Currently No.1 on Billboard Hot 100, Ariana Grande’s new single “7 Rings” has been the center of attention recently for many reasons.
Based on her real-life experience of buying diamond rings for her and her six best friends at Tiffany’s, the catchy lyrics, pop-rap tunes and “Sound of Music” homage reveals a new moment in Ariana’s life where she needs no one but herself to satisfy her needs. The song portrays her inner strength even after immense hardships as well as her commitment to true friendship.
Lyrics such as “Whoever said money can’t solve your problems must not have had enough money to solve them” did spark some attention. But really, other than the being rich aspect, it is about enjoying what you have and having fun with friends—at least that’s what I took from it.
However, there was much controversy over lyrics such as “You like my hair? Gee thanks, just bought it” as being too insensitive as well as her music video that was seen as problematic in certain aspects.
Though the song is on repeat for me, and I loved how bits of the “7 Rings” video included Japanese objects (as well as the title shown in Japanese), I could not help but get confused over one scene in particular.
Ariana is known for her love of Japanese culture and she has repeatedly shown her efforts in learning Japanese. I am impressed how she is including Japanese in her recent posts on Instagram and in her overall promotion for the “Thank U, Next” album. As someone who’s Japanese, it makes me feel proud to have people around the world be interested in our culture. However, eating sushi lying on a kitchen counter in a rather sexual way just wasn’t my cup of tea.
After I saw the video, that split second of her just got stuck in my head. Was there a reason for inserting that image there? Was it for the aesthetics of the video? Was it to portray something exotic? Would things have been different if Ariana shot the entire video in the middle of Japan such as in Ginza (a popular upscale shopping area)? Is this nothing to be concerned about? Am I just overreacting? Maybe.
However, my question grew bigger when Ariana posted her new tattoo on Instagram the other day. This time it brought different attention from her previous Studio Ghibli “Chihiro” or Pokémon “Eevee” tattoos.
With the success of “7 Rings,” Ariana decided to commemorate the song by engraving the words “7 rings” in Japanese on her left palm, spelling it七輪. When I saw the tattoo, as was the concern for many other Japanese fans, I could not but imagine the Japanese style BBQ grill called a 七輪 “shichirin.”
Though she understood that 7 rings would be 七つの指輪 in Japanese, in her now deleted tweet she revealed that she could not handle the pain and thought just 七輪 “still looks tight.”
The “still looks tight” part once again struck me. Would it be ok as long as something “looks tight,” when you have engraved a misspelled word from a foreign language into your body? Was inserting images of Japanese aspects into her video a form of this “tight”-ness?
While all these questions kept popping up in my head, it reminded me of the T-shirts designed in Japan that include ridiculous foreign phrases, often grammatically incorrect or using vocabulary that should not be printed all across your body. But still, people wear it without knowing the true meaning partially because it “looks tight.” Do we think that culture is something you wear, rather than something you embrace and respect? If so, then once worn out, can we just throw it away?
I came to realize that this act of taking in another culture in a somewhat inappropriate manner, is not something people do purposefully (at least I hope not). Sometimes people are too ignorant – not thinking enough about how some forms of acts can cause harm rather than harmony.
After the myriad comments and jokes about the misspelling of the tattoo, Ariana went under the needle quite fast and fixed her tattoo, despite the immense pain she had been reluctant to go through again. Thank u next to the little BBQ grill indeed.
This overall tattoo controversy may have been the best mistake to teach us all a lesson. Honest to god, I do not intend to accuse Ariana for cultural appropriation. Although I have not truly grasped why Ariana had to erotically eat sushi in her music video, I respect how she dealt with the tattoo – seeking advice from her fans and her Japanese tutor. I also would like her to keep trying her best to acquire the language and love and respect the culture even more.
What I would like to question to the society overall is – who gets to represent what and what kind of message would be sent if misrepresented. Should we just be incentivized by the “tightness” other cultures have when referring to them? Or can we do better?
My love towards Ariana’s music and her as a human being has made me question what she really wants to express through her voice, her music, and herself. And I do hope to figure out more through her new album next week.