Be bold, be realistic, and teach about profane language and racial stereotyping using pop music!
By: Amanda Gillis-Furutaka
Editors’ Note: This article contains strong language.
I have been teaching Japanese university students about British culture for 32 years using mass media (mainly films, popular music, and SNS) as my source material. Much of the language used in these media products is not found in English language textbooks, making it hard for students to understand. Japanese subtitles and translations also do not render the power of the original language because, in most cases, there is no equivalent expression in Japanese.
Of course, many students are already aware of the most common taboo words in English through exposure online (influencers, games, etc.). They are aware that they are “bad” words. However, they have never been taught why people use these words, how and when (or when not) to use them, and who they can use them with.
I have a class of English majors who have self-selected into our “English Career Course” which requires them to study abroad. I felt that they should know more about the common use of profanity in English-speaking countries before they go overseas and decided to do this through Rina Sawayama, a young Japanese woman who lives and makes music in the UK. She would serve as a cultural bridge for my Japanese undergraduates. Moreover, she is the same elegant woman who sings the moving duet “Chosen Family” with Elton John (which I introduce in the playlist section of this newsletter.) These students loved that song and the dramatic contrast with her song “STFU!” (Shut The Fuck Up!), and the latter’s music video provided the ideal surprise factor to our lesson, the importance of which we learned about in our January Think Tank!
Here is how I went about it during a 90-minute lesson.
- I reminded them about the song and performance of “Chosen Family” using the PowerPoint slides (available here) and they discussed what they already knew about Rina Sawayama.
- Before watching the music video, we looked at the 3 questions on slide 5 of the PowerPoint about what happens in the music video, the style and mood of the music, and whether the visuals helped them to understand the song.
- Once they understood what to look out for and think about, we watched the music video for “STFU!”: link.
- They then discussed the questions in pairs and shared their ideas with another pair of students. (I allowed them to discuss in Japanese first if they preferred, but to share their ideas with others in English. They could ask me for help in expressing their thoughts in English.)
- Rina Sawayama is very active on social media and has a YouTube channel in which she explains to her fans how she creates her music and videos. The pairs of students chose who would watch Rina’s video about writing and recording the song and who would watch her video about making the music video.
- The video about how she wrote the song is about 10 minutes long and has Japanese subtitles and I allowed the students to use them for reasons that will be explained later. The questions they would discuss are on the handout (available here).
- The video about how she made the music video is a couple of minutes longer and has both Japanese and English subtitles. I let the students choose which to use and most of them chose the Japanese, which proved useful later, as will be explained. Here is the video: link.
- The students needed 30 minutes for viewing and discussing because they had to locate and watch some parts of the videos more than once, and there was a lot for them to talk about!
- You will see that the song and video are about the kinds of racially stereotyped assumptions, attitudes, and microaggressions Japanese (and all Asian) people can experience when they are overseas. Since Rina speaks at normal speed to her fan base, there is a lot for Japanese students to process from these two videos. For these reasons, they discussed the questions on the handout with another student who watched the same video before sharing what they learned with their original partner.
- The questions on the handout focused on the process of writing the song and making the video, but also highlighted Rina’s use of some of the current most common profanities in the UK: fuck, bitch, and crap. They also directed the students’ attention to how these words and the various expressions they were used in are translated into Japanese.
- In the last part of the lesson, I answered the MANY questions that arose! And found myself giving an impromptu quick (and inadequate) lesson on the grammar of “fuck” (see the photo of the white board notes I made here)
- In Japan, it is strongly taboo for women to use this kind of profane language. Some of my students stayed behind after the lesson to talk more about this kind of language, and especially about women using this language in the UK. They were also struck by how comparatively mild the Japanese translations come across compared to the force of the English words. Rina’s initial hesitation about releasing a song like this and the rejections by many record labels show the gap between societal expectations of what women can and cannot say and how they actually talk in real life.
I only got the chance to teach this lesson once, and there is room for improvement. For example, a well-prepared “grammar of fuck” follow-up (e.g., the difference between “shut the fuck up” and “the artist that fucks up their own shoot”) would be far better than my impromptu work on the whiteboard. I am retiring from university teaching from April, and for this reason, I am sharing my slides and handouts with you readers. I hope some of you grab the baton I am passing and run with it to class. We owe it to our students to teach them how people really speak in the real English-speaking world.
Amanda Gillis-Furutaka is about to retire from the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Kyoto Sangyo University but isn’t planning to disappear straight away. She will be giving workshops on British films as a volunteer, and making sure to point out where, when, and why profane language is used in British daily life.