By MARK SCHREIBER
Uramono Japan (October 2006 edition)
You’re a producer at one of the major TV networks. Your annual income is comfortably over 20 million yen, plus the usual perks. Secure in your position, you have total say-so over which performers appear in your show. Now, smiling nervously on a stage in front of you, are dozens of cute teenage girls. With their fetchingly shy expressions and doll-like Pollyanna appearance projecting innocence and purity, these star-struck gals are willing to do almost anything to land a role, any role, as a stepping stone to advancing their career in show business.
See where this expose in Uramono Japan is headed? And we’re still in the opening paragraphs of just the first article, titled “Sekkusu shinakya shigoto ga nai. Kore, geinokai no joshiki desu (Unless you perform sex, you can’t get work — that’s common knowledge in the show business world).”
In a nutshell, the shortest and fastest route to fame in Japan’s showbiz world hasn’t changed much from what Hollywood starlets were reputedly forced to endure in the days of the silent movies: The according of sexual favors to agents, producers and other individuals in a position to make or break their careers.
The term applied to this system of career advancement is nikudan settai, literally “flesh-bomb entertainment.”
The article names no names. But enough details are provided to make the people involved readily recognizable to showbiz insiders.
According to Uramono Japan’s source, identified only as “Mr. A,” these efforts to win jobs through the offering of physical charms may extend not only to producers but even to cameramen and, in some cases, program sponsors.
For a certain performer whose initials are given as R.S., the nikudan settai system has paid off well indeed.
“She advanced from ad hoc appearances on low-grade variety TV programs to commercial ads, and then went all the way to acting stardom,” says Uramono Japan’s source. “The turning point in her career was when she became the producer’s mistress.”
Not surprisingly, a requisite to such activities is for participants to exercise discretion to avoid scandal.
“A girl’s manager might, for example, escort her to a hotel lobby and say, ‘I’ve got an appointment, so let’s meet up later,’ and then slip her the key to a room upstairs, where the patron waits,” the source relates. “Or, an agent might say to a big shot, ‘Please consider giving her a role in your new show,’ and hand him what appears to be his business card,” the source relates. “On the card’s reverse side will be the girl’s cell-phone number — so there’s not much difference between this and what goes on with a cabaret hostess, really. But a girl who knows the ropes would prefer not to defy her manager, so she’ll go along with it.”
According to “A,” hair stylists and makeup assistants are frequently called upon to serve as go-betweens for these kind of extracurricular encounters by relaying private messages or setting up meetings.
Creation of a showbiz star doesn’t come cheap: an agency’s initial outlays for training, wardrobe and publicity come to 10 million yen.
“No agent wants a gal with real star potential to wind up as damaged goods,” the source reveals. “So another type of girl, known in the trade as ate-uma, is recruited and made available to keep the big shots satiated.”
A term originally applied in horse breeding. Ate-uma can be used to describe a politician with no real hope of winning, but who announces his candidacy to pave the way for the running of another, more important, candidate. In horse breeding, ate-uma is a stallion used to test to see if a mare is in heat, but not permitted to mate. Although the genders are reversed in the case of showbiz idol, the latter meaning seems more appropriate.
While the ate-uma and nikudan settai system may appear shockingly callous, Uramono Japan notes that a few of these frisky fillies proved so adept at gratifying the randy executives that they, too, were eventually rewarded with roles. And a few even made it all the way to the big time.
Don’t you just love happy endings?
Topic: Cuties advance careers atop casting couch (Read 1299 times)