Cultural Appropriation

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Periodiko: Jan 30, 2005; Uh.

As a musician I've wondered about this, and how bizarre it can seem when applied in that context. If I really enjoy balinese gamelan music, am I "appropriating" balinese culture by using a Slendro-inspired tuning, or superficially emulating gendhing structure in a western context? A lot of people talk about how "white people stole rock and roll from black people", but where exactly is the sin in that? Is it in the act of being inspired by a neighboring subculture's musical tradition, of which you are a participant? Or is it in the exploitation of original black artists, and the scrubbing of the art form for white consumption? Is there something inherently disrespectful about having a shallow appreciation of another culture? The whole thing seems very divorced from how art is actually created.

There's the lambasting of "superficial" appropriation in art, but so what? Debussy heard a gamelan orchestra at a World's Fair and was inspired to create something that really has nothing to do with Indonesian culture, was he appropriating Indonesian culture in a negative way? If someone hears African polyrhythms in passing and this inspires something, is he disrespecting the culture by not understanding the underlying traditions of that particular African musical culture?

I understand the underlying principal of being respectful to other people's cultures, but the concept of appropriation seems to hinge on some huge generalizations that don't actually seem to be practical or descriptive of reality. It seems to ignore that art, in many cases even with art-forms steeped in tradition and culture, is hugely syncretic and often irrational, unconsidered, or "shallow". It seems to hinge on this really precious understand of culture and cultural artforms that has very little to do with reality. It seems very sanctimonious and conservative, and hostile to natural forms of cross-cultural communication that have historically enhanced understanding.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 18:40

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 05:40

Periodiko: Jan 30, 2005; Uh.

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To answer Gori Girl, my response would be: �You can wear the sari only if you are willing to fully embrace Indian culture, even the parts that you as a white Westerner would normally find offensive or even appalling. But by wearing a sari while having no real links to India, you come across as very superficial.�

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It matters who is doing the appropriating. If a dominant culture fancies some random element (a mode of dress, a manner of speaking, a style of music) of my culture interesting or exotic, but otherwise disdains my being and seeks to marginalize me, it is surely an insult.

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Musicians such as Madonna, Gwen Stefani and Miley Cyrus have all been accused of cultural appropriation. Madonna, for instance, popularized the form of personal expression known as voguing, which began in black and Latino sectors of the gay community.

I don't really see how I'm reacting to an imaginary argument, there seems to be a genuine argument that appropriating from a culture in a "shallow" way is disrespectful and wrong. There clearly exists an interpretation where Madonna did some kind of harm to the black/latino gay community by appropriating voguing, for example.

The problem with white people taking black songs is a problem of racism, and economic exploitation. You don't need a concept of harmful cultural appropriation to describe it. If we're not describing lesser cases of disrespect, then what are we talking about? My problem isn't the idea that you can do any kind of harm at all, it's that mild "shallowness" is itself a form of disrespect, even when talking about non-sacred parts of a culture. The idea that dressing or costuming cross-culturally at all carries with it certain obligations - obligations aside from normal ones like "don't be blatantly racist or xenophobic" - is inherent to that Sari response. I'm just extrapolating that to music.

Periodiko fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Mar 24, 2015

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 19:35

Periodiko: Jan 30, 2005; Uh.

Mandy Thompson posted:

One problem with wearing dreadslocks is that for white people, they are being rebellious, so lots of white people wearing them gets it labeled as rebellious and "unprofessional" and honestly they look terrible on white people so when actual black women wear them because that is how their hair is, they get pointed to a policy that ethnic styles are unprofessional

But this isn't even consistent. If a non-Indian high-profile businesswoman starts wearing Saris and decorating her office with Indian art after a long time spent in India, she's denigrating the culture by her shallowness, or it's a gimmick. I also generally object to the idea that ethnic hairstyles are perceived as unprofessional because white people appropriated them: that seems bizarre to me. They're perceived badly because they're ethnic hairstyles, and the people that made the guidelines have no familiarity with or understanding of ethnic hair.

Surely we're confusing cause and effect - ethnic styles of hair on white people is treated as rebellious because they are ethnic styles of hair from outside the culture. Ethnic hair is not treated as outside the culture because rebellious white people wore them.

paranoid randroid posted:

Well the complaint against Gwen Stefani is, I'd imagine, that she declared herself a Harajuku Girl and hired a brace of Japanese women to follow her around and never speak english. Which admittedly might just be garden variety racism, but the CA angle is something to the effect of "please don't treat other cultures like pokemon to be collected for your own amusement."

I didn't bring up Stefani because I have literally no familiarity with the case, but what about Madonna? It's easy to bring up the cases of blatant racism and say they're wrong, but they're often wrong for other clearer reasons. It's far more interesting to discuss cases like Madonna, or Paul Simon. Or hell, Vampire Weekend's appropriation of Paul Simon's appropriation. How many generations removed does it have to be before it stops being appropriation and starts being authentic culture?

Also Fiji water? What?

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 22:19

Periodiko: Jan 30, 2005; Uh.

Zeitgueist posted:

Turns out that beautiful island water may not be the best company in the world to the beautiful island it comes from.

Relatively small example.

Tea is probably a better example of a drink that was appropriated and then used to oppress.

Surely that's uncontroversial economic exploitation of a poor country? What is the cultural appropriation of Fiji water? Hell, I'm not saying you're wrong, but what is the oppressive cultural appropriation of tea? Yes the British did terrible things to secure tea, and introduced tea-drinking to countries they were subjugating, but I'm not understanding how the sin is in the sudden popularity of tea-drinking rather than the general colonial domination and warring?

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 22:41

Periodiko: Jan 30, 2005; Uh.

-Troika- posted:

Can Western culture be appropriated?

Like an anime where wizards have sex with King Arthur?

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 22:56

Periodiko: Jan 30, 2005; Uh.

Zeitgueist posted:

It's both. I'm giving examples of where cultural appropriation has had real consequences in poor nations around the world with regards to exploitation, to address the lovely idea that we can't talk about CA because oppression happens elsewhere.

Truth is we really don't need to go beyond the US to see examples of appropriation used to profit off of and oppress, look at music.

Okay, but how is Fiji water cultural appropriation?

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