Analysis of All About Lily Chou Chou (Final)

To address this question, I center my attention on the movie “All About Lily Chou Chou” that portrays how a Japanese high-schooler, Yuichi Hasumi, takes refuge in the ethereal music the pop star, Lily Chou Chou, makes when experiencing growing pains from bully, ridicule, and abuse at school . Drawing on the readings revolving around the new literacies characterized by multimodality and social mediation (Lewis and Fabos, 2005), I identify and in turn examine 6 major themes surfacing from this movie in terms of the literate activities taking place on the fansite, that is, social interaction, participation, identities, literacy development, emoticons, and broadcast outlets.

First and foremost, virtual activities promote, rather than prevent, social interactions among youth. As Black and Steinkuehler (forthcoming) pointed out, running counter to the commonly-held view that computers and videogames lead to a decrease in time spent on socializing with friends for youth, sharing information with peers or other fans on-line actually function as “social glue or a point of affiliation that helped these teens develop and maintain close social connections with both on and offline friends” (p.13). In the movie, Yuichi constructs and maintains the forum Lily Philia for those who idolize and worship the fictitious diva, Lily Chou Chou, to exchange their passion and thoughts inspired by Lily’s music and the Ether as well as the updated information about Lily’s albums and concerts. In the movie, these fans, a.k.a. the lilyholic, pay frequent visits to this fansite, engage in intensive interactions with one another, and as such establish a kind of relationship that bears resemblance to the one that they might build up offline. To put it another way, apart from voicing their passion for Lily, they also verbalize their confusion, pain, joy, and the like, springing from their lives on the fansite to which others respond with consolation, suggestions, or personal experience, which is in much the same way as what friends would do face-to-face. The example that follows captures this interaction.

“I wanted to die many times. But I couldn’t. Falling, falling, falling. Like endless loop. I keep falling. Somebody help me. Somebody. Get me out of here.” ~ philia
“I know you’re feeling the invisible Ether deeper than everybody.” ~ blue cat
“I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.” ~ philia
“I understand because I know the pain you feel.” ~ blue cat

Therefore, diagonally different from the idea that online activities prevent social interaction, this movie aptly demonstrates how social interaction in the virtual world could be every bit as dynamic and abundant as the off-screen ones.

The second theme pertains to weblogging as participatory practice. Writing in 2005, Lankshear and Knobel defined participation as “involvement in some kind of shared purpose or activity” and activities as things that are established with certain norms and criteria (p.4). Meanwhile, they also distinguish among 3 types of participation, that is, participation directed to particular others, participation directed toward a larger community, and participation directed to both. In the movie, Yuichi initiates and operates a fansite entitled Lily Philia and announces a paramount rule to be abided by for anyone wishing to be granted permission to join the website, which is spelled out in the interaction below.

“Hi. I never know there was a site like this. So, you probably don’t think I’m a true fan. But I hope I’m welcome.” ~ blue cat
“Hello. The rule here is you have to love Lily. That’s all. So, feel free to write here anytime about your passion for Lily.” ~ philia

Therefore, when Lily fans vow to comply by this rule in order to join this fansite, they are actually agreeing to take part in an activity where they need to share the common goal with the whole fandom, that is, loving and lauding Lily. This embodies the Lankshear and Knobel’s definition of participation. Also, in the movie, the postings uploaded to the fansite seem to fall into two major categories, one concerning mainly with Lily herself and her music and the other dealing mostly with members’ life experiences in relation to the Ether. Though the general public might find the former interesting and informative, the latter might, in all probability, strike them as weird, if not creepy. In fact, in the movie, a viewer named cuttlefish ever posts such a message, “This sounds like a cult. Can’t you live without the Ether?” Viewed in this light, it is justifiable that we consider the former as being directed to a larger community and the latter to their fellow members, which is clearly the third type of participation mentioned earlier. Hence, sharing a common goal and directing their postings to different target audiences, the fansite in this movie aptly illustrates how weblogging is synonymous to a participatory practice.

Third, identities are easily changed and disguised online. First, as evinced in the movie, Yuichi is an introverted high-schooler who gets picked on and abused at school, on the side being coerced into carrying out the dirty work for the top bully, Hoshino. As for Hoshino, experiencing a change from a good-natured student to the absolute evil, a change sparked by his near-death experience in Okinawa, he puts everyone under his reign of terror as he beats up the class bully and takes over his position. However, in the virtual world, Yuichi runs the Lily Philia website where he assumes the role as the webmaster. Anyone interested in joining needs to be granted the permission from him. Additionally, he emerges as the one who possesses the best knowledge as to Lily’s music and the Ether, guiding the rest to establish connections between Lily’s music/philosophy and the Ether and in turn worship her religiously, which is duly demonstrated by the example that follows.

