To pick a random example, Hitler. He’s popular in China, where you’ll see him used kind of like Che is here-- as a shorthand for being a generally cool badass, with only a hazy understanding of the actual politics. It’s not uncommon to see Nazi themes in things like ads and them parks. It’s played like just another western theme, like the Wild West or romantic Paris or New York.
I didn’t feel much menace behind that one, in part because it’s so absurd to get on a Hitler themed roller coaster in inland China, but it’s still uncomfortable for us and unflattering for China.
An example that kind of hit home to me was attending a local circus in small-town India. One of the acts had a buffonish colonial Englishman, with a red face and giant nose.
Good lord, I’ve never been so uncomfortable. The spot light could have been shining right on me- as the only westerner anywhere around, with my blond hair and pale skin feeling like a neon sign. It was deeply uncomfortable, embarrasing, and a little menacing.
Enough stuff like that, and eventually you realize that you are not just walking around as yourself, you are walking around as your race. When you are someplace that you are a visible minority, you never have the luxury of just being yourself, as an individual. You will always been seen as part of this whole enormous narrative that people have built up around your particular race, and you will be understood in terms of how you adhere or differ from that preconception.
It gets under everyone’s skin. And when it’s combined with stuff like stereotypes and racism (and it almost always is), it’s just not a lot of fun to deal with.
I find it amusing that ITR champion was not moved to post this thread last December when Rush Limbaugh was having a fit over the idea that Idris Elba might be picked to play James Bond.
You didn’t post anything about it either. So either you think cultural appropriation is innocuous, and agree with ITR Champion, or think it is bad, and agree with Rush Limbaugh.
A while back, someone made a parody of the Cleveland Indians “Chief Wahoo” logo, showing an Indians cap between two other caps, one for the “San Francisco Chinamen” and the other for the “New York Jews”. The fake logos were very well-done and appropriately offensive.
It made a pretty good point, and fair is fair, so I support getting rid of Chief Wahoo. But at the same time, part of me just wishes those other teams really existed. I would totally root for the New York Jews. Ikey, Mikey, Jake and Sam! We’re the boys who eat no ham …
That assumes one can’t be bothered by something one is not susceptible to. Which is a clearly a false assumption.
Anyone who knows anything about primates in general, and apes in particular would consider the idea of CA to be laughable. We copy things. It’s what we do. It’s part of what makes us what we are, as a species.
I’m willing to listen to claims of cultural appropriation on a case by case basis, but I find most of the conversation about it annoying.
• There is usually an unstated assumption that there exists a finite and already-defined “grab bag” of identities that fall into the “marginalized” category. It is the cultural appropriation of their identities that is the focus of the cultural-appropriation complaints. No one is complaining that the culture of ultrarich Locust Valley people or nerdy Silicon Valley yuppies or white Texas fraternity boys are being appropraited even when people adorn themselves like them specifically to mock and lampoon them. There are people who complain that white southerners (for one examle) are being CA’d but they aren’t taken particularly seriously — they aren’t listed as being in the bag, they aren’t perceived as necessarily being “marginalized” and hence worthy of our sympathies.
I personally do not like the arrogance of the assumption that we’ve now taken note of every oppression and inequality and every alienation and every category of mistreated person, that we know who they are, and that the rest of you overly-washed overly-privileged masses are the perpetrators.
I don’t like the zero-sum assumptions about power that underlie it, either.
• On top of that, I dont think it’s constructively empowering to position your marginalized group as perpetually victimized. It’s whiny. I’m one of the hordes of people in our society who have been diagnosed “schizophrenic” and I definitely consider us, as a group, to be badly marginalized and disempowered and oppressed and coerced and mistreated and regarded in a derogatory and disgusting manner and so forth. (I don’t know as how you’d regard us as having a “culture”, but stay with me here). Do I think it helps us in any way to complain if Halloween trick-or-treaters & partiers dress up like psycho killers with ripped-up straitjackets and chainsaws in hand? Does it bother me when used car salespeople and audio component salespeople and various other retailers air ads in which they refer to themselves as “insane” or “psychotic”? Yeesh, hell no, we’ve got real stuff to be concerned with like HR 2646. I don’t think it’s good to walk on eggshells around the stereotypes. Embrace them and make fun of them instead, that’s the healthier ticket.
