“Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts
from someone else's culture without permission.
This can include unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress,
music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious
symbols, etc. It's most likely to be harmful when the source community
is a minority group
that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object
of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g. sacred objects.”
While this seems like a mouth full to remember, it is crucial to understand the importance of cultural appropriation which has been going on for decades. I must admit that I too once found cultural appropriation to be a good thing, not realizing how detrimental it was and still is to other marginalized cultural groups. With the belief that we live in a post-racial society, it seems appropriate to explore, share, and imitate (or show appreciation to) another group's culture through expressing it ourselves. However, this may not be the case. While we live in a country immersed in several different culture's from around the world, our treatment of those cultural groups is very important. Even in this day and age, many minority groups feel disrespected by Caucasian artists that have used aspects of their culture in order to express their own artistic visions. When thinking about it that way, it almost seems like theft of cultural ideas and practices. With artists such as Miley Cyrus twerking, Gwen Stefani's obsession with Harajuku Japan, and Katy Perry dressing up as a geisha, several minority groups have felt mimicked and insulted by either misrepresentations of their culture, or even worse, white artists receiving credit for an oppressed group of peoples' cultural art forms.
Below is an interesting article that briefly discusses the mentioned artists and the historical significance of cultural appropriation; for example, did you know that rock 'n roll music began in African-American culture and was made popular without credit to the African-Americans that started the trend? Feel free to check out the article post below as well as a few videos that exhibit cultural appropriation at the hands of the dominant white artists that seem to make these disrespectful mockeries and theft of culture popular in the mainstream. Feel free to leave your own opinions, comments, questions, and concerns below.
http://racerelations.about.com/od/understandingrac1/a/WhatIsaStereotype.htm
I like how thoroughly you explained the concept of cultural appropriation. I can't say I've ever been very aware of this, but now that I know what it is I feel like I'm going to see it everywhere. I doubt our society is going to change this behavior anytime soon, though - it has become too mainstream, and that's sad.
ReplyDeleteI like this article but I am just a bit confused about the Madonna video is she appropriating Christianity or fetishizing the black man? Like I said, I like the article but I just wasn't clear on that aspect.
ReplyDeleteThe first example of "eating the other" in the reading was the romanticism of the other. In this video, she has a sexual relationship with him which isn't blatantly made clear. If you pay attention to the scene when the African-American male is arrested, she was with him prior and is seen wiping away some of the smears from her lipstick. They hint at their romantic relationship throughout the video. Also, that aspect of religion is a stereotyped image of the black community as having more over the top religious expression, such as the church choir scene. Black culture is stereotyped in terms of expecting that religion is necessarily a major part of their culture as it was during the period of slavery as well as the Antebellum period (post-slavery). It's understandable to be confused if you don't have a clear understanding of black culture.
DeleteI really liked your example of cultural appropriation here. It's definitely true that these artists use other cultures to inspire their artwork and ideas. I think sometimes they believe they're "honoring" that specific culture by including it in their performances. But no one, besides them, sees it that way.Miley Cyrus is pretty guilty of it, and Katy Perry is too. The videos you provided were really good examples of cultural appropriation and how it is incredibly offensive to other cultures. Interesting post.
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