A liberal's view on cultural appropriation.

[SomeRandom]

The backfiring I'm talking about is that Speedy became an 'eff you border control' hero to Mexican American viewers, that was never intended.
But consider for a moment this:

This is a protagonist good guy character being portrayed using not just simplified cartoon signifiers but outright propagandic depiction. Whether or not it was intentional. Good intentions and all that.

I agree that nuance matters, I love nuance. There's a lot of interesting history surrounding many a problematic subject worth discussing.

From the 50s that hardly surprises me. A bit shirt collar tug worthy with hindsight to be sure.
This is again, effectively shorthand. In the movie (and play, and book and whatever the hell else Pan pops up in) the whole idea is that it’s supposed to take shape of a child’s imagination. During the 50s, with all the propaganda a child would be exposed to, all the media a child would take their cues from, this depiction is practically inevitable. Not acceptable today of course. At the time, an example of how the media influences even other media.

 

[Estro Felino]

I think we all have sensitivities and a strong cultural identity that makes us see certain things as inappropriate.

For example the way Italo-Americans keep their Italian hetitage as a badge and brag about it...even if they ignore what Italianness is, which is more than just DNA...it is something stronger than that.

Most of them can't even say hi in Italian...some of them still recall some dialectal expression and use it as if it were Italian...
This takes place in films where stereotypes about us are the rule.

It seems that liberals get angry only when non-whites are stereotyped...this is just an impression.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Ok so we are talking about indigenous Americans here, but what is the background to that picture that makes you claim she is stereotyping? I honestly don’t know much about the range of different cultures that made up Native American peoples, but I do know that some who live in the Amazon wear less than that, so unless she is somehow claiming that is what they all look like i’m not really seeing the stereotype, but perhaps that is just my ignorance of the range of cultures?

The answer to this question is complicated and I'm typing on my phone tonight. If you want to hear from them why native Americans really don't like costumes such as this, here is a decent place to start.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

I think we all have sensitivities and a strong cultural identity that makes us see certain things as inappropriate.

For example the way Italo-Americans keep their Italian hetitage as a badge and brag about it...even if they ignore what Italianness is, which is more than just DNA...it is something stronger than that.

Most of them cant even say hi in Italian...some of them still recall some dialectal expression and use it as if it were Italian...
This takes place in films where stereotypes about us are the rule.

It seems that liberals get angry only when non-whites are stereotyped...this is just an impression.

Italians and Americans are not cultures who historically broadly exploited or was exploited by each other, which is why liberals also don't generally care if, for example, Mexican Americans appropriate some African American culture.

But if you want an example of long term effects of propagandic stereotyping of a white ethnic group (though they were not considered white at the time by white supremacists) you only have to look at Irish history. From Celts to Irish Catholics.

 

[Estro Felino]

Italians and Americans are not cultures who historically broadly exploited or was exploited by each other, which is why liberals also don't generally care if, for example, Mexican Americans appropriate some African American culture.

But if you want an example of long term effects of propagandic stereotyping of a white ethnic group (though they were not considered white at the time by white supremacists) you only have to look at Irish history. From Celts to Irish Catholics.

Yeah...I meant Irish too..
Why do you think our flags are so similar?

 

[LuisDantas]

I think we all have sensitivities and a strong cultural identity that makes us see certain things as inappropriate.

I don't think that I quite agree with you about the existence of a strong cultural identity.

As a Brazilian, I am all too aware that cultural identity, resilient a construct as it is, is not a given. Ours are literally all over the place, and tend to resemble something found accidentally in some dark, forgotten corner of a scrap yard.

People often try very hard indeed to have, build, or pretend to have a clear, "name-worthy" cultural identity, if only out of self steem issues. But my sincere impression is that cultural identity is actually a very fragile construct, and that we all are better off for that. It just happens that many people crave it anyway and go out of their way to try to recreate the darn thing time and again.

