Army vs. Motley Crue's Crueheads
The Killers' Victims vs. Grateful Dead's Deadheads
Tokio Hotel's Aliens vs. Kiss' Kiss Army
Muse's Musers vs. Paramore's Parawhores
5 Seconds of Summer's 5SOSFAM vs. Slayer's Slaytanic
Fall Out Boy's Outcast Kids vs. Slipknot's Maggots
Skillet's Panheads vs. Hillsong United
Hip Hop and R&B Bracket:
Beyonce's Beyhive vs. Future's Future Hive
Iggy Azalea's Azaleans vs. Azealia Banks' K--t Brigade
Chris Brown's Team Breezy vs. Janelle Monae's Fandroids
Mariah Carey's Lambs vs. The Weeknd
Adele's Daydreamers vs. A$AP Mob
Nicki Minaj's Barbz vs. Insane Clown Posse's Juggalos
Drake vs. Wiz Khalifa's Taylor Gang
Rihanna's Rihanna Navy vs. Trey Songs' Trey's Angels
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Fan Army Face-Off 2015: T-ara's Queen's Reign Supreme Over 64 Major Fanbases
8/19/2015 by Billboard Staff
www.billboard.com/articles/columns/k-town/6664071/fan-army-face-off-2015-t-ara-queens-win
The ultimate fan army has been found.
With more than 3.4 million votes cast for them throughout the competition, T-ara's Queen's are the winners of Billboard's 2015 Fan Army Face-Off.
T-ara & Their Queen's: 7 Sweetest Fan Interactions
Queen's are the fiercely loyal fanbase of the K-pop girl group who boast No. 1s in Korea (three on the K-Pop Hot 100), Japan (one on the Japan Hot 100), and made their debut on the domestic-based World Albums chart last year. Queen's have stuck by Qri, Eunjung, Boram, Soyeon, Hyomin and Jiyeon throughout the outfit's six-year history that's included loads of ups and downs.
T-ara Fan on How Scandals & Rumors Made Queens Stronger: 'It Weeded Out the Fake Fans'
On their road to victory, the Queen's beat extremely tough competition from Beyonce's Beyhive, 2PM's Hottest, Sistar's Star1, Girl's Day's Dai5y, CNBLUE's Boice and One Direction's Directioners. That last matchup was one of the most ferocious -- eliciting nearly three million voters to come support the teams -- and even caused a global hashtag to trend on Twitter, WeLove1DandKpop, to show there were no hard feelings in the end.
You can take a look at the full bracket for Billboard's 2015 Fan Army Face-Off that brought out 64 of the strongest fanbases among pop, hip-hop, R&B, rock and K-pop acts in the world right here.
T-ara Get 'So Crazy' as Sexy Sailor Girls for Funky Dance Single: Review
Congrats to the Queen's! See what their fans go so wild for by checking out their half-nerdy, half-sexy music video to their new single "So Crazy":
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From Avril's neck of the Woods...
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What ‘Going Clear’ means for the decline of Scientology
HBO’s documentary about Scientology finally crosses the border into Canada. What does it say about the Church’s future?
www.macleans.ca/society/what-going-clear-means-for-the-decline-of-scientology/
Rachel Browne
May 8, 2015
Listen to The Thrill, Maclean’s weekly pop-culture podcast, take on ‘Going Clear’. Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or Beyondpod, and check out our other audio offerings on the original webpage.
Nan McLean first joined the Church of Scientology in Toronto in 1969 when she was 46 years old. She was out driving and heard reporters on the radio discussing the religion she had never heard of. When one reporter mentioned that Scientologists believe in reincarnation, she got so excited she almost drove off the road. “I always believed in reincarnation, but wasn’t sure how I could practise it—until then,” she recalls. A few weeks later, McLean, her husband, and two sons made it official. She walked into the Church—at that time a house on Avenue Road before it moved to its Yonge Street location–and paid $500 for the first required course, excited to start this new chapter in her life. “I still remember that was the weekend Armstrong walked on the moon,” she says. “It felt good to be part of a community, something different.”
But after a year and a half of what she calls hypocrisy, and allegations of physical and mental abuse, the McLean family decided they wanted out. For 18 months before they left, her son John had been part of the Sea Org (short for Sea Organization)—an elite contingent of devout Scientologists who sign a billion-year contract dedicating their life to working for the church—working aboard the Apollo, the yacht that served as founder L. Ron Hubbard’s headquarters. John convinced Sea Org to let him go, and he joined his family back home. Since then, McLean has devoted her life to helping other Scientologists who want to leave, and stays in touch with former members across the country. “I know first-hand that members of this group are controlled by fear, that’s why people stay in it even when things are horrible,” she says.
Now 91, and still living in Toronto, McLean believes strongly that Scientology should cease to exist, but says that will take time—and public outcry. That’s why she has been anxiously following press coverage of Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, the new HBO documentary based on Lawrence Wright’s 2013 investigative book (it had its U.S. premiere in March but is only now being released in Canada in select theatres and on iTunes). The term “clear” is found in Hubbard’s 1950 bestselling book, and foundational Scientology text, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, referring to a state of mind Scientologists can achieve through study and practice. “My goal wasn’t to write an exposé,” Wright tells director Alex Gibney in an interview in the film. “It was simply to understand Scientology.” Ultimately, his book and the film serve both goals.
Gibney (known for his films that take on religion’s dark side) weaves details of Scientology’s complex, and often contradictory, history with interviews with eight ex-Scientologists, including people who made it to the church’s upper echelons, such as
Paul Haggis, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker from London, Ont., who in 2009—after 35 years in the church—left Scientology because of its support for an anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative in California.
