Yesterday I read about a kerfuffle. Jamie Oliver (whose name is only vaguely familiar to me) is getting some pushback from West Africans about his rendention of jollof rice.
On one hand, I don’t get it. OK, so his recipe departs significantly from the traditional formula. But it’s just food, for chrissake. And food is meant to be experimented with and blended with other traditions.
But on the (bigger) hand, I totally get it. Most Westerners don’t know what jollof rice is. (I only have a vague understanding because I’m of a casual fan of Nigerian literature). If their only exposure to this dish is through Jamie Oliver, then they aren’t getting an accurate depiction of what the authentic, traditional dish really is. It would be like someone bringing Pizza Hut to an isolated community and passing it off Italian cuisine. And then profiting from the false cache.
Would it be cultural appropriation for a West African chef to take an American dish (let’s say, country fried steak and mashed potatoes) and add an African flare? I don’t think so. American cuisine is pretty ubiquitous and mass-marketed. There’s probaby just a handful of countries where there isn’t a KFC. It’s not in danger of being extinguished anytime soon. But if you’re from a culture that isn’t widely known or valued, you’re going to be very protective of your cultural treasures. A jollof rice suited for Western taste buds symbolizes a dominant culture swallowing up a minority culture. Sure, cultures change. But no one really wants to see everything about their culture change right before their eyes.
Ah yes, made with traditional West African tomatoes! A plant which has always grown in African and was never appropriated from anywhere. :rolleyes: For that matter, I’m sure the rice was domesticated there and certainly not “appropriated” from China.
The traditional jollof rice recipe itself was not invented from thin air. It had culinary predecessors and influences, not to mention foreign ingredients. So who appropriated what?
Apparently, “appropriation” is cool so long as it always happens in the past and no one has to see it in progress?
I would have thought it was fine, but as I noted in my OP, Paul Simon caught a ration of shit for his Graceland album. In other words, some people thought it was wrong that he was making ethnic music - so I would assume there’s some people out there (not me) who think it’s wrong to listen to ethnic music (i.e. music not of your own culture).
I was thinking about it more along the lines of not being cultural appropriation, because they’d be every bit as irritated with an Indian person dressed as Kali as with Heidi Klum. It didn’t have anything to do at all with Heidi Klum being a white German woman.
From what I read, it sounds like the Africans are new to the food party, and being absurdly dogmatic about what goes in their dishes; they’re getting wound up over what amounts to minutiae like whether the dish uses tomato puree or cherry tomatoes, or whether cilantro or parsley or lemon can be in it.
Recipes migrate and change with new ingredients and new views; you don’t see French people getting all bent out of shape because their cuisine migrated to Louisiana and became something different. You don’t see Belgians getting their panties in a wad because people make different kinds of frites, or worse, call them French fries. You don’t see the British pitching a fit because other people fry fish and potatoes and call it fish and chips. And you don’t see us Americans getting bent out of shape at the various hamburgers (and hamburger-oid) made and served elsewhere in the world. Mexicans don’t get bent out of shape at Tex-Mex, etc…
All of us may point out that the other renditions may not be quite authentic, but it’s not worth the level of anger that the article refers to. They need to suck it up and deal though; it’s food, not sacking of their temples or hauling their children off to be Janissaries, and in the 21st century, someone’s going to riff off their traditional cuisine whether they like it or not.
Ah, I see your point. Still, that could be construed as a… subcultural appropriation? Of devout Hindus, by an other-religious, atheist, or irreverent Indian? Cultures are more than ethnicity, after all.
I think 99% of the time it is harmless, but offense can be taken when people take it really far and try to pass themselves off as some sort of noble king or guru of another culture.
I can see some Westerners rolling their eyes if a foreigner pretended to be (depending on your preference) the Pope, a British Royal, a decorated American military man or something similar.