Brazil is a perfect opportunity to find out how arbitrary the whole notion is. We are so very mongrel-like in so many ways! And often that much better for it, although regrettably few people realize or accept that. It opens the way for honest decisions about what to value and pursue.

 

[Milton Platt]

It's not a bad thing. That's what the thread was about.
What's bad is not cultural dissemination, but cultural stereotyping in ways that hurt minorities. Or using the adoption of culture in a way that takes advantage of the minority. Such as working at oversimplified and twisted 'tiki luau' for wealthy non-natives the only way many polynesian get to experience their culture. Because the tourism industry has made it too expensive to live as they had within their own home.

Things like that cause deleterious effects on the minority culture.

so it is more about marginalization of minorities,then.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

so it is more about marginalization of minorities,then.

A negative or deleterious example of cultural appropriation, yes.

 

[Milton Platt]

A negative or deleterious example of cultural appropriation, yes.

Okay...I get it, thanks for the explanation.

 

[danieldemol]

The answer to this question is complicated and I'm typing on my phone tonight. If you want to hear from them why native Americans really don't like costumes such as this, here is a decent place to start.

It came across as an informative albeit conservative opinion.
I would be interested to hear the views of liberal native Americans too.

Basically the article complains about dehumanising native Americans, and while I can see how being used as a team mascot is not flattering, or how labelling a costume “Tribal Trouble” is dehumanising, but I think that considering a sexy person as less than human is a conservative issue, and we should challenge that as a normal view even if it comes from Indians.

I also note that blasphemy was invoked, “So it’s a slap in the face to see our once-forbidden customs and sacred elements cherry-picked and modified for mainstream entertainment.” is objecting to blasphemy, if you wouldn’t hear the blasphemy case against a topless woman wearing a cross, neither should you accept the blasphemy case from a conservative Indian woman objecting to her sacred items being used in a sexual context.

The main thing which I think is of interest in the article is that, “Statistics say about 86% of these assaults are committed by non-Native men. While part of this is due to non-Native men preying upon Native women because they’re unlikely to be prosecuted because of tribal sovereignty policies and jurisdiction laws, how we’re viewed is also a factor. The over-sexualization of Native women objectifies us. When we are fetishized and exotified to the point that we lose our humanity, violence ensues.”

I would be interested to know why you felt that the sexual imagery you posted was dehumanising to native women, and not also to the woman wearing it.

That is to say, are we arguing that sexual imagery is dehumanising in general?

Personally I feel that if sexual imagery is dehumanising we should be encouraging women to cover up for their own sakes (which is something I as a liberal disagree with). Shouldn’t we just be changing the conservative attitude that sexual=nonhuman? Could this 86% of assaulters hold the conservative view that sexual=nonhuman?

 

[Estro Felino]

As a Italian, can I dance the belly dance or is it cultural appropriation? In Italy we have the best schools of this dance.
Which is paradoxical...since salafism has imposed strict codes on women in the Middle East....so someone has to preserve this art.

 

[Augustus]

If it would be disrespectful for a white person to wear dreadlocks as a fashion statement and they had a child with a black person, can the child have dreadlocks? If that child then marries and has children with a white person, could they have dreadlocks? And if they had children with a white person?
At what point are you not considered "black enough" to have dreadlocks?

This is actually a good example of the problems of claiming cultural "ownership" of something.

Dreadlocks have been worn by people from all kinds of cultures historically, including "white" people. For example, some ancient Greeks wore dreadlocks 2000 years ago. A lot of claims of "appropriation" are based on a very myopic view of history.

Even things that today are strongly associated with one particular culture, may have initially been "appropriated" from someone else.

Also claims of "ownership" are often based on very modern units of identity, be they national or racial, that don't map on well to cultural history.

 

[Augustus]

Outside of the blatantly disrespectful aspects most people agree are unacceptable, much of "cultural appropriation" is basically rebranded hipersterism

Hipsters like having unique things that set them apart from others and build up their sense of self, and thus hate when these become popularised as they can no longer be used as a marker of identity.

