Cultural appropriation
Jun. 2nd, 2006 02:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhThere's a whole thing going on about cultural appropriation; I had no idea until a little while ago, but I've been following links fascinatedly, and I have some thinky thoughts. (I think the best roundup of links at the moment is here, if you'd like to read too.)
I guess I should say that I like cultural appropriation (I'm using this term in the neutral sense; at first I was going to change this line to say 'cultural borrowing' instead, but I don't know if it's fair to play language games like that: what I like is good, what they do is bad). I get annoyed at books populated entirely with white, American, Christian characters; I love bad pulp fantasy, but I am so very sick of every single one being set in generic Europe.
However. Is appropriation problematic? Hell, yes.
The dominant culture- which here and now happens to be mainstream America- has power. And not just political or economic power, but the power of being known. You can go anywhere in the world and find American music, movies, and celebrities. The ability to be recognized is itself power: you don't need any explanations, you can just be. How frustrating would it be to have to explain why you celebrate on July 4th, and what do fireworks have to do the signing of a document anyway? And yet last month, I heard several people ask what the point of Cinco de Mayo was, and isn't it funny that we celebrate by getting drunk. Those silly Mexicans, they make no sense.
If a Japanese manga portrays an American as a loud, gun-carrying maniac, it's cultural appropriation of an entirely different sort than an American movie that portrays a Japanese person as, I don't know, an extremely polite, nerdy accountant. The difference is that no matter how many manga repeat the stereotype, it will always be countered by American portrayals of themselves; American pop culture is so ubiquitous that there's no way for any appropriation to become dominant over the original. However, it is possible for there to be enough American movies with mystical zen fighting monks for some of the audience to accept that appropriation as reality. For people with no experience of Japan, the appropriation becomes not a borrowing, but the truth, an accurate portrayal.
And so appropriation is always problematic because no portrayal is accurate. It's just not possible. Even if there was a writer who was so amazingly talented that s/he could convey the entire experience of Japanese culture (because Japan is apparently the metaphor I'm going with here), the question becomes "whose Japanese culture?" A businessman's? A housewife's? A teenager's? The culture in Tokyo? In a rural village? Now? Five years ago, when s/he was doing the research? Five years from now? There's just no way to convey all of that, and so appropriation has to fail.
Which is why appropriation by a dominant culture raises far more questions than appropriation from one. When you borrow from a dominant culture, you are one of many. There are a million generic medieval European fantasies out there; if you write one more, it's probably not going to do much to change anyone's mental picture of medieval Europe, no matter how wrong you might get the facts. But if you decide to set it in medieval India (like the godawful fantasy I read last fall; I think the author's sole knowledge of India came from an out-of-date children's textbook lesson on castes), it's going to weigh heavier in your readers' minds simply because most of them (assuming, of course, that you write it in English and publish in America) will have less experience with the topic. The less well-known the culture you borrow from is, the easier it is for any mistakes, stereotypes or problems to be accepted by your readers as accurate. It becomes possible for the dominant image of a culture to be not the culture itself, but the appropriation of it. When the authors have done a bad job with the appropriation- if they've been disrespectful or inaccurate- it's worse, but any time an appropriation becomes more well-known than the original culture, people are going to be angry, and for good reasons. For instance: how many people have a knowledge of Native American religion based solely on how it's portrayed in fantasy novels?
That'd piss me off if I were Native American. But I don't think the solution is to only write about your own culture (not that I've actually seen a lot of people arguing this point. It seems to be something many people are reacting against, but I remember only one example of someone even coming close to saying it). Just because we can't do something perfectly right doesn't mean we shouldn't try; if that were the case, no one would ever do anything.
Maybe it would be better if there were, instead, lots of appropriation going on. If there's only one book in existence using sub-Saharan myths, there are going to be things that book gets wrong. It's inevitable. If there's 500 books on the topic (assuming that the authors are coming from many backgrounds rather than only the dominant culture, and assuming that each author is doing research rather than copying each other, which may be unrealistic assumptions), the picture has got to get broader and more accurate. Also, if using elements of other cultures became more common, it might be harder to fetish the Other as something exotic and weird.
