Page "Debito Arudou" Paragraph 12

In August 2009, Arudou — acting as chair FRANCA ( the Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association )— began a letter-writing campaign in protest of a promotional advertisement by McDonald ’ s Japan featuring a bespectacled, mildly geeky, 43-year-old American Japanophile known as “ Mr. James ”— a burger mascot who proclaims his love for the fast-food outlet in halting, broken Japanese.

Writing in The Japan Times, Arudou called the “ Mr. James ” campaign both “ offensive ” and cringe-worthy, argued that the campaign perpetuates negative stereotypes about sensitive non-Japanese Caucasian minorities living in Japan, and demanded that McDonald ’ s Japan withdraw the advertisement.

Marketing and advertising reporter for The Globe and Mail, Simon Houpt, criticized Arudou ’ s organized protests as being “ thin-skinned ” and suggested to Arudou ’ s FRANCA that “ if someone is calling you a geek, writing a letter to complain isn't going to help your image very much ,” while Time Magazine ’ s Coco Masters asked rhetorically “ where ’ s the beef ?”, noting that there were “ certainly no shortage of elegant, articulate Japanese-speaking foreigners in local media .” Masters criticized Arudou ’ s letter-writing campaign by concluding: