Exhibit B: Tarako Kewpie Commercials

Continuing with my theme of foreign cultural artifacts that seem bizarre to the American culture, I bring you Tarako. Hailing from Japan, this brand of cod roe pasta sauce has apparently chosen a strikingly upsetting mascot: a red fish egg combined with the disembodied face of a human baby.

But there’s not just one of them. They march (hop) in vast legions, eventually surrounding (and in one case, mounting) the consumer of the pasta sauce, which is almost always a female Caucasian child. And the music…the eerie, haunting, Tarako chant. Perhaps I should just show you:

and here’s another:

I’m sorry for giving you nightmare fodder for the next several nights.  But I feel it’s like the videotape in the horror movie The Ring: you have to show it to someone else or the terrifying characters of the surreal footage will come after you. And I sure don’t want those baby-faced roe monsters marching out of my TV set. Incidentally, The Ring also originally came from Japan.

But all horror movie comparisons aside, it is interesting to note that something so surreal and unsettling to Western eyes is an extremely successful marketing campaign in Japan. A quick Google search has found evidence of Tarako Kewpie costumes, Tarako Kewpie CD’s, Tarako ring tones, live Tarako Kewpie performances on talk shows, and “adorable” Kewpie dolls that were practically Japan’s Tickle-Me-Elmo. One can even purchase a Tarako MP3 player:

While Tarako is a purely Japanese brand, it should be noted that the “kewpie” is a American invention. These highly collectible baby-faced imps were the subject of a huge craze in the first half of the 20th century. So representative were they of American culture at the time, that one was placed in a time capsule at the 1939 World’s Fair, which we are scheduled to unearth in 6939 AD.

Now, Japanese commercials have long been a source of amusement and bewilderment for Western viewers. A simple Youtube search will result in dozens of examples.

What fascinates me is the extensive use of American celebrities and cultural memes in these commercials intended for Japanese viewers. In a process known as Japandering, English-speaking celebrities such as Nicholas Cage, Bruce Willis, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appear in Japanese commercials to sell Japanese products to Japanese viewers.  Although there are no celebrities, there are several Western artifacts in the Tarako ads:

1. In nearly all cases, the female lead is Causcasian, presumably American or European.
2. The Tarako Kewpie has the face of a blond-haired Caucasian baby.
3. Kewpies, as mentioned above, are an American cultural object.
4. The pasta is eaten with a fork, a Western utensil. In all the Japanese noodle houses I visited, dishes were exclusively served with chopsticks or spoons.

So, with all of these Western cultural artifacts, why does the Tarako add campaign feel so alien and eerie to Western viewers? (And it’s not just me, read the comments on the Youtube videos!). My theory is that this off-putting effect is generated when these familiar items and events (baby dolls, marching armies, playing on the beach, eating pasta, etc.) are re-combined in a decidedly unfamiliar manner. Added to this is a soundtrack with minor-key tonality, associated with fear and sorrow in Western ears.

Let’s look back to the videotape from the horror movie The Ring. Individually, many items in this video are mundane on their own: a ladder, a chair, a well, a tree, a woman brushing her hair. Again, it is their odd juxtaposition layered with eerie music that creates much of the horror effect. Now, the Ring video is also interspersed with traditionally frightening images, such as a screaming face and severed fingers, and this the only essential separation between an intentionally horrifying ghost-video and an unintentionally horrifying pasta sauce commercial.

Continuing Research: I plan to shop around local Asian markets to see if I can find a sample of Tarako Pasta Sauce to purchase.

Food for Thought: Why do you think many Japanese commercials, cartoons, and comic books use white Caucasian faces in their representation of characters? While many of our ads may seem strange to other cultures, do you think any are actually terrifying to foreigners? The kewpie’s red oblong form is easily identifiable as fish roe to Japanese consumers; do you placing the baby’s face on a more familiar product would make it more acceptable to Westerners?

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