AshOnMyTomatoes wrote:
Aripyanfar wrote:
The Japanese have a great respect for social responsibility, social cohesiveness, and social harmony. It's no surprise that the lyrics, intentions, and money-raising-for-charity efforts of "We are the world" captivated their imaginations in general.
The Japanese culture in general also has a long entrenched feeling of despisal towards Africans and African Americans, which I presume they learned from their first contact with white English and American colonialists they met with early on, who felt vastly superior to the "barbarian" blacks.
So the "We are the world" collaboration both keys in with Japanese feelings of human harmony, whilst also challenging them by presenting black singers as heroic equals with their white singers in the choir of musical celebrities.
The song and singers is revolutionary to Japanese culture in this way, whilst also tapping into old traditional Japanese roots that revere harmony and peace.
So it was yuppie do-gooder music in the US, and is doubly so in Japan?
Yup.
But if you go back and look at the original song, the singing talent of the musicians is glorious. The director brought together a wide range of huge talent, (not just stars, but actual singing talent.) He paired up very interesting combinations of singers, in the spot-on conclusion that those pairs of voices would thrillingly complement each other.
The song may seem trite from a world changing perspective. How is a song going to fix the problems of the world? It certainly doesn't address WHY the world is a mess, or how to fix things. "It's just a trite and ultimately meaningless way for Westerners to feel good about themselves." But even if the lyrics are sweet "empty" optimisms, they focus people's minds on happiness, and good will towards other people. That's not a bad thing to focus on, even for a little while.
And the song did raise $63 million for charity in drought stricken Africa at the time, as well as needy charities in the US. Even if a lot of the money trickled away in corruption, a substantial amount of food aid got through.
It's not such a good thing to flippantly dismiss do-gooder stuff. Anything that creates a feeling of good-will towards other people of different cultures and nations, no matter how nebulous, is an action that creates a good feeling that counteracts bad news, and ill-feeling towards people of other cultures and nations. If bad will and alienation is allowed to build up indefinitely, that's when illiterate, poorly educated, poverty stricken people are vulnerable to Fundamentalist arguments and persuasions to turn them towards terrorism.
Edited, Mar 15th 2010 11:04pm by Aripyanfar