Why do people use "Kabuki theater" as a metaphor for

[Baitball Blogger]

subterfuge?

Or is that my mistaken impression?

[petronius]

1. It's more a metaphor for predictable ritual than for subterfuge

Wiki has a nice page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki_dance

I've never seen a live kabuki performance, but I'd like to some day...

[KabukiFan]

2. NPR clip and Slate article about the use of the term "Kabuki" in political discourse

An interesting audio clip and discussion from NPR on the recent use of the term “kabuki” in the U.S. media (especially as a derogatory term in political discussions): http://www.onthemedia.org/episodes/2010/04/16/segments/153604

The Slate article the clip is based on, “It’s Time To Retire Kabuki“: http://www.slate.com/id/2250081/

For a great website devoted to the real Kabuki in Japan (be sure to click on the "Resources and Links" page):
http://www.jetaanc.org/kabuki

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Wow!

Welcome to DU!


I'm posting an excerpt from the second link for the other DUers. I'm still having trouble accessing the first one.

Pundits use Kabuki as a synonym for "posturing." The New Republic's Michael Crowley, for example, has defined it as a "performance, in which nothing substantive is done." But there's nothing "kabuki" about the real Kabuki. Kabuki, I'll have you know,is one of UNESCO's Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity! And it's nothing like politics. It does indeed use stylized gestures, expressions, and intonations, but it's far from empty and monotonous. As the scholar A.C. Scott has written, a great Kabukiactor's performance will "contain an individuality beneath the unchanging conventions, his symbolism must be something more than imitative repetition." Unlike a Dick Durbin stemwinder, the quintessential Kabuki moment (known as a kata) is colorful and ruthlessly concise, packing meaning into a single gesture. It is synecdoche, synopsis, and metaphor rolled together—as when, in one Kabukiplay, a gardener expecting a visit from the emperor cuts down all his chrysanthemums except one, the perfect one. And in contrast with our own shortsighted politics, Kabukiconcerns not the present so much as a "dreamlike time shrouded in mist but ever present in the subconscious," to quote critic Shuichi Kato.

[hrmjustin]

4. Welcome to DU!