Beautiful vs Cute

A while back, while looking at Mainichi Daily News' web page (my favorite English source of Japan news), I came across two interesting articles that perhaps demonstrate what many Japanese men look for, and don't look for, in a woman.


The first one is about Riyo Mori, the Japanese woman who won Miss Universe this year. According to the article, the media is portraying her as "arrogant and dumb." Apparently, the arrogance comes from her putting her hands on her hips often, saying that Miss Universe is not a beauty contest (wrong, yes, but arrogant?), and wearing makeup to accentuate her Oriental features (what, they want her to not be Asian?). The dumb part is not really explained in that article.

From other articles that I've read and interviews of her I've seen on TV, Mori certainly plays the part of a beauty queen. But it seems that she is using it as a means to acheive some good things, like starting a dance school to inspire young girls. She made comments about "empowering other Japanese women." She doesn't sound dumb to me. And it seems that the media doesn't like her because she shows confidence and shows a mature beauty.



The next article I looked at was a poll about what Japanese celebrity people wanted to marry the most. More men chose Masami Nagasawa as the woman they would most like to marry, and that amazed me. Nagasawa, who at 20 years old is one of the most popular people in Japan today, basically makes her money by acting like someone half her age. You see her on many commercials and on TV shows, smiling, giggling, knees turned in and arms turned out. I've seen her on interviews, and she has no personality, no sense of humor. Once my wife and I were watching this show that Nagasawa was on. It was a type of game show with celebrities. Each person had to stand in front of his/her group, sing a famous pop song using only cat noises, and the group had to guess what song it was. Many of the celebrities really played the role, making it funny. When it was Nagasawa's turn, however, she just stood up there and sung, a bit off key, and without any personality. But she was smiling, and when she was done, the studio audience was amazed, with the girls shouting "KAWAII!!!" ("cute" in Japanese). That is how she makes her money. Men want to marry that?

Anyway, just an interesting point about how Japanese men, in general, view their women.