Is Nadeshiko Japan “Feminine?” Manufacturing Sport Celebrity and National Identity on Japanese Morning Television

When the Japan women’s soccer team, more affectionately dubbed “Nadeshiko Japan,” emerged FIFA World Cup champions in 2011, its members became celebrities overnight. However, central to their celebrityhood is the media’s obsession with “femininity.” Through constructing sport celebrities, or tarento (“talents”), I argue that the Japanese media shift between representations of Nadeshiko Japan as glorified national athletes and as trivialized “feminine” figures. Following Michel Foucault’s concept of “power” as relational, these structures dominate, and are in turn challenged by, the Nadeshiko members. Through close textual analysis of Japanese morning talk show, Sukkiri!!, this article explores how Nadeshiko Japan offers its primary audience, women, alternative forms of subjectivity. Using a cultural studies approach, this recent study of Japan reweighs gender anxieties surrounding athletes in the media.