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Downfall of Japanese TV’s girl next door highlights wider industry sexism from freeamfva's blog

from nightly appearances on TV to persona non grata of Japanese show business in a matter of weeks, the drama of Rebecca Eri Ray Vaughan’s fall from grace was matched only by how much it revealed about Japan’s harsh treatment of its female entertainers.To get more news about 久草免费, you can visit our official website.
Until news of her alleged affair with a married man surfaced earlier this month, Becky – as she is known – was one of the most popular people on Japanese television, with regular appearances in 10 commercials and on at least half a dozen variety shows.

Viewers liked her unthreatening, breezy manner and carefully crafted image as the girl next door. As the daughter of a Japanese woman and British man – her haafu (half) status brought a touch of exotica to their evening viewing.
Yet all it took was a leaked text message – seized upon by the tabloid media – to bring to a halt a 15-year career whose upward trajectory seemed guaranteed.

Her predicament has also ignited a debate over the vice-like grip Japan’s powerful talent agencies have on female singers, actors and TV celebrities.

While the 31-year-old ponders the sudden withdrawal of TV appearances, commercial endorsements and her own radio programme, she may be asking herself why she has been singled out for media vitriol while her alleged lover, a pop singer, carries on, his career apparently unaffected.

Her crime, it appears, was to break the steadfast rule that requires young female celebrities in Japan not only to entertain, but to remain morally unimpeachable.

Within weeks of a magazine breaking news of her alleged affair with Enon Kawatani, a 27-year-old singer in the band Gesu no Kiwami Otome, her employers ripped up contracts, reportedly at the behest of her own management agency, Sun Music.

By last week, she had disappeared from TV screens, and lost commercial contracts and her own radio show.

While Sun Music claimed she was suffering from “illness and depression”, Becky is unlikely to return once she recovers.

Philip Brasor, a commentator on Japanese media and culture, says like many of the celebrities who populate Japanese variety shows, “her whole reason for being as a TV talent is her image as a cheerful, agreeable, proper young woman, and once that image is spoiled she has no value to the people who use her”.


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