Cute racism a la japonaise ?

[Mandylion]

I mean wasn't it like no one besides the Japanese had set foot in Japan for hundreds of years up until the Meiji Area?

The sakoku policy of the Tokugawa bakufu did limit foreign contact to a few ports and highly restricted travel within Japan. However, Japan maintained limited economic ties with China and select European nations, so while remote, Japan was not shut off from the world (hence they could see Western colonialism at work in China and so work to head off the same subjectation of Japan, among other things - but that if off topic.)

But you are 100% correct when you say

... it's understandable that they're behind. Understandable not excusable.

[Bibinbahell]

Yes, that stereotype of foreigners saying "OMG, Japanese is the hardest language in the world because kanji is so difficult!" seems extremely commonplace in the media to me. So, would learning Chinese be exponentially more difficult for the said foreigners? Because if kanji is the only difficult thing in the language, then I'm sure the Japanese would have no trouble learning Chinese since they have the kanji down.

I do remember a more recent occasion of images on tv with black people acting like normal people and the audience still laughed as if was the most hilarious thing in the world (black people are people too!? Ha ha ha!). I also recall scenes with white people (dressed up in a three-piece suit of course) tip toeing to the bathroom with his hand on his stomach, chanting out "Hold it in, hold it in. (subtitles in katakana of course)"

So it just seems painfully obvious that they find foreigners to be funny for the sake of them being foreigners. The fact that the general audience thinks it's hilarious to see foreigners trying to assimilate into their society by doing ordinary things(in vain) is what really angers me.

I do agree that there is a long way to go on this subject.

[Mikawa Ossan]

Believe it or not, but I have been on TV about half a dozen times. Of course it was always local TV. I never got the katakana treatment. Here's my thought on that.

If a foreigner is on TV as a foreigner, in other words, if this person's role on TV is to be "foreigner", he/she will get the katakana treatment to emphasize the fact that it is a foreigner speaking.

If a foreigner is on TV as a person, in other words, if this person is not taking the role of "forigner", s/he will not receive the katakana treatment. How many times have you seen katakana in serious shows or the news?

On those comedy/variety shows, the foreigners are there to entertain in the role of "foreigner", and therefore they get the katakana treatment.

It's a comic device.

I don't think it's so bad, and sometimes funny for effect, but the problem comes, as Maciamo pointed out, from the overwhelming portrayal of (black) foreigners as wild, crazy or idiots, and no counterbalencing portrayal of them just as people.