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Paper short abstract

This paper argues that the TV drama Signal (Fuji TV, 2018), a Japanese remake of a Korean drama by the same name (2016), presents a deviation from the conventional representation of economic inequality in Japanese TV dramas and challenges the traditional view of Japan as a ‘middle-class society’.

Paper long abstract

This paper argues that the TV drama Signal (Fuji TV, 2018), a Japanese remake of a Korean drama by the same name (tvN, 2016), presents a deviation from the conventional representation of economic inequality in Japanese TV dramas and challenges the traditional view of Japan as a ‘middle-class society’.

The economic recovery in Post-war Japan has created a society where ‘[A]round three-quarters of the population identify themselves as middle class’ (Jones, 2007, p. 5), fostering a ‘middle-class’ myth. Japanese TV dramas reflected this view, where economic differences were presented on screen but bore little effect on the characters or the plotline, fostering and promoting the view that personal responsibility, grit, and perseverance are the main vehicles for improvement and advancement in life, ignoring the potential effect different socio-economic conditions have on life possibilities and struggles. Despite the economic crisis of the 1990s and the growing socio-economic inequalities, the effects of the ageing population and the rise in fractional contracts and low pay part-time employment (Shirahase, 2014), Japanese TV dramas of the late-90s-early 2000s continued to promote the ‘middle-class myth’.

Utilising transnational TV theory and focusing on textual and multimodal analysis of the drama, this paper discusses how, through the new phenomenon of Japanese remakes of Korean dramas, the drama adopts a convention, typical to K-dramas, where socio-economic disparities are foregrounded and play a significant role in characters’ lives, to expand the discourse within Japan. This allows the introduction of new discussions into the debate around economy and society in Japan, by openly and explicitly exploring the effects of socio-economic inequalities on characters’ life choices and possibilities.