# "Lip my stockings!" - Is pop-culti riducule of Japan "OK"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 15, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493 "2004-06-15T16:21:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2004, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/21 "2004-06-16T16:08:26Z")
> [@The Scrivener](#): > > IANAJapanese speaker, but I was taught by my Japanese-American father, who grew up bilingual, that the language has a rolled “r” sound very similar to the soft, rolled “r” in Spanish. The number six, “roku,” has that. The pronounciation isn’t “roh-ku” but more like “rdyoh-ku”. I never heard that one… maybe it’s a regional thing or something? I think **Lamia** explains it perfectly. And before my post, I should’ve added that I also felt _Lost in Translation_ was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2004, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/22 "2004-06-16T16:15:59Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s apparent enough that the view many Americans have of the Japanese is that they’re a perverted, deranged bunch of nasty little dwarves who only manage to restrain their unspeakable urges by sublimating them into bizarre animated pornography, working 14 hours a day, and rigidly adhering to an incomprehensible and repressive set of customs and rituals. Really? I dont know _anyone_ who thinks that, or anything remotely close to it. Sounds to me like it’s your view of Americans that’s perverted, deranged and nasty. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/23 "2004-06-16T16:21:33Z")
What shocked me about the “Lip my stockings” scene is not the fact that the Japanese women replaced her ‘r’ with and ‘L’ but rather that the company sent a prostitute to his room on the assumption that he would want one. Add to that, the assumption that he would want to play rough with her. I don’t know what the film is trying to say at this point. That ‘they’ excpect us to rape them and will play the part willingly. But that’s the weird part of that scene for me. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2004, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/24 "2004-06-16T20:52:57Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > It’s apparent enough that the view many Americans have of the Japanese is that they’re a perverted, deranged bunch of nasty little dwarves who only manage to restrain their unspeakable urges by sublimating them into bizarre animated pornography, working 14 hours a day, and rigidly adhering to an incomprehensible and repressive set of customs and rituals. I have a very great respect of and appreciation for Japan and Japanese culture, and don’t have this view of Japan at all; however, if a country like the one you describe did exist, I would _immediately_ schedule my next vacation there! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/25 "2004-06-17T01:04:06Z")
I saw LiT with my now ex-gf, who is Japanese. She (and I) _loved_ it. The whole fish-out-of-water thing was very powerful to her; it mirrored her own experience when she first came to live in the U.S. (in Boston)–everything seemed weird to her and she had trouble relating to it all. She actually cried during parts of it, both in sympathy and in missing her homeland. She also laughed with gusto at the comedy, and gentle poking of fun at Japanese culture. It is very worth pointing out that among the apparently bizarre or comical (to Western audiences) experiences the two main characters had, there were also many scenes of great beauty, such as the wedding scene in the park, and the Buddhist temple. Personally, I think it’s a great film, certainly one of my favorites. I hope someone someday makes a movie that shows how weird and ridiculous a lot of American culture is, from the point of view of a new foreign visitor. And yes, I spent a lot of time helping my ex-gf to distinguish between “L” and “R.” ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/26 "2004-06-17T02:34:16Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Really? > > I dont know _anyone_ who thinks that, or anything remotely close to it. Sounds to me like it’s your view of Americans that’s perverted, deranged and nasty. Perhaps, but it’s a view I came by fairly through growing up an American in America. It’s not as if I’ve had no exposure to daily American life or ordinary Americans. I lived briefly in Japan as a child, and when people discover this they often feel the need to share their thoughts about Japan (frequently based on…some cartoon they saw once) with me. Aside from the idiot things I’ve heard people say in person or seen them write on the Internet, as soon as I decided to return to Japan to work I had complete strangers warning me about “the way they are there”. My numerous encounters with American servicemen in-country have done little to raise my opinion of the sensitivity or accuracy of the ideas about the Japanese held by My Fellow Americans. I’m not surprised that your friends and acquaintances are a more enlightened bunch. I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were a couple who weren’t but have never had reason to mention their feelings about Japan to you. However, I don’t have any doubt that many – not all, not even most, but many – Americans hold a lot of mistaken, outdated, and badly prejudiced ideas about the Japanese ranging from “Aren’t they funny when they try to act all Western and civilized?” or “They’ve never done anything but rip off American ingenuity” to…well…very bad things involving suggestions that the US should have dropped a few _more_ A-bombs. Ones at this extreme end are, I hope, relatively rare, but they’re nowhere near rare enough. ---
