The Japanese reality show Terrace House has become an international phenomenon this year, praised by many as the return of reality TV that is, for lack of a better word, real. However, the glaring omission of LGBTQ members has long been a complication for a group dating show that the New Yorker’s Troy Patterson called more of a “nature documentary” than a reality series. Having a bisexual man join the cast in the newest batch of episodes seems like a victory for LGBTQ people in Japan, where representation is limited, but how much can one boy do on a group dating show where everyone else is straight?
In the final minutes of the last episode to air on Netflix U.S. before new episodes dropped on Dec. 18 (Terrace House airs weekly on Netflix Japan, but arrives on the U.S. version in eight-episode batches), the newest member of Terrace House, 21-year-old Shunsuke Ikezoe, revealed that his reason for joining the show was to explore his possible same-sex attractions. Every new member has a stated goal, usually to find a partner or clarity in their career path. Shunsuke’s goal is the most personal one we’ve seen so far, and it’s also the first example of out queerness on Terrace House.
According to one study, only 5 percent of Japanese people personally know someone who identifies as LGBT (55 percent of those surveyed in the U.S. polled yes). But this doesn’t mean Japan is overwhelmingly homophobic. Another poll shows over 70 percent of Japanese people aged 20 to 40 support same-sex unions. So why do there seem to be so few out LGBT people in Japan—to the point that they are invisible in mainstream media?
Mitchell, a fourth-generation Japanese American from Hawaii, sees the perceived lack of out LGBT people in Japan a result of “the country’s negative relationship to pride and the friction between western notions of gayness, which clings to pride as a defining characteristic.” As other critics have pointed out, the toned-down nature that makes Terrace House so outstanding compared to other reality shows is a direct result of the culture it is presenting.
Masami Tamagawa of Skidmore College writes, “The family system is the basic unit of Japanese society and the home is where true inner feelings, including homophobia, are expressed.” This idea of home-stifling younger individuals would seem more aligned with Western experiences if it didn’t also cause LGBT Japanese to be “ignored and silenced” at large, Dr. Masama writes, “seen as ‘tolerated’ when they are contained on the fringes of Japanese society.”
Even Shunsuke’s housemates confess to “never [having] a friend like that,” except for Noah Ishikura, who was born and raised in Vienna, Austria. While a possibly bisexual member might seem like the smallest inclusion of queerness a show could make, it is still notable given Japan’s culture around queerness. It may even be the perfect degree for Terrace House.
Shunsuke’s quiet revelation is as “fitting” for the “scale of personal revelations cast members of Terrace House typically encounter,” according to Koji, a Japanese American who watches Japanese television both in the states where he lives and with family when visiting them in Japan. “I think seeing someone … very publicly share that uncertainty is pretty unique for reality TV regardless of where it is,” he told me in an email about Shunsuke’s time on the show.
What little LGBTQ representation there is in Japan is often anything but quiet and uncertain: either relegated as erotica for straight audiences or larger-than-life comics and entertainers. Matsuko Deluxe, a gay, cross-dressing man, is one of Japan’s most prominent LGBT figures. “His existence is beyond the realm of gender” one 49-year-old Japanese homemaker told Washington Post in 2015.
Brandon, another Japanese American who attended Japanese primary schools while growing up in Washington state, concedes that aside from Matsuko, “there’s really no representation on television” and thinks “Japan can do a better job of being inclusive.” Similarly, the only queer figure Koji recalls seeing on television in Japan is the now-retired, straight wrestler “Hard Gay” who was known for performing masculine drag in PVC fetish wear.
It’s significant then that a show made famous for its lack of drama—a simmering feud over stolen leftovers is the show’s most iconic fight to date—is now open to casting LGBTQ members who can present realistic portrayals of queer people in Japan. The outlandish stereotypes of LGBTQ people common in Japan are antithetical to Terrace House, making the reality series the perfect platform for normalized representation.
This is the sort of realistic casting that once made reality TV impactful before the deluge of flippant dating shows and wine-fed housewives. HIV-positive Pedro Zamora on The Real World Season 3 in 1994 was credited with humanizing AIDS to general American audiences. While The Real World is past the point of relevance now, the show was the impetus for reality TV as we know it today and hugely significant for its realism at the time. Mitchell also acknowledged the impact of The Real World on his life growing up gay in the U.S., telling me “Every season from Hawaii to Philadelphia taught [him] so much about being gay and what that could look like.”
It’s reality TV, not scripted series, that allow for the most authentic representations of LGBT people. Chris Plante wrote in the Verge about the growing diversity of American reality TV in 2017, and charted the genr’se improvement “from tokenism and promotional stunts to the complex portrayals that most white cast members received all along.” Plante also acknowledged shows on Logo, Bravo, and BET as diversifying reality programming “for over a decade.” But shows like The Bachelor and Survivor have a larger, less diverse audience and can thus create a bigger shift in perception of minority communities.
The horrifying outing of a trans contestant on CBS’s Survivor in 2017 turned into an eloquent explanation of the kind of trans struggles rarely seen, much less paid attention to, by CBS’ older, more conservative demographic. While reality TV is often manipulated to advance a predetermined narrative, it gives participants a platform and audience not commonly available to shows where diversity is already a central component.
This is what makes Shunsuke’s time on Terrace House so important. His inclusion presents a humanizing depiction of sexual minorities to otherwise closed-off Japanese audiences (one that will hopefully accompany others to better show the diverse range of LGBTQ experiences). That understated, real people make up the cast creates an even deeper sense of audience relatability when watching Terrace House compared to shows like The Bachelor and Survivor.
When Shunsuke leaves the show—another unique facet of Terrace House is that members join and leave midseason—he mentions his surprise at the genuine connections he made there. His same-sex attractions weren’t “something I would tell people before,” he tells his castmates, “but since living here and telling everyone, and you all accepted me for who I was. No one said anything to deny my sexuality. I got to be in an environment that made it easier to accept myself.” The overwhelming acceptance of Shunsuke’s sexuality reveal there is, in fact, a place for LGBTQ members on Terrace House.
Yet Shunsuke’s departure also marks the limitations for LGBTQ people on Terrace House and reality TV at large. After realizing he is bisexual and deciding to explore his male attractions, Shunsuke leaves the show because there simply aren’t other gay or bi men in the house.
As we’ve seen on other dating shows, Shunsuke’s desire to explore the gay side of his identity can only go so far in a reality constructed around heterosexual romance. His stay in the house is the shortest amount of time for any member this season (seven weeks), but one of the most important in the show’s history.
