This essay explores globalization and resistance in Austria by using the Japanese cartoon character, Hello Kitty, as a case study.
From Americanization to Japanization
Gunter Bichof (2003) describes the power of the American empire and capitalism in the late nineteenth-century Vienna, then a breeding ground of Western philosophy, psychology and the arts, which was invaded by technological and business innovations from the United States, together with its jazz music and Hollywood movies, a process which continued after World War II (1-3). Bichof acknowledges the resistance of the Austrian society against such invasion in the forms of“Austrification” and/ or “Re-Austrification” reactions (5). He clarifies that globalization is also driven by European and Japanese corporations in “a more diffuse multilateral process than Americanization” (3), though Japan seems so remote a nation from Austria that the two are rarely brought together.
As Belson and Bremner (2004) focus on Kitty’s subversive and transgressive potential, and my recent essay further probes the liberalization effect which it offers to women, one cannot help but ask, is Hello Kitty popular in Austria, compared with the U.S. and other European countries? If it is not as popular, then how is the poor reception to be accounted for, with reference to globalization and its resistance in the Austrian context?
Hello Kitty Magazine, Hybridization and Resistance
The Hello Kitty Magazine is the key publicity campaign by Sanrio Company in Austria. Its production, from editing to marketing, all in Berlin, the magazine is intended for Kitty fans in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Almost all of its models are teenagers, though occasionally there are one or two who are younger and fall into the tween category. Even though red and pink – the two colours both associated with the Kitty and symbolic of “cute” in Japan – still dominate a lot of the graphic designs and serve as the background colours of many pages, this new magazine resembles any average magazine for teenage girls. On the one hand, the magazine’s appeal to teenagers can be read as an example of the Japanization of European youths, as what Japanese consider cute has now invaded the lives of their teenagers; on the other hand, it can also be read as an example of “hybridization”, as the magazine producers are (probably in consultation with the Sanrio staff in Japan) clearly selecting and appropriating what will appeal to them.
Whereas the Hello Kitty Magazine well exhibits the process of “hybridization”, the Austrian people’s reception of the character can be described as one of “resistance”. While trying to find interviewees for the current research on Hello Kitty in Austria, I made an enquiry at its Japan Information and Cultural Center. Martha Eipeldauer, their public relations officer, replied that “a lot of people” in Austria like Hello Kitty, and they are mainly young people; she added that a lot of students studying at the Institute for Japanese Studies of Vienna University like this brand very much. Nonetheless, the enquiry at the Institute that followed received few responses. The very few students whom I managed to interview all found the Kitty very “lovely,” but they added that they only discovered the brand about eight or nine years ago, quite despite their early fascination with, and interest in Japanese culture, let alone the fact that the promotion of Sanrio products started in Europe more than twenty years ago. It would be wrong to infer that "cuteness" does not appeal to Austrians, as there are numerous highly popular cartoon characters in the country that are cute, but which originated from its European neighbours. The best example is perhaps Diddl, a white cartoon mouse, together with its host of characters, that are found in almost every store, large or small.
A Lonely Store
On my several visits to the small shop that specializes on Kitty products on Zirkugasse in Vienna, also the only shop that maintains an online website, there were very few visitors, quite despite that it only opens half-day, from Monday to Friday. Occasionally, a teenage girl would drop by, or a young mother would take their children to spend some fifteen minutes in it, which explains one of those rare episodes where I found children donning themselves Kitty logos on the street. Otherwise the Kitty store is a lonely place. The fact that the store is found on a quiet street, with its colourful Kitty products framed by arch-shaped windows typical of old buildings in the window, has symbolic significance: the whole picture does not smack so much of hybridization, as of resistance, and of Austrian assertion of its cultural dominance.