**Author:** ![mike1dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@mike1dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mike1dog)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/27 "2004-06-17T02:53:36Z")
**Banzai** by the way, is not a Japanese TV show. Believe it or not, it’s British. People actually bet on this show, and the outcomes of those silly contests. The only thing Japanese about the show was the name, and the two Japanese commentators. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/28 "2004-06-17T03:08:58Z")
To be fair, I should add that I’ve encountered many Americans who have a mistakenly _positive_ view of Japan – there’s no crime in Japan, everyone in Japan is sweet and helpful, Japanese children are well-behaved and studious, Japanese culture is warmly accepting of GLBT people, Japanese popular entertainment is high-quality and innovative, etc. Not to say that there’s _no_ truth to any of these ideas, but they’re at best exaggerated and at worst comically off the mark. I like Japan, but it certainly isn’t a utopia. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/29 "2004-06-17T06:10:42Z")
I’m amazed that this got to 28 replies without anyone mentioning [www.engrish.com](http://www.engrish.com) ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/30 "2004-06-17T06:54:45Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > What shocked me about the “Lip my stockings” scene is not the fact that the Japanese women replaced her ‘r’ with and ‘L’ but rather that the company sent a prostitute to his room on the assumption that he would want one. Add to that, the assumption that he would want to play rough with her. I don’t know what the film is trying to say at this point. That ‘they’ excpect us to rape them and will play the part willingly. > > But that’s the weird part of that scene for me. Remember that the Bill Murray character isn’t just some random guest, he’s a major action movie star from the 70’s and 80’s; imagine Burt Reynolds and you get the idea. Providing a prostitute as a perk seems to me to be more of a comment on the womanizing reputation such stars often have (deserved or not) than on Americans or Japanese in general. ---
**Author:** ![RindaRinda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dfb087/32.png) [@RindaRinda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RindaRinda)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2004, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/31 "2004-06-17T07:00:38Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > It’s apparent enough that the view many Americans have of the Japanese is that they’re a perverted, deranged bunch of nasty little dwarves who only manage to restrain their unspeakable urges by sublimating them into bizarre animated pornography, working 14 hours a day, and rigidly adhering to an incomprehensible and repressive set of customs and rituals. > [@Eve](#): > > Really? > > I dont know _anyone_ who thinks that, or anything remotely close to it. Sounds to me like it’s your view of Americans that’s perverted, deranged and nasty. What **Lamia** described is a distressingly common view amongst ex-pats in Japan (not just American). I was really struck by her post; she managed to perfectly encapsulate all the hateful things I’ve heard these ex-pats say. I might point out that most of these people haven’t bothered to learn Japanese beyond a few everyday phrases, and their only interaction with Japanese people is at work. When I lived in the States, no one made any negative remarks directly to me (probably because I’m Japanese-American), but when I complain about some aspects of work or something, oftentimes the person I am speaking to starts spouting all these negative stereotypes - yeah, they’re just a bunch of robots; yeah, Japanese women are weak and submissive; etc, etc, etc. About the L and R controversy - the tongue position when pronouncing the ra, ri, ru, re, ro series of sounds in Japanese is closer to the L position than the R position (the tip of the tongue is on the hard palate a bit behind the teeth), but like **The Scrivener** , it sounds more like a Spanish rolled R than an L to me. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493/32 "2004-06-21T03:29:35Z")
Sorry to revive this thread but I just saw the movie, and, considering I’m in Japan thought maybe some of you might appreciate my thoughts. What I thought was interesting was that the two scenes where people laughed the most were the “lip my stockings” episode and Mathew’s Best Hits TV (the talk show) segment. In the latter, though, we obviously weren’t laughing _at_ Mathew but _with_ him. I think pretty much everyone got the humour of a depressed Bob showing up on the most hyperactive show on tv. A big difference, though, in the way we probably saw this movie is that we understood everything that was being said. The commercial shoot probably plays completely differently to audiences who understand what everyone is saying. As for people who are of the opinion that the movie ridicules Japanese: meh. One of the trailers before the movie was for _Under the Tuscan Sun_. Would these people berate movies like that for ridiculing Italians? Interesting note: I found myself reading the subtitles a few times and thinking, “hey, I wouldn’t have translated it that way!” I thought this was strangely appropriate. [Movie Walker](http://www.walkerplus.com/tokai/latestmovie/mo2578.html) has 48% of viewers giving it 5/5 grade. 21% give it 4/5. That’s not bad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lip-my-stockings-is-pop-culti-riducule-of-japan-ok/250493.md?page=1)