Rants of a 4th Year Nothing

That umbrella you’ve been wanting for 6-7 years.

I noticed something funny in the movie Lost In Translation. No, no, not its hilarious Japanese stereotypes. I’m talking about Scarlett’s clear, colourless umbrella — one that, after seeing the movie 6 years ago, sparked my desire (and the desire of probably millions of other viewers) to own one too.









“Who’s that chick with the honey-coloured hair, holding the aesthetically pleasing and (assuming from the clear, colourless umbrellas vs. conventional, coloured umbrellas ratio) difficult to acquire umbrella, looking noticeably weighted down with melancholy, and strolling through a sea of Asians who will never understand her trivial quarter-life crisis? I want to be just like her! As soon as I get my hands on that umbrella. One whose awesomeness has rendered it unobtainable — just like a quote unquote Westerner in Japan oughta be. I’ll be an edgy city girl in Tokyo someday! ^_^”

Yup, that really was my thought process in high school. I was terribly assimilated and illusioned. I still am the former. Anyway. What the hell am I getting at?

I was watching House Hunters International on HGTV about a week ago, and a well-established businessman from Tokyo was looking to buy a vacation home in Bali. The show began with some clips of his daily commutes. It was raining in one of the scenes, and those clear, colourless umbrellas were freaking everywhere. 90% of the people on the crowded sidewalks were carrying one. My fantasy of obtaining a movie-replica umbrella fizzled out.

I Google the umbrellas and find out that they are an incredibly cheap, breakable, and ubiquitous product in Japan. Like plastic forks, or pencils. But to a lesser extent.











Considering that every minutia of Lost In Translation — Japanese references and otherwise — was carefully staged by Sofia Coppola (this I deduced after reading the script, wherein everything was pretty damn predetermined and pinned down), I’m left wondering why such an everyday Japanese commodity — one that’s attractive and obscure in the West — was credited primarily to one of the very few Western characters in the movie. It’s not an impossible scenario, but it’s relatively unlikely, and unrepresentative. So on top of the excessive amounts of exotification in Lost In Translation, Sofia managed to make an item seem foreign in its own country of origin. It’s like, reverse exotification, you guys…? I’m confusing myself.