This is the reason why minorities in America are far more sensitive regarding "appropriation" of "their" markers of identity, than the people in the places where these things originate. In their places or origin they aren't hipsterish markers of differentiation.

 

[Enoch07]

I'm going to respond to this part because the rest is the same sort of oversensitive reactionary that tells me you only skimmed what I wrote.

I read every word, and it was all made up BS. You are creating problems that don't exist. It is your own oversensitivy that creates these problems. Now you're projecting that on to me.

And I find it quite amusing that Speedy became a 'eff you border control' hero to Mexicans and Mexican Americans, even when that was never intended.

Complete horsep00p.

He was always a hero. This was intended from the start. And he wasn't just intended as a hero for any specific people. He was intended as a hero for everyone. When will people realize your ideology is whats racist, instead of everyone else being racist.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

I read every word, and it was all made up BS. You are creating problems that don't exist. It is your own oversensitivy that creates these problems. Now you're projecting that on to me.



Complete horsep00p.

He was always a hero. This was intended from the start. And he wasn't just intended as a hero for any specific people. He was intended as a hero for everyone. When will people realize your ideology is whats racist, instead of everyone else being racist.

*eyeroll* What problems am I creating exactly? I neither was the person who argued against speedy (which was a hispanic woman) nor the people who call it a border control hero (also Hispanic people.) That you don't like their conclusions is really not my problem, but you are 100% the one being oversensitive here.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

That is to say, are we arguing that sexual imagery is dehumanising in general?

Nope. It clearly isn't saying that, so much as the emphasis on oversexualization of 'exotic' women has caused problems. Turning their race and identity into a sexual fetish.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Outside of the blatantly disrespectful aspects most people agree are unacceptable, much of "cultural appropriation" is basically rebranded hipersterism

Hipsters like having unique things that set them apart from others and build up their sense of self, and thus hate when these become popularised as they can no longer be used as a marker of identity.

This is the reason why minorities in America are far more sensitive regarding "appropriation" of "their" markers of identity, than the people in the places where these things originate. In their places or origin they aren't hipsterish markers of differentiation.

I agree that people who are already within a community with a shared identity will have an easier time being comfortable within that identity than individuals outside of it. You see this in religious identity in large groups vs individual non-denominationals too. But I wouldn't call it hipsterism, which rejects group identities as mainstream and promote 'individual free thinking'. Hence why appropriating bits and pieces of new age versions of existing culture is never a problem for them. (It isn't with me, either, btw.)

Where it becomes complicated is how does this work with Native American tribes, where the place of ownership is here? The 'culture not costume' message is clearly not one everyone agrees upon.

 

[Enoch07]

*eyeroll* What problems am I creating exactly?

False accusations.

I neither was the person who argued against speedy (which was a hispanic woman) nor the people who call it a border control hero (also Hispanic people.)

It was your ideology that falsely claimed he was created to belittle and poke fun of the Hispanics.

That you don't like their conclusions is really not my problem, but you are 100% the one being oversensitive here.

What conclusions? The false conclusions based on the false premise of Speedy being intended to mock hispanics? What am I being oversensitive about? I don't have a dog in this fight. If people want to use Speedy as a hero then so be it! That was his intended role to begin with!

 

[ADigitalArtist]

It was your ideology that falsely claimed he was created to belittle and poke fun of the Hispanics.

Then I implore you to actually look at the history of the time, and how that Anglophone stereotype of Hispanics was used in media and what it was leading to.
Don't take my word for it, or your reactionary need to defend the creators.

 

[Enoch07]

Then I implore you to actually look at the history of the time, and how that Anglophone stereotype of Hispanics was used in media and what it was leading to.
Don't take my word for it, or your reactionary need to defend the creators.

It lead to nothing. Other than some oversensitive millenials who took a social justice class in college and now think everything is racist/sexist/homophobic/etc