FEAR! REPORT!! OBEY!!!

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Originally uploaded by catsidhe

I see they're playing these again.



Plus ça change, plus ç'est la même chose. Hail Eris.

Cultural Appropriation — advanced seminar for extra credit.

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.