Cool Japan - Symbol - Clip 1

Cool. Symbols. Japan. Can you imagine my delight when I stumble upon a TV show that has all three of these words in its title?!?!? Bridging semiotics, media, and the culture of cool, "Cool Japan" investigates Japanese pop culture through the eyes of foreigners. I'm only 10 minutes in and enthralled.



The concept of "cool Japan" has some roots. Recently stumbling upon the phrase "Japan's 'Gross National Cool'" at the 2010 Cultural Typhoon, a Tokyo media conference at Komazawa University, I googled it. This led me to Douglas McGray's 2002 article of the same name ('Gross National Cool') in Foreign Poicy. Another recent find was the "Cool Japan Project" established in 2006 as a partnership between MIT and Harvard by MIT professor of comparative media studies, Ian Condry. Tipped off tonight to the NHK TV series, "Cool Japan," I couldn't help but notice a pattern cropping up.

What is it that makes Japan so remarkably cool?

The concept of Gross National Cool reminds me of Bhutan's commitment to "Gross National Happiness." For those reeling against globalization, the concept of quantifying cool and happiness into marketable soundbites may be a bit unsettling. But what can social scientists learn from the latent concepts of applying an economic framework to these abstract and elusive phenomena? With the advent of information economics, we are learning that there are many goods with intangible value that are commodified, bought, and sold in the media marketplace of the information age.

My interest in "the cool" goes back at least two years, when it occurred to me that the term and concept of cool has been used in marketing for well over half a century. I was compelled to do a comparative analysis of Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool" and the early-90's trip-hop release "Rebirth of the Cool," and more recently Lupe Fiasco's 2009 release, "The cool." Though the analysis remains incomplete, cool is undoubtedly ripe for further academic and popular consideration. Are the same forces at play in Japan's foreign image as those that made Miles Davis cool in the 1960's (and still today)? How has music and marketing changed between the bop era and today? Are orientalism and racism at play in the cool? Who benefits from the cool, and who loses out?

Analyzing cool, like analyzing a joke, may decrease it's potency, it's potential to have a real effect. This phenomena, while dangerous to marketers and popular culture at large, can have an empowering effect on those who would be victim to the cool's derision, or who would profit from exploiting it. Through media literacy that considers the cool, perhaps there is the potential for redefinition through awareness.