I thought the shitload Simon caught wasn’t cultural appropriation, but crossing an anti-apartheid barricade. If Ladysmith Black Mambazo were in exile in London when Simon came to work with them, this wouldn’t have been a problem.
I just looked up the photos of the woman dressed as Kali…and didn’t see anything disrespectful. She looks almost exactly like real religious artistic depictions of Kali. She was, if anything, more dignified – she didn’t have her tongue lolling out or her eyes rolling.
I’ve seen people do Jesus Christ for Halloween; usually it’s at least neutral, neither respectful nor disrespectful. Even with the addition of a cross, it’s no more than an historical reproduction.
It beats the hell out of burnt-cork blackface minstrel costumes…which, to my amazement, I still see now and then.
Well, it isn’t so much the listening as the producing that’s being objected to.
But, even so, yes, there is an asymmetry, noted above, having to do with “punching down.” Since the native Australians were so brutally treated by the Anglo newcomers, it can be seen as more offensive for an Anglo to borrow Aboriginal art, music, costume, etc. At least, that’s the notion many people hold.
Quite possibly, some Aborigine leaders would object to one of their people studying Monet. “Why are you allowing the culture of the invaders to displace your native artistic viewing?”
Ideally, everyone should be free to participate in whatever they like. There was a story about a little girl of Chinese ethnic origin, adopted by U.S. parents…who was really into Irish folk dancing. She got good enough to participate at competition level. At first, some people objected…but pretty much got over it, when it was clear she was serious (and good!)
As “bland” as Boone’s recordings were, they did a lot to make rock music more accepted. His contributions to the growth of rock music have been acknowledged by a lot of people:
I think bump had the right of it: it’s nothing about the details of the costume, or the wearer, that makes it disrespectful; it’s the fact of it being a play-time costume at all. The Hindu gods (whether taken literally or metaphorically) are not for that. Unquestionably many Christians feel the same about Jesus, regardless how ‘authentic’ a rendition it might be. (Dressing as a religious figure might be appropriate and respectful in some contexts, where religion or historical reproduction is the actual object, but not just for Halloween or a party.)
And this approaches what I find the crux of the issue. I believe, as a human of planet Earth, that all of human culture everywhere is potentially part of the tapestry of my heritage… if I embrace it.
That doesn’t mean I can do anything I want with it because I think it looks cool, or whatever. That means I am as entitled as anyone to try to understand what it actually is and means, and that if I find that it works for me, I can take it into myself and use it in my life, and even contribute to the extension of that culture. I think Geek Mecha spoke along these lines: the key is whether the signs and artifacts are being used to participate, in some fashion or degree, in the culture. Then it’s not so much an appropriation–a taking–as a joining.
It seems to me that Paul Simon and Kurosawa and the Irish-dancing girl and the klezmer band did this, in various ways. I suspect Katy Perry and Heidi Klum did not.
I guess I’m just a westernized libertine. I feel it’s all “public domain” and I can name a beer after it, airbrush it on my garden shed, market it on a bumper sticker, whatever. It’s the common heritage of all mankind, without ideological limitations.
I won’t say my view is right. But, this is the IMHO forum and that’s mine.
(No one should be a jerk, of course… But even being a jerk is a guaranteed liberty in a free society. The alternative would be variations on “politically correct” censorship. Or, I guess, free-market boycotts, which are fine. If some jasper markets “Kali Beer,” “good enough to die for; good enough to kill for,” that would be a bit jerkish, and a lot of people would refuse to buy it. Me, I’d buy a bottle to keep as a souvenir.)
Work is work; you do what they ask and dress in the uniform. Home is Home.
For Example, if my kid wants to Trick or Treat as Death and someone says we are co-opting it? Prove it. Go ahead & Effing Die. I’ll wait.
Me? If I want to follow my kid around to keep him safe from the sidewalk, that’s my right. And if I dress up in something from Marvel, You Better Be Stan-F-cking-Lee to say I’m co-opting anything (and your shoes better be 2 inches from my boots At Best).