Two abstracts

I'm unsure which of these I want to pursue, so I wrote up abstracts on both, and would love any help on deciding between the two.

FANDUBBING.

While many products multiply signify their geographic or ethnic roots, it is not uncommon for these marks to be dulled when prepared for export, whether by recutting, rewriting, or dubbing the original piece. At the same time, given the increasingly global media market where products are frequently created with the intent of being internationally successful, many properties are created bearing few cultural markers. As Koichi Iwabuchi put it, "It is no accident that Japan has become a major exporter of culturally odorless products. Japanese media industries seem to think that the suppression of Japanese cultural odor is imperative if they are to make inroads into international markets” (90).

Given these two trends, I'm interested in examining audiences who choose to consume things that are produced in a different cultural environment and how they react when the property is deodorized before being presented to them. Thus, I intend to begin both my research and my argument with a background look into trends of deodorization as well as media globalization. In particular, I'm going to be looking at texts by Koichi Iwabuchi (Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism, and a book of essays he edited, Rogue Flows: Trans-asian Cultural Traffic) and Anne Allison (Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination) to delve into the idea of deodorization. From there, I plan on looking at various discussions of fan engagement with texts - most particularly Henry Jenkins' Textual Poachers and the writing of Matt Hill on semiotic solidarity.

The material I am most interested in are fan-dubs where groups go so far as to take the images of the source text and re-record the dialogue with their own voice actors. While I may use a number of different anime as examples, I intend to focus most on Project Yu-Gi-Oh!, which is not only currently being done (and is around episode 90), but also holds podcast interviews with the show's voice actors and has a rich background of fan engagement.

Deodorization has tended to be looked at from the production side or from the reception side, though it does not seem that much research has been done into the recuperation that is done by receivers of the text. Thus I feel this paper looks to extend the scope of the literature on deodorization into the realm of fan interaction, rather than production-dominated models of reception.




LIFESTYLE ACTIVISM

Though activism has long existed in various forms, in recent years it seems the most widespread form is lifestyle activism, where the purchasing of products is the way people make their main contribution (whether monetary or symbolic) to groups and movements trying to solve social ills (whether environmental, medical, or political). Not only has this led to widespread cause-washing of products (greenwashing, pinkwashing, etc.), but it has also meant that many charities have taken to using simple purchasable products as a way to solicit donations. In particular, I want to talk about how the products surrounding cancer research (whether pink-washed products or Livestrong bracelets) embody the movement towards consumption as a, if not the, primary means of social contribution and what ramifications that has on society both socially and economically.

Given that I plan on looking at the way commodities interact with belief systems in modern capitalist societies, I will begin with a discussion of how consumer society structures desires. From there, I will explain lifestyle activism and discuss various ways that cancer causes interact with products within the society - both when products partner with cancer causes and when the cancer causes sell products themselves. This section will also include a discussion of charities generally and how these developments differ from things such as phone drives. Once these background portions have been set up, I plan on looking at what effects these consumptive habits have and what they signify as having already occurred (both of these mostly in terms of mindset shifts) - and finally what kernels of hope lie within these practices.

For the initial section, I plan on looking at the works of Jean Baudrillard (Consumer Society and some of his later works), as well as Guy DeBord, and perhaps Hart and Negri (as well as critiques thereof). For the later sections about lifestyle activism and consumption of beliefs, causes, and ideologies, I have been a bit lost. I am still in the process of finding scholarly works on the topic and have not found a whole lot (though there are a few investigative reports on pink-washing). Any help in this area would be really appreciated.

I hope to be able to further criticism of product-based ideological beliefs and what they mean in the context of a capitalist society by not only examining their uncritical or false elements, but also what it means for the state of modern capitalism and the consumers role therein. Further, I hope to be able to bring not only new criticisms to lifestyle activism that go beyond issues of authenticity, as well as reveal latent possibilities/positive elements that come out of these economic developments.