Regardless of all of the bops born out of her Love.Angel.Music.Child. period, we should acknowledge that Gwen Stefani’s objectification, fetishization, and infantilization of Japanese folks was actually, actually bizarre. However what’s even weirder is that just about 20 years later, the No Doubt singer nonetheless stands by her overwhelming Harajuku obsession — going as far as to declare herself Japanese in a weird new interview with Attract. 

For readers who could have been too younger on the time, “Love,” “Angel,” “Music,” and “Child” weren’t simply the phrases Stefani cobbled collectively for the title of her solo debut; these had been the nicknames she bestowed unto the “Harajuku Women,” Stefani’s crew of 4 Japanese-American dancers who appeared alongside her on stage, in music movies, and…practically in every single place she went, nearly as in the event that they had been her neon-clad pet puppies.

Stefani advised Attract’s Jesa Marie Calaor that she first grew to become enamored with Harajuku subculture after listening to about it from her (Italian-American) father, who’d journey between the States and Japan for his job at Yamaha. It wasn’t till the pop star was an grownup that she was capable of journey to the namesake Tokyo neighborhood to witness it herself: “I stated, ‘My God, I’m Japanese and I didn’t realize it,’” Stefani recalled of her first go to.

“If [people are] going to criticize me for being a fan of one thing lovely and sharing that, then I simply suppose that doesn’t really feel proper,” Stefani continued. “I feel it was a gorgeous time of creativity… [It] needs to be OK to be impressed by different cultures as a result of if we’re not allowed then that’s dividing folks, proper?”

Calador wrote within the article that in this interview, “Stefani asserted twice that she was Japanese and as soon as that she was ‘a bit little bit of an Orange County woman, a bit little bit of a Japanese woman, a bit little bit of an English woman.’” What’s extra, the singer additionally claimed the Latinx tradition of her Anaheim, California hometown, citing its music and vogue signatures: “Although I’m an Italian American — Irish or no matter mutt that I’m — that’s who I grew to become as a result of these had been my folks, proper?”

Appreciating a tradition totally different from your individual is one factor, however all through her profession, Stefani has blatantly commodified Japanese tradition along with her quite a few vogue traces, perfumes, and even a TV present. Certain, a few of that money has gone to good causes, however to be white and name your self Japanese — particularly within the shadows of rampant Asian-American hate — is, to say the very least, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.