A gay reality show? From Japan? You've got to be kidding. Could Japan's essentially conservative nature really have undergone this dramatic - not to say unbelievable - transformation in recent years? I thought Japanese society was an inherently homophobic society. Not of the thuggish Islamicist sort where gays are thrown off of tall buildings, or even of the gay-basher sort common to many parts of Europe and America, but of a kinder gentler sort, where gays are simply shunned for being just a bit too far over the line from "normal" behavior.
That's one possible reaction many will likely have after watching the Netflix production just out called The Boyfriend. And it was my first reaction, as someone who has spent twenty-four years of his life in Japan in two segments, one from 1970 to 1974 and a second one, after a hiatus of fifteen years, from 1989 to 2006, plus several shorter stays in between. I was an out gay man from San Francisco, but I determined it was in my best interest when I took a job as a professor at a Japanese university to go back in the closet. True, that may have been an unduly fearful decision on my part - and I did come out again in time - but I had plenty of confirmation from other LGBT men and women that I was doing the smart thing.
But - to return to the topic of the Netflix ten-episode series The Boyfriend, there are at least a couple of much simpler, more straightforward explanations for why a reality show with gay characters should suddenly appear on Japanese television. One is that gay liberation is finally catching up with Japan. It's not ready yet to allow same-sex marriages, but five months ago, in March of this year, both a Tokyo district court and a Sapporo high court challenged the ban on same-sex marriage, and it would appear it's only a matter of time. Netflix is probably seizing the moment. Whether for cynical reasons (gays are still an entertaining curiosity) or profit-motive reasons (romance sells and the general population is now ready for LGBT love stories) I leave for others to figure out.
Another explanation is that it's not a particularly remarkable event in the first place. Japan has traditionally allowed parallel worlds to exist between people in the everyday world and people in the arts. Japan is the land of the geisha, after all, and men in drag appear regularly on modern-day television, especially in talk shows dominated by people known as "talents" - people who dress in unusual costumes selected to push the envelope into shock, outrage or simply silliness. These folk assume the role of soothsayers, supposedly insightful social commentators, although their contributions sometimes get so sophomoric and inane that you find yourself thankful people don't wear shoes inside the house or you'd be flinging them at your TV screen.
The presence of such a group in this show - call them the Japanese version of a Greek chorus - begs the question of what exactly a so-called reality show is anyway. And invites the observation that it is anything but real, but rather nothing more than a form of performance art designed to stimulate and titillate a bored audience looking for ever new and original entertainment. The group includes Otake Masaki, who goes by the stage name Durian ("the king of the fruits") Lollobrigida, who comes out in normal male dress at the start but gets more and more into his drag personalities as the show goes on.
The set-up is a simple one: nine unattached gay men, raging in age from 22 to 34, gather together at a resort by the sea for a month, allegedly to find friendship and love - with a camera following their every remark and facial expression. Believe that's "reality" and I've got a bridge to sell you. To build a closer bond between them, they are assigned the job of driving off to the beach each morning to sell coffee and cookies to the general public, although "general" isn't the right word, since the number of customers is small enough for the focus to remain on the personalities of the two gay characters in the coffee truck as they interact with customers one at a time, even bringing cups of coffee to their table. Camera running, of course.
An obvious question is why anybody would think you can simply throw people together and expect them to fall in love with each other, or, at minimum, form lasting meaningful relationships. That question is addressed directly by a member of the Greek chorus who makes the observation, "Anybody can fall in love with anybody."
In addition to the nine love-seekers and the "talents" (Greek chorus) there is another important but unseen character: from time to time a laptop dings and somebody opens it and reads a message from on high. This godlike character determines their daily activities, chiefly who will take the coffee truck out on any given day. He (it is a masculine voice) also has them do such things as write anonymous notes as a secret admirer and drop them in the mailbox each one has on their door. On several occasions, the boss-man decides they will have an overnight with a person of their choice who agrees to the arrangement.
As simplistic as the notion is expressed by the authority in the machine (the laptop) that "We hope you will find an irreplaceable partner," the reality performers play along. Rather than understanding that friendships take years to form and depend on observing the other in all kinds of character-revealing situations, they seem willing to believe the observation of a simple act of kindness, or generosity, or even politeness, is sufficient to make one fall in love. It marks them as astonishingly superficial.
At the same time, because the filmed interactions are so sanitized, we only get to see these guys on their best behavior. There is no cruelty, no harshness, no violence, no meanness. If anything, they display the stereotypical Japanese feature of being other-oriented to such an extreme that you need a Greek chorus to speculate over what's going on behind the masks of politeness they are all wearing.
At the same time, they do reveal markedly different character differences over time, giving some credibility to the producer who claims he selected the characters for their diversity of type. Two of the more extreme differences show up in the connection established by the two youngest participants, Dai and Shun, who do (spoiler alert) actually become a couple by the end of the series. Dai is outgoing and assertive (he sends Shun a dick-pic at one point); Shun is pathologically shy and suffers from an obvious inferiority complex. Shun is the kind of guy you'd expect to say, "I couldn't possibly fall in love with somebody stupid enough to fall in love with me."
Kazuto is everybody's first choice of a best-friend type. He comes in on Day One with food and continues to prepare meals for his colleagues - he is a cook and restaurant owner in real life. Another stand-out is Usak, a nationally well-known go-go boy who enters in Episode 2 and leaves early in Episode 5. He has a handsome face and is built like a brick shithouse. He lacks articulateness initially, but manages to bring everybody to tears when he leaves, and clearly has what it takes to break down the cool of Chef Kazuto, who otherwise plays his cards close to his chest.
And I trust my remarks in the previous paragraph reveal what I think the show has going for it, despite the charge of superficiality and banality: the characters may be not all you'd like them to be, but they are by and large sympathetic characters you come to root for. If this program is in fact staged, which Durian Lolobrigida claims it is not but I nonetheless suspect it is, it is well-staged with a well-composed plot line. And that makes it worth watching. I've heard many non-Japanese comment over the years that they find Japanese too anodyne to actively like or dislike, and that was my first take on Japanese too until I made Japan my home and came to understand that its rich and complex culture makes it a world-class civilization, which contains the full range of human personality differences, unlike the manicured personalities in The Boyfriend.
Watching "gay boys" as they go about looking for love will not be everybody's cup of tea, even if this so-called reality show does turn out to be real. But in notable contrast to all the violence, blood, gore and duplicity in the shows Netflix brings to market, this one is refreshing, uplifting, and in the end, immensely sympathetic. I am not sure I share the Rotten Tomatoes rating of 100%. It moves slowly and youthful indecisiveness isn't at the top of my list of fun things to spend your time on. But if you have the patience, I think you will find it is worth the watch.
The characters are, in order of introduction:
1. Dai, age 22, a college student
2. Taeheon, age 34, a designer originally from South Korea, notably not out to his parents as a gay man
3. Ryota, 28, a model, a barista - considers himself a bisexual
4. Gensei, 34, a hair and make-up artist
5. Shun Nakanishi, 23, musician
6. Kаzuto, 27, cook and manager of an izakaya-type restaurant, everybody's favorite among the group
7. Usak, 36, a nationally known go-go dancer
8. Alan, 28, a mixed-race (Brazilian/Japanese) guy who grew up in Japan, works for an IT company
9. Ikuo, 22, the late-comer, works in the food industry
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