I took a writing class a few months ago. I happened to be one of the last to turn in my manuscript for critque, and so got to read nearly everyone else's before writing mine (because I didn't write mine until the night before it was due, of course). I got so annoyed with every single person writing about a white, middle class, suburban character who was living in Ohio that I deliberately wrote about an exteremly poor Middle Eastern character and set it in an unnamed location, but which was clearly not Ohio. And nearly every single one of the comments I got back wanted to know- how does this character feel about her race? Why didn't you talk more about her race? I want to know how her race affects the way she feels about this other character. I was furious. Because this was not a story about race. I mean, obviously, the details were different than if the character had been white, or black, or Asian, but at its base, it was a romance story. And the feeling I got from everyone else was- well, the only point of having a character of another race is so you can talk about that race. Why bother otherwise?
There are issues raised by the fact that I, as a white person, was writing a character of another race. There are lots of issues there. But there are also issues raised by the assumption that American culture is the only 'real' or 'appropriate' culture from which to write, and anything else is just exoticization. That's prioritizing American culture in a way which isn't fair. But writing other cultures as fun trappings without regards to the reality of the culture, or to the possible consequences of your writing, is also not fair.
So. Um. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say with all this, really, except that I still find the topic fascinating.
I guess I should say that I like cultural appropriation (I'm using this term in the neutral sense; at first I was going to change this line to say 'cultural borrowing' instead, but I don't know if it's fair to play language games like that: what I like is good, what they do is bad). I get annoyed at books populated entirely with white, American, Christian characters; I love bad pulp fantasy, but I am so very sick of every single one being set in generic Europe.
However. Is appropriation problematic? Hell, yes.
The dominant culture- which here and now happens to be mainstream America- has power. And not just political or economic power, but the power of being known. You can go anywhere in the world and find American music, movies, and celebrities. The ability to be recognized is itself power: you don't need any explanations, you can just be. How frustrating would it be to have to explain why you celebrate on July 4th, and what do fireworks have to do the signing of a document anyway? And yet last month, I heard several people ask what the point of Cinco de Mayo was, and isn't it funny that we celebrate by getting drunk. Those silly Mexicans, they make no sense.
If a Japanese manga portrays an American as a loud, gun-carrying maniac, it's cultural appropriation of an entirely different sort than an American movie that portrays a Japanese person as, I don't know, an extremely polite, nerdy accountant. The difference is that no matter how many manga repeat the stereotype, it will always be countered by American portrayals of themselves; American pop culture is so ubiquitous that there's no way for any appropriation to become dominant over the original. However, it is possible for there to be enough American movies with mystical zen fighting monks for some of the audience to accept that appropriation as reality. For people with no experience of Japan, the appropriation becomes not a borrowing, but the truth, an accurate portrayal.
And so appropriation is always problematic because no portrayal is accurate. It's just not possible. Even if there was a writer who was so amazingly talented that s/he could convey the entire experience of Japanese culture (because Japan is apparently the metaphor I'm going with here), the question becomes "whose Japanese culture?" A businessman's? A housewife's? A teenager's? The culture in Tokyo? In a rural village? Now? Five years ago, when s/he was doing the research? Five years from now? There's just no way to convey all of that, and so appropriation has to fail.
Which is why appropriation by a dominant culture raises far more questions than appropriation from one. When you borrow from a dominant culture, you are one of many. There are a million generic medieval European fantasies out there; if you write one more, it's probably not going to do much to change anyone's mental picture of medieval Europe, no matter how wrong you might get the facts. But if you decide to set it in medieval India (like the godawful fantasy I read last fall; I think the author's sole knowledge of India came from an out-of-date children's textbook lesson on castes), it's going to weigh heavier in your readers' minds simply because most of them (assuming, of course, that you write it in English and publish in America) will have less experience with the topic. The less well-known the culture you borrow from is, the easier it is for any mistakes, stereotypes or problems to be accepted by your readers as accurate. It becomes possible for the dominant image of a culture to be not the culture itself, but the appropriation of it. When the authors have done a bad job with the appropriation- if they've been disrespectful or inaccurate- it's worse, but any time an appropriation becomes more well-known than the original culture, people are going to be angry, and for good reasons. For instance: how many people have a knowledge of Native American religion based solely on how it's portrayed in fantasy novels?
