Hetalia Blog
This is my first viewing of the show Hetalia. I found it to be very strange and the comedy was a bit corny. I will discuss the show in the lens of its comedy and allegory to historical events.
Hetalia uses humor and satire to make commentaries on the powers that were present during historical events, the most prominent of which being World War I. Italy, which during the days of ancient Rome was one of the strongest empires in the world, but now was depicted as some pasta-loving goofball, showing how weak of a country Italy was during World War I. I found it weird that the show made humor and made Germany a more likeable character despite the atrocities committed during the war. Germany is portrayed as hard on the outside with a soft heart in his interactions with Italy and other countries. This definitely was not the full story in how Germany is represented in the textbooks. While some of these representations appeared to be stereotypes that were meant to be taken lightly, like how China appeared to talk differently than the rest of the characters, other representations, like when Germany says that Japan had modernized really fast and that was positively conveyed, were shown in a more serious tone. Also, why was Japan the most dripped out country of them all. Seems a little bit biased.
When searching up how others feel about Italy and the representation about Italy, I related to the article by Annette in how she said that the fan base is productive. There were many, many threads dissecting how the fan's cultures interact with the work and different ways of understanding Hetalia in enunciative productivity. The fans are self-aware and can argue and discuss what elements of the show that they find to be inaccurate and what is more relevant to the contexts of the war.
Overall, I felt like the show related a lot about representation and how a country was represented by a single person. This had a lot to do with stereotypes and I found it interesting to see what different stereotypes there are for different countries. It made me more aware of their uses and how to avoid making stereotypical takes in the future.
Hi Ryan, I agree with what you said about how Hetalia likes to depict its characters, I think that while stereotypically is all for fun. For example, characters like Italy are very silly in nature and are made to be an embarrassment which I do find funny. However, things like Germany being shown as a likable character are questionable of how bad they actually were. I also think you're pointing out how they made Japan to be a fastly industrializing country was something I did not catch. I also find the readings to be highly related to viewing since there are a lot of things to be talked about.
Your point about the representation of different countries, like Japan being "dripped out" and the varying tones in which countries are portrayed, is really interesting. The show definitely plays with stereotypes in a way that's meant to be funny, but it also makes you think about how these stereotypes come about and what they say about our perceptions of other cultures.
