Having ridiculously good-looking, teenage heartthrobs in pop music is not a new concept.
It didn’t start with One Direction, it didn’t start with *NSYNC , and it didn’t even start with The Beatles, but I will venture to say it has been perfected by Japan.
Japan has put such a formulated expertise on its pop music that it’s created a new name for a genre casually referred to as J-pop.
Full of beautiful girls-next-door and handsome, sensitive men who can all sing and dance, J-pop is nothing short of a pop culture cash cow. It makes sense, in a way, that bands’ management teams would have a pretty big say in the goings-on.
But being contractually obligated to not date anyone seems like a new one to me.
Minami Minegishi is a member of the J-pop group AKB48 and is now in serious hot water because — gasp — she was seen coming out of a boy’s apartment after they had spent the night together.
This sounds like any day of the week for American celebrity news, but for Minegishi, this was scandalous because AKB48 has a strict no dating rule for the band’s about 90 members.
Why would a group’s management team forbid 90 girls in their mid-teens and early 20s to date?
Simple. They don’t want to shatter the illusion that the male fans of AKB48 still stand a chance with the members. It’s a concept that is alive and well in any other girl or boy band — the beautiful people you see on the screen are untouchable, but in some way, only yours.
AKB48’s management just did the logical, but ethically questionable, act of locking in that fantasy by having the girls sign on the dotted line.
When found out by paparazzi, Minegishi shaved all of her hair off in repentance and took to YouTube in a tearful apology, where she called her actions thoughtless and immature and begged the band to let her stay on as a member.
I don’t think too many people will fault you for that one, dear.
Although your management team is trying its best to market its chaste army, you will still be living every day with teenage girls that, shockingly, like teenage guys.
You’ve pitted your biology against your income, and in every single way, it’s a volatile combination.
Looking at the news articles, it struck me how much of a cultural divide there was here. I don’t think any U.S. celebrity would ever agree to such a rule — much less tearfully apologize when they’ve inevitably broken it.
It took Britney Spears how many failed marriages, drug rehabilitations and psychotic breakdowns to shave her head, and this girl does it after one little sleepover.
And do you know how many times Britney Spears has apologized for her constant train wreck of decision making? Never.
In that way, I am strangely proud to call myself American.
Is AKB48’s management a bit screwy for mandating such a rule? Some would say they are just giving audiences what they want. If there are girls who know about the rule and are still willing to sign on to get pop star glory, then by all means, let them.
On the other hand, some could say, who is anyone to dictate this very personal part of another’s life? Who the heck does some music producer think he is to outlaw the normal behavior of teenage girls just to see the profits rise?
Honestly, I am just glad we wouldn’t have a debate like this stateside.
Now, whenever I go to the checkout line at Publix and see the tabloid headlines of beautiful people making terrible decisions, I will take solace in the fact that our celebrities live their lives regardless of their public images, for better or worse.
Lauren Flannery is a business administration sophomore at UF. Her column runs on Tuesdays. You can contact her via opinions@alligator.org.