That'd piss me off if I were Native American. But I don't think the solution is to only write about your own culture (not that I've actually seen a lot of people arguing this point. It seems to be something many people are reacting against, but I remember only one example of someone even coming close to saying it). Just because we can't do something perfectly right doesn't mean we shouldn't try; if that were the case, no one would ever do anything.
Maybe it would be better if there were, instead, lots of appropriation going on. If there's only one book in existence using sub-Saharan myths, there are going to be things that book gets wrong. It's inevitable. If there's 500 books on the topic (assuming that the authors are coming from many backgrounds rather than only the dominant culture, and assuming that each author is doing research rather than copying each other, which may be unrealistic assumptions), the picture has got to get broader and more accurate. Also, if using elements of other cultures became more common, it might be harder to fetish the Other as something exotic and weird.
I took a writing class a few months ago. I happened to be one of the last to turn in my manuscript for critque, and so got to read nearly everyone else's before writing mine (because I didn't write mine until the night before it was due, of course). I got so annoyed with every single person writing about a white, middle class, suburban character who was living in Ohio that I deliberately wrote about an exteremly poor Middle Eastern character and set it in an unnamed location, but which was clearly not Ohio. And nearly every single one of the comments I got back wanted to know- how does this character feel about her race? Why didn't you talk more about her race? I want to know how her race affects the way she feels about this other character. I was furious. Because this was not a story about race. I mean, obviously, the details were different than if the character had been white, or black, or Asian, but at its base, it was a romance story. And the feeling I got from everyone else was- well, the only point of having a character of another race is so you can talk about that race. Why bother otherwise?
There are issues raised by the fact that I, as a white person, was writing a character of another race. There are lots of issues there. But there are also issues raised by the assumption that American culture is the only 'real' or 'appropriate' culture from which to write, and anything else is just exoticization. That's prioritizing American culture in a way which isn't fair. But writing other cultures as fun trappings without regards to the reality of the culture, or to the possible consequences of your writing, is also not fair.
So. Um. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say with all this, really, except that I still find the topic fascinating.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 07:22 am (UTC)*snork* Great, I seem to be self-appointed Cultural Appropriation Marvel Girl now.
But I am glad people are posting on it, and thank you for pointing out the power differentials and explaining! The funny thing is, I am of the same mind as you. I think more people writing about more cultures is a good thing, even if I bitch about individual examples.
The thing that bugs me is that on the panel I went to, people who were for writing on other cultures didn't take enough note of the problems inherent in the act and simply seemed to be saying that they could do it. (obviously, they can! Since there is no cultural appropriation police! But I wanted more problematizing!)
And what I really meant to say was, do you mind if I link to this?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 02:47 pm (UTC)I wasn't at the panel, obviously, but the thing that bugged me most when reading about it was the idea that you could ask permission and then it would be okay. WTF? Ask permission from who? And how many? If you get ten signatures approving it, but then ten different people protest your book, do they cancel each other out? And the idea of paying someone to make it okay... wow, there are so many problems with that.
And what I really meant to say was, do you mind if I link to this?
Oh, yes! Posts in my journal are always linkable. (And secretly, I'm glad you liked it; I know some people are upset over some of the reactions, and I worried that I'd go off and say something stupid myself.)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 08:47 am (UTC)the only point of having a character of another race is so you can talk about that race. Why bother otherwise?
That's exactly how I feel the world sees having gay and lesbian characters in books. I don't want to read books, particularly, that are about the Issues of Being Gay. I want to read books that have lesbian or gay characters doing all the things straight characters do - falling in love, fighting, living together, living apart, perhaps being totally not involved with anyone but noticing their own gender when they're out and about... but for most people, it seems, there's no "point" in putting in a gay character unless it's to talk about being gay. >_
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 03:09 pm (UTC)If I'm writing a book where my protagonist is race A and everyone they interact with is race B, then I should mention how they feel about their race, and whether it's a problem, because they're different from everyone else, and being different is usually relevant. Otherwise why make one character a different race?
On the other hand, if all the characters are race A and the author is race B, then the race of the characters isn't relevant. Or if all of the characters are of different races, and the world is very diverse, probably no one cares, so you don't need to make a big deal about how the protagonist Feels About Their Race.
