Homosexuality In Little Miss Sunshine

Being gay in Japan

Frank is one of the main characters in “Little Miss Sunshine” He is described as a famous Proust scholar who tried to kill himself because of his broken heart. He fell in love with his student, and he, after all, was rejected by him. Except Olive, who is not able to understand homosexuality, everyone in the family accept him as what he is. A scene made me surprise. It is the scene that Frank buy porn in a gas station. In Japan, you can hardly find gay porn in such a place, even though there are plenty of porn. In the movie “Little Miss Sunshine”, acceptance for being gay is represented. What if he was in Japanese society? Would he be accepted without any trouble? Today I want to make you think about being a gay in a society,

It leads to the answer Japan have a structure which trouble with being open about their sexuality. To know Japanese society for gay people, first, let’s take a look at Japanese history. In the past, Japan was very tolerant of being gay. There was a word commonly used in old works: nanshoku, meaning literary “male colors”. This word was used to refer to something like sex between men to men. The records of male colors date back to ancient times. Around 11th century, it was even found in waka; Japanese poetry. There is no strong opposition in Shinto, Japanese traditional religion, and even in Buddhism. You can suggest that this fact promote male colors culture in Japan. However, the trend completely changed in Meiji era because of the influence of the Western society which regarded homosexuality as a forbidden thing. The idea took root in Taisho era, and people began to think that homosexuality is not normal. This is the beginning of sexual prejudice in Japan and this also means that Japan does not have historical or traditional reasons to oppose to gay

In Japan, the meaning of marriage was different from other countries that already legalized same-sex marriage. In the past, marriage is something family centered, and people emphasized the social status and prosperity of the family. Now, marriage has changed to something individual centered, but you cannot deny the possibility that people do not consider family background anymore. As the history shows, this kind of big shift related with people’s values takes long time to take root in a society. In addition, it is true that Japan does not have a tradition or religious prejudice against gay people with violence, but the country does have a lot of things to do before the government legalize gay marriage. For example, child custody or property rights for heterosexual parents. Some people may say that Japan is far behind other countries with respect to same sex marriage, but if you do not solve these problems first, legalization of gay marriage fall into confusion in the end. We just have to wait until Japan will be ready for