“Lily says, it’s always sunset. As it grows dark, when the air splits in two, sounds swell in my head and the light leaks through. … And it was just there. This is the most important episode in her awakening to the Ether.” ~ philia

Whereas Hoshino takes on a more subordinate role in this virtual community, functioning as a fandom member who follows the rule formulated by the webmaster, namely, Yuichi. Moreover, he seems to mostly respond to others’ messages rather than compose and dispatch new ones on his own. As can be seen, a switch of places/roles/identities is taking place as Yuichi and Hoshino alternate between reality and virtuality. That is, Yuichi goes from an order-taker and bully-victim to a ruler and preacher as he travels from the real-life setting to the on-line milieu, while Hoshino goes in the opposite direction. This role-switching appears to be in alignment with Black and Steinkuehler’s (forthcoming) proposition that fans tend to create and enact different social identities through interactions on fan sites. In other words, unlike their real-life identities, Yuichi takes on powerful roles in the virtual community by way of displaying expertise in the Lily Chou Chou fandom and Hoshino undertakes the identity of a listener and pious disciple through following the prefabricated rules to stay a part of the fansite.
The other identity issue represented in this movie relates to the easiness in disguising oneself in the virtual space. In the movie, Yuichi goes by philia and Hoshino names himself blue cat as they navigate Lily Philia, the fansite. Among the conversations occurring in this affinity space, it appears that philia connects best with blue cat in that they exchange the most messages with each other, seemingly reaching a much higher level of friendship at which they empathize with what each other is going through in life. However, to Yuichi’s great shock, blue cat turns out to be the person that he fears and in all likelihood loathes the most in the real life, the very person that turns Yuichi life into a living hell, namely, Hoshino. Had Yuichi had any knowledge of this, he would never have given him the green light to be part of Lily Philia, let alone bonding with him. This ease of disguise lends further support to Lewis and Fabos’s (2005) findings that the absence of physical body in the virtual communication allowed participants to “manipulate voice, tone, and subject matter to hide or transform their own identities” (p. 491).




The fourth theme pertains to virtual spaces as environments favorable for the development of literacy skills. At the beginning of the movie, Yuichi is found to post messages mainly to promote the philosophy Lily embraces as it relate to the Ether or disseminate the latest news in regard to her albums. Also, he touches on the interview that Lily had some time in the past in terms of the music that influences her, which is as follows.

“If that idiot interviewer hadn’t asked her this question, she might have shown more of what’s inside her, what music influences you. She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. She conceives and gives birth to it.” ~ philia

It is immediately obvious that philia, namely, Yuichi, needs to obtain the above information from somewhere to come up with such postings. Though TV programs, magazines, and newspaper are all easily accessible, I speculate that he would most probably acquire the information through the Internet, given the way he indulges himself in the virtual world. Further, in consideration of the fact that the movie was shot in as early as the year of 2000 when youtube has yet to be brought to the world, there is much justice in surmising that Yuichi usually gets hold of new information by reading on-line news or critiques devoted to Lily Chou Chou. Running in tandem with this line of reasoning, we arrive at the conclusion that though blogging most of his spare time away, Yuichi is in fact carrying out a range of literacy activities, such as reading to obtain new information and writing to present the information to the Lilyholic. This somehow echoes the proposition that the virtual spaces would result in adolescents and fans becoming “consumers who also produce, readers who also write, and spectators who also participate” (Jenkins, 1992:208). To put it another way, not unlike the fanfiction writing journey detailed by Black and Steinkuehler (forthcoming), Yuichi’s enthusiastic participation in the fansite through extensive reading and writing practices online might also strengthen the development of his literacy skills, rather than stand in its way.

Fifth, emoticons enable the written communication to carry emotions and tones. Vis-à-vis orality, literacy emerges as being emotion-free and toneless, so it is not uncommon to find authors resorting to the employment of symbols or icons to help facilitate the encoding of their messages. In the movie, some viewers incorporate such symbols in their postings in attempt to get across their emotions. For example, the viewer by the name Matrix accompanies his message with the symbols :-) that represents a smiley face. Other viewers repeat certain letters in words to pass as being reluctant, such as Thhhanks, I’llll buyyy itttt tomorrrrow. These features somehow coincide with the ones enjoying great popularity in Instant Messaging communication, viz., emoticons. As revealed by Lewis and Fabos (2005), emoticons are often utilized to help writers express their emotions and engage readers. Therefore, this movie serves as another example corroborating the pervasive use of emoticons in digital communications.

As also reported in Lewis and Fabos’s (2005) study, IM communication is characterized by another linguistic feature, that is, abbreviations, such as ”brb” for “be right back” and “lol” for “laughing out loud” (p.483). Nonetheless, in the movie, there is not a single use of abbreviation. As far as I am concerned, this absence might have to do with the Japanese language itself. That is, the nature of Japanese might render it difficult to practice the creative use of abbreviations. Since Japanese and Chinese share certain characteristics such as Chinese characters and in Chinese abbreviating a phrase by taking only taking the first part of each word in that phrase would result in meaningless combinations of strokes, it is possible that this might also be case for Japanese. Therefore, I surmise it might be the nature of Japanese language that gives rise to this non-use of abbreviations in the movie.

Last but not least is the theme regarding weblogs turning into broadcast outlets. According to Lankshear and Knobel (2006), a weblog-turned-broadcast-outlet would result when a blogger merely distributes materials without participating in the conversations occurring among the readers in his/her blog. In the movie, having taken a girl to an old factory to be raped as he is ordered to, Yuichi suffers from tremendous devastation and despair since he has been carrying a torch for the girl for years. This mental trauma seems to cause him to not participate in the conversations on Lily Philia for a while, which is revealed by Bear’s message noting that “I wonder what philia has been doing these days.” Therefore, during that period, the fansite he runs turns into a typical broadcast outlet where information as regards Lily Chou Chou might continue to be updated and conversations with respect to the Ether continue to take place among other members, only Yuici himself remaining utterly silent. This plot of the movie indeed serves as a pertinent example of the broadcast outlet posited by Lankshear and Knobel (2006).