Spanky Taylor, a woman who was a Scientologist for 17 years, and was assigned to work with John Travolta after he first joined in 1975, says in the film that she was sent to the church’s “Rehabilitation Project Force,” what she described as a prison camp on the seventh floor of the Scientology headquarters for members of the Sea Org who criticized the church, after she confronted the church for not providing adequate medical treatment for her boss. She describes brutal living and working conditions—30 hours on, three hours off with little food—and how she was forced to hand her daughter over to other members so that motherhood wouldn’t compromise her devotion. She wonders why Travolta, her close friend at the time, didn’t help her get out sooner even though she says he knew about the abuses she faced. “I often wonder what could possibly keep him there,” she says.
Much of the film focuses on the auditing sessions—a cornerstone of Scientology—that Scientologists participate in as part of their spiritual journey. An auditor listens as the person being audited divulges their feelings and life experiences. The auditor takes meticulous notes while the whole thing is recorded. According to former members quoted in the film, Travolta’s auditing sessions were secretly recorded, even though he requested they not be. In an interview, Wright describes how a Scientologist was tasked with compiling a “black PR folder” that allegedly contained every salacious detail from Travolta’s sessions to use against him should he decide to leave.
McLean was disappointed when she couldn’t find Going Clear online or on TV—the documentary has yet to air on HBO Canada—but she hopes it might signal the final stages of the church’s demise. “Each moment like this is a new step in the right direction,” she says.
The Church of Scientology has withstood countless allegations of abuse, corruption and fraud ever since it was founded in 1954 by 43-year-old L. Ron Hubbard, a sci-fi writer from Nebraska. A brief timeline of its history paints a picture of the young religion’s resiliency:
During the 1970s and 1980s, Scientologists infiltrated government agencies in the U.S. and Canada and stole hundreds of documents as part of Operation Snow White, the church’s mission to get a hold of any potentially damning documents about them and Hubbard; 11 Scientologists were convicted of conspiracy in 1980. But the church recovered from the scandal quickly, still managing to convert an impressive roster of celebs, including Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Tom Cruise, who joined in 1990.
It was shortly after that, with the rise of the Internet, that many ex-Scientologists took to chat rooms and forums to document their stories of alleged exploitation and to protest the church’s rigid hierarchy. Since then, the church has tried every trick in the book to combat the deluge of negative posts. In 2009, it became the first group officially banned from Wikipedia after creating numerous accounts dedicated to deleting anything disparaging. The church has also been in a heated battle with hacktivist group Anonymous, which has targeted it since 2008 after the church tried to remove a video of Tom Cruise that Anonymous posted to YouTube. In Germany, government ministers have been trying to ban Scientology, as critics there deem it a cult. And in 2009, a French court convicted the church of fraud and slapped it with an $800,000 fine.
Then there are the scathing films and tell-all books: the 2010 Australian documentary Scientology: The Ex-Files follows ex-members of the church’s Sea Org as they describe what they claim were slave-like living conditions, forced abortions and torture (a 2010 FBI investigation into Sea Org yielded no charges). And in 2013, ex-Scientologist Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of the leader of the Church of Scientology David Miscavige, published her memoir, Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape, where she delves into stories of brainwashing and child labour while she was part of the church.
For Stephen Kent, a professor at the University of Alberta who specializes in Scientology and new religious movements, the revelations in Going Clear might not be entirely new, especially since it’s based on a two-year-old book, but will likely contribute to preventing prospective members from joining. And Wright and Gibney’s combined credentials give new weight to claims that have been circulating for decades.
“For years, people have been predicting the demise of Scientology,” Kent tells Maclean’s. “That hasn’t happened. But we do know it’s under siege and on the decline. Most new religions don’t make it beyond a few generations, and Scientology is definitely in that cycle.”
Religions emerge in relation to and reaction against historical and cultural circumstances, and when those change, as they already have, the religion becomes less relevant and will have diminished appeal, says Kent. “In order to be successful, a religion has to successfully cultivate its children.” Kent claims that Scientology, especially at the upper levels, is quite harsh on children; it has been reported that, since 1987, members of Sea Org are prohibited from having kids.
When Kent first arrived in Edmonton in 1984, the Church of Scientology had a large, high-profile office downtown, but now operates in a tiny office outside of the city. A 2012 Maclean’s e-book on Scientology describes Scientology’s relationship with Canada. In 2011, the Church announced plans to set up one of its few retreats—and new Sea Org base—at a golf resort in Mono, Ont., near Orangeville. But with only seven churches and an estimated 2,500 members in Canada, Scientology isn’t exactly thriving here. Even though it claims to be the world’s fastest-growing religion, the American Religious Identification Survey reported 25,000 Scientologists in the U.S., down from 45,000 in 1990.
Further, Kent says the film could change the ways academics study Scientology, particularly when it comes to using testimony from former members, which he says academia is often quick to dismiss. “There has been a very odd but persistent reaction against using the accounts of former members of Scientology in academic work,” he says. “They can be seen as disgruntled former members. And I’ve used accounts of former members and have had others attempt to discredit me. Of course [the former members] could be lying, but it’s up to experts [academics] to corroborate what they say.” Kent hopes Going Clear might encourage academics to take these various perspectives more seriously.
Kent tells Maclean’s he believes the biggest misconception about Scientology is that it’s even a religion at all. “I define it as a multi-national conglomerate, only one part of which is religious,” says Kent. But he doesn’t go so far as to call it a cult. “I’m more concerned about groups that cause harm regardless of what sort of label we put on them. And that’s the sort of thing Going Clear is about.”
Filed under:
Canada, Church Of Scientology, Editor's Picks, Going Clear, HBO, Religion, Scientology, Tom Cruise