Cultural Appropriation — advanced seminar for extra credit.

[catsidhe]

Definition: It is Cultural Appropriation when one culture takes characters and stories from another culture and

1. use them ignorantly and insultingly in different contexts, or
2. retell those stories, in such a way as to ignore, negate, or even reverse the understanding of their meaning

This is made even more insulting when the appropriating culture (or representative; i.e., the author) turns around and lectures the original culture that that culture had it wrong all along, and the reinterpretation is, in fact, the correct and authoritative version. Or that the appropriation was done without knowledge of any any adverse interpretation, and therefore as an act without deliberate insult, it is therefore not insulting, just shut up and stop whingeing about it, if it's not important to me then it shouldn't be important to you, can't you see your accusations of insensitivity are hurtful to me?

Thesis: most classic Western movies are examples of Cultural Appropriation, in that they take the very concept of the Native American and contextualise them as The Other, barbarians and natural forces to be survived, conquered or annihilated; individually interchangeable.

Thesis: the Disney film Pocahontas is an example of Cultural Appropriation. (White Anglo America telling Native Americans about the history of early English/Native American Interaction, and the Native American rôle in it.)

Thesis: the Disney film The Little Mermaid is an example of Cultural Appropriation. (Taking a Danish fairy story, removing it from context, and then giving it a happy ending and sequels, which negating the point and moral of the original story.)

Thesis: the Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame is an example of Cultural Appropriation. (Taking a classic French novel of romance and tragedy, and giving it not only comic relief, but a happy ending (!) and sequels (!!), implicitly telling lovers of the Hugo original, ‘it's OK, but it could be better if we just change the ending completely and undo most of the tragedy, and add talking gargoyles clowns.’)



Discuss.

Comments

[lindsay40k.livejournal.com]

I think it's an example of what Marx was talking about when he spoke of Darwinism in capitalism. It's not so much that the scriptwriters are consciously and deliberately following the old tradition of making sure any given story or report on historical finds amounts to blatant white-man's-burden propaganda with the unsubtle message that the western nuclear family unit is the benchmark by which all other cultures must be judged; it's that west-centrism and emotional dumbing down acts as a lowest common denominator of storytelling, with the Disney happy ending being where the biggest bucks are to be found.

Of course, this is not to overlook how this situation can be self-perpetuating; when children grow up surrounded by media such as this, with the most moving story they see being when a Pokémon is written out for good, it's unsurprising to see them go on to prefer similarly anaesthetised stuff for themselves and their children. In addition to my above example, the old Astro Boy series having the final episode cut for US broadcasting because it dealt with death comes to mind.

So, it's not a case of a few (or many) bad apples doing this, but rather it's an entire socio-economic system which gives rise to mass media acting as propagandist and censor to ensure that whichever layer of society throws the most money at it never has its preconceptions challenged or has to think of another point of view.

I suppose a related issue is the commercialisation of anti-capitalism; the classic example being the Che t-shirt, although more recently red stars and Soviet memorabilia seem to be getting popular in the 'alternative' markets (you know, the ones where being punk is defined by wearing pre-cut jeans that come fitted with safety pins that don't actually open). Again, conscious and deliberate attempt to undermine something, or simply the way capitalism automatically behaves?