So, if Paul Simon had done the exact same album, but had not credited anyone or used anyone from South Africa, it would have been awful cultural appropriation, even though the resulting work would have been exactly the same?
When I listen to an album, how can I tell (just from listening to it) if it was made respectfully?
Actually, Paul Simon was attacked, at the time that Graceland was released, with exactly the accusation that he had “stolen” from the musicians and singers with whom he worked.
There very definitely are some people who qualify as members of the offenderatti, seeking things about which to be upset. Broad brush condemnation of every use of one culture’s images and associations by another as “theft” are every bit as silly as choosing to be offended that some people are offenderatti, (thus joining their ranks).
As noted, above, there are legitimate grievances based on some events. However, each event should be judged on its own, including all relevant information, without declaring every cross-cultural use to be theft or ridiculing every expression of insult as unjustified.
That makes sense but we should probably err on the side of caution and default to “ridiculing every expression of insult as unjustified” don’t you think? I think we’ve tipped the other way.
I think the real value here is in having the conversations. There is no bright line between appropriate and inappropriate, and there will always be fuzzy edges. But just being able to talk about these things is enormous.
He couldn’t have made the exact same work. He’d be missing the actual direct sonic contributions, and he’d also have to have been a different person himself.
Speaking broadly… you maybe can’t tell just from listening or looking at a work; you have to know something about the context and referents.
The guy wearing a feather hat shouldn’t wear it because he didn’t deserve it? I’m so so surprised. I assumed that every kid dressing up as an amerindian was an authentic Sioux chief. And similarly, that every little girl with a crown in her hair was in line to inherit the throne of England.
A war bonnet is too important to some to be worn as part of a costume, and an uniform is too important to some to be worn as a costume, and a priest attire too important to some to be worn as a costume, and so on, and so on… There will always be someone to be offended for some reason. Fuck the offenderati. They can look elsewhere or grow a thicker skin.
I see no difference in nature between stating “don’t wear a war bonnet because it offends people” and “don’t depict Mahomet because it offends people”.
Not only I don’t think that “cultural appropriation” is wrong, and don’t even think that cultural appropriation is a thing. “Cultural appropriation” would be something like regularly eating pizza despite not being Italian,which would be a good thing. Or conceivably, decorating your bedroom with Mauritanian art, which would also be a good thing.
Sure, there’s not difference between stating those things. You can state either one of them, and people are free to state opposing viewpoints. Unless of course you are implying something quite beyond civilized discourse.
I have sometimes asked myself why the Minnesota Vikings name and logo aren’t considered offensive, especially as compared to the insignia of a certain other NFL team.
Part of it’s just that “Vikings” doesn’t sound as ugly and racist as “Redskins”.
Part of it is just what you might call white solidarity. We white people understand that we’re all the same race, so if you’re of Scandinavian descent, you won’t be too offended if other white people want to name a football team the Vikings (and then hire a bunch of black people to play on it).
Part of it may be the specific history of Scandinavia. The Norse were usually the ones doing the invading and pillaging, not the victims, so their descendants don’t feel like they have an unsettled score.
Suppose the English had invaded Norway, flooded it with Englishmen, forced all the locals up into the barren mountains, built an English city where Oslo used to be, and then started a soccer team called New London Vikings?
He was also attacked, if I remember right, for not sharing songwriting credit. Some of the musicians on the record (who were credited as instrumentalists) felt that they also deserved songwriting credit. I’m thinking specifically of Los Lobos.
Not really a cultural appropriation issue, I guess. More of a financial issue.
That said, if cultural appropriation becomes something that is just not done in the art world (and I’m mostly thinking of music here), doesn’t the art just come to a grinding halt? We’d be nowhere without a certain amount of cultural appropriation.