"Normal" People

In the novel, My Year of Meats, numerous cultural phenomena collide continuously throughout the story. One of these collisions that I found to stand out is the difference in the social acceptance of “different” people.

At one point of the story, Jane Takagi-Little introduces a vegetarian lesbian couple with two daughters and decides to film an episode of the show “My American Wife!” about them. In Japan, homosexuals are generally less accepted from the society. To get an idea, it is not rare for people that come out of their closets to lose their jobs because they are thought to bring down the image of the company. Unlike the US, there are no laws that protect them from discrimination of their age, gender, race, or sexual orientation. Although lesbian couples are not necessarily common in the US either, they are more accepted into the society. Consequently, that episode received a very negative feedback from John Ueno; although, the network producers found it “humane and moving…”

Ironically, the episode with the vegetarian lesbian couple turned out to be one of the few successful episodes of the show. This goes to show that “wholesomeness” of a family has very little to do with people’s sexual orientation and more on their determination for their pursuit of happiness as Lara and Dyann understood very well.