[ad_1]
Takeshi Kitano is arguably Japan’s best-known entertainer to speak out about the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the country’s multibillion-dollar media landscape.
A long-delayed reckoning has been brewing in the country’s entertainment industry since March. Johnny Kitagawa, founder of Japan’s leading young male star talent agency, Johnny & Associates (locally known simply as “Johnny’s”), has been spreading rumors of rampant sexual abuse for decades. But until the BBC aired a documentary that delved into the allegations — Predator: J-pop’s Secret Scandal ——The Japanese media has begun to report the scandal cautiously. In recent weeks, several male idols have come forward to accuse Beichuan of sexually assaulting them as children, and the company’s current management has issued an unprecedented apology.
hollywood reporter In an interview Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival, where the director, actor and comedian will premiere his latest work, Kitano asked him what he thought of the growing outcry, this is not gooda samurai movie.
“The time to be able to talk about LGBTQ things and sexual harassment has finally come to Japan,” Kitano said. “But these stories have always been [in our industry],’ he added. The 76-year-old performer, who goes by the stage name “Beat Takeshi,” is a ubiquitous figure in Japanese showbiz — iconic stand-up comedian, variety show star, mainstay of Japanese gangster movies, and Venice Golden Lion Award-winning director (Fireworks1997), and various other creative pursuits (he also painted and wrote bestselling books).
Kitagawa, who died of a stroke in 2019, is credited with pioneering the J-pop boy band entertainment model that swept Asia in the 1980s and 90s, ahead of the K-pop wave that would later conquer the world. A ruthless businessman, he is known for his deft manipulation of Tokyo’s top media and entertainment conglomerates, using his talent’s star power to charge top dollar and completely subservient to how he and his company report.
The earliest known allegations against Kitagawa date back to 1965, when the parents of four boys tried to sue him for sexually advancing their children. In 1988, Koji Kita, a member of one of Johnny’s earliest hit boy bands, published a memoir in which he claimed that he and other aspiring singers had been abused by Kitagawa.and was featured in the leading local tabloid magazine in 1999 Weekly Wenshun An investigative report was published containing additional accounts of child sexual abuse by several anonymous boys contracted to Johnny’s. The company subsequently sued the publication for defamation. The Tokyo High Court concluded that, WenshunReports of Kitagawa’s sexual abuse were true, but said other claims that Kitagawa allowed boys to drink and smoke when they were underage were questionable. The magazine’s publisher was ordered to pay Johnny & Associates 1.2 million yen in damages.
Throughout, Japan’s mainstream media remained virtually silent — despite the fact that the allegations involved the companies responsible for developing some of the country’s biggest stars, including idol group mainstays such as SMAP, Junior Team, Arashi and Travis Japan. Known for his brutal industry acumen, Kitagawa’s stardom is so integral to Japan’s music, film, television and advertising industries that local media groups dare not confront him with unfavorable reviews.
As one of Japan’s most popular public entertainers, Kitano, whose career dates back to the early 1970s, blasts the structural forces that give Japan’s talent agency so much power — which has long been the case. Complaints from the country’s film and television industry come from commercial sources.
“Japan has had a very large talent agency since the postwar period. Rather than having [fair] Contracts, these institutions treat talent a bit like slaves — and that continues to this day,” Kitano said. “Talent is exploited for its income. More recently, these old institutional practices and other past events have come to the fore. “
Ex-Johnny’s trainee program member Kauan Okamoto of Johnny’s Jr. was interviewed a few weeks after the BBC documentary aired in March Weekly Wenshun and a press conference at Japan’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club detailing further allegations against the late media mogul.
Okamoto said he was abused by Kitagawa about 15 to 20 times over the next four years after he signed with the agency in 2012 at the age of 15. He also said he saw Beichuan sexually assault three of his teenage trainees.
According to local media reports, when asked why the boys endured the abuse, Okamoto said: “First of all, the boy who can make his debut at Johnny’s is Mr. Johnny’s favorite. Everyone understands that Mr. Johnny’s one sentence determines Everything. He also said he heard from other Johnny’s Jr. boys, “If you don’t go [Kitagawa’s] Mansion, you can’t be a star. “
As the outcry over the claims began to spread, a Johnny fan group filed a petition in mid-May with more than 16,000 signatures calling for the agency to launch an internal investigation. Julie Keiko Fujishima, Johnny’s current president and Kitagawa’s niece, then took the unprecedented step of representing the company directly for the first time in addressing allegations of sexual abuse.
“I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart for the social problems caused by our founder Kitagawa’s sexual assault case,” Fujishima said in a video statement posted on the agency’s website. She said she took the allegations “very seriously,” but Neither confirmed nor denied.She said that at the time WenshunIn the 1999 report, she was only a director and the company was managed exclusively by her uncle, Johnny Kitagawa, and her own mother, Mary Kitagawa.
“These knowledge [accusations] Just the two of them,” she said.
“I don’t think these issues ever happened,” she added, “but without checking with Johnny Kitagawa, it’s very difficult for me to confirm whether the allegations are true.”
Since then, two other Beichuan plaintiffs have been exposed. Yasushi Hashida, a 37-year-old dancer and actor, told a Japanese parliament hearing that he was sexually assaulted by Kitagawa twice when he joined the institution at the age of 13. Another former Johnny’s teen idol, Ryu Takahashi, said he was one of the lucky ones who successfully rebuffed Kitagawa’s sexually provocative attempts. (He details being invited to Kitagawa’s mansion and receiving a massage from the aging CEO, which quickly turns sexual until the then-16-year-old singer and dancer yells ” No!” before ending).
Takahashi described the current Johnny’s president’s apology as “an act of desperation” and dismissed the company’s claim that it was unaware of the founder’s decades-long sexual abuse rumors and allegations.
“There are rumors that the court has also ruled on a lawsuit Weekly Wenshun’, Takahashi, 31, told Tokyo Asahi Shimbun newspaper. “It doesn’t make sense for someone to be a director and then be successful. [Kitagawa] As the president said, she doesn’t know. “
[ad_2]
Source link