iona rozeal brown: Student Commentaries

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Commentaries:

Curator
Artist
Students

The ganguro and, to a lesser extent, the gyaru and their complementary male companions, gyaru-o, find life easier in this “black face” because it moves them outside of mainstream Japanese culture. By adopting that lifestyle, they are able to absolve themselves of the obligations omnipresent in Japanese culture: [Can you list a few of these?].
So the adoption of darker skin is used by those in the subculture as a visual cue to the rest of Japanese society that they are not participating on the same terms as everyone else. But society reacts too. Japanese society now attributes very negative stereotypes to those who adopt the gyaru look. Prevailing thought within Japanese society is that anyone who dresses like that is lazy, dirty, and socially unacceptable.