Performing contradictions, performing bad-girlness in Japan

I have been teaching media production workshops to teenagers in reform and correctional facilities in various parts of East Asia since 2000. This chapter will focus mainly on the issues raised during my teaching at a girls' reform institute in Japan in 2002. This public institution operates like a school, devoting part of the girls' time to a regular high school curriculum, but with more emphasis on discipline and conformity. The girls, who have committed diverse levels of offense, reside at the institute and are not allowed to leave it. The group selected by the institute to participate in my workshops ranged in age from twelve to sixteen and consisted of girls considered most "difficult"; they were not studying in the main curriculum and therefore had "spare" time to be in my workshops. Most of them had been at the institute for years, except for one girl, who had just arrived the week before.