John Mayer Stereotypes

John Mayer was recently under fire for his representation of Japanese culture in his music video “Still feel like your man”. The video contains many stereotypical japanese ideas including dancing panda bears, bamboo trees, women dressed in geishas, some being caucasian, and samurai fights. The video also has a lighting similar to the famous red-light district in Tokyo. The portrayal of asian culture in his music video is very stereotypical, not to mention culture appropriating, but Mayer believes otherwise. When discussing the controversy about his music video culture Mayer said “Part of cultural appropriation is blindness. I'm on the right side of the line because it's an idea for the video that has a very multiethnic casting, and nobody who is white or non-Asian is playing an Asian person”. Mayer has failed to recognize that there is a big issue with the way he portrays this culture. By having these stereotypes, he further creates a misunderstanding and misrepresentation for the japanese culture.

His fame has given him power. Mayer published this music video on Youtube in April of 2017, and since then it has been viewed 5,443,629 times. This video is accessible to anyone on the internet, making this have the ability to be very influential. His portrayal of japanese culture will show impressionable children, or even people in general the wrong idea of what japanese culture is. These people may never learn anything further about japanese culture or may only see stereotypes about the culture. He is not fully defining what it is to be japanese, but people who view this video may believe that it