Similarily, if my gay character lives in a world where it isn't acceptable to be gay, I want to mention how people react to them being gay and how they feel about how people react, and how they feel about it. It doesn't have to be the focus of the story, but if the character's sexual orientation is at all relevant to the story, these things should be mentioned at least in passing.
If my gay character is from a world where bisexuality is the norm, I probably don't need to mention how they feel about being gay, unless people think they're weird for not liking members of the opposite sex as well.
Does that make sense? It's not that having a character of another race or sexual orientation means you need to talk about race or sexual orientation; it's that if their race or sexual orientation in their world is important, you should talk about how.
If I was writing a story about telling my parents I had a girlfriend and how their reaction was pretty much, "okay, so what is she like?"
If I was writing fiction, if I don't say any more than that, people will assume that this is a standard reaction parents have to finding out their daughters have girlfriends in the world where my story takes place. If I want to convey the impression that this isn't the standard reaction, because other people's parents flip out to varying degrees, I mention that this was the reaction I expected from my parents, and that they're kind of weird and liberal and openminded. Because that's part of the story behind their reaction.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 06:11 pm (UTC)The problem I have with the idea that the culture of the character has to be the focus (and maybe
Did that make sense?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 07:11 pm (UTC)And one of the main female characters leaves the city and meets a male character, and they have a relationship -- and the women from the city think it's kind of gross, and the main female character in the opposite sex relationship has to get past cultural standards that say men are icky. Yay for mainstream things being non-mainstream in fiction.
Er, anyway, yeah, you make sense, and I agree. ^_^ Having the whole of a person's characterization being based on one particular thing makes for less interesting and well rounded characters. (Unless you're purposely writing archetypal characters. But that's different.)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 04:04 am (UTC)On the other hand, if all the characters are race A and the author is race B, then the race of the characters isn't relevant.
Here's why I disagree:
http://kynn.com/next/2009/01/18/bone-white-blood-red-is-dead/
no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 06:17 pm (UTC)Other people are talking about Euro-american or white culture, if it makes you feel better; I just focused on America because it's easier for me to talk about.
But I do think that it's not a simple equation: it's not 'American is completely dominant and no one else has any power'. It's really a continuum. American has more recognition power than England, but England has more Egypt, which has more than the Maori. And the order can change depending on the context; if I write about the Japanese, that's cultural appropriation by a dominant culture, but for a Japanese author in Japan, they are the dominant culture, though a story about the Ainu might be a similar sort of appropriation.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 11:51 am (UTC)I feel obliged in some way to identify with them, only I never do, being a person not a stereotype.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 11:39 am (UTC)Not being american and not being from a prominent European country, I don't feel much appropriation of other cultures in the cultural material we produce, maybe because of the power issue you talked about. Of course, there is always stereotype, there are always authors that don't bother to do research, who prefer the easy way out, who use 'foreign culture' characters just for the comic relief. To be truthful to a culture that is not yours is hard, even more if you're not very familiar with it - stereotype is the most natural response to that.
The thing is, as you said, the white american culture has power, world-wide power. Because of that, a thing that probably wouldn't reach beyond national level if it was turkish, is going to be known throughout the world if its american.
And that carries a huge amount of responsability. Not only will other cultures start to adopt the american-made appropriations, they will know how the americans see their own culture. And that, as you also said, leads to resentment, because not only you see a inaccurate (and sometimes disrespectful) image of your culture, you know that it will be advertised all over the world and taken for the truth.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 06:41 pm (UTC)you know that it will be advertised all over the world and taken for the truth.
Yeah, this is a really good point. I think this is why the dominant culture has power just because it's better known. For example, no matter how many refrigerator magnets and t-shirts and bumper stickers have cheap, exploitative images of Jesus on them, every single person who sees one is going to recognize it as Jesus, an important religious figure, 2,000 years of Christian history, etc. People can rip off the image as Jesus as much as they want, but the original idea is so famous and has so much power that it outweighs all the appropriations of it.
But on the other hand, when people start selling the images of the Easter Island heads on t-shirts and coffemugs, there's not as much cultural power behind the idea. So the appropriation, like you said, gets more advertised than the reality, and so taken as the truth.
So yes! I like your thoughts. *grins*
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 08:46 pm (UTC)I still need to see more latin-americans that don't follow the stereotype, though. And this is coming off awfully like a wave of the victimhood card and I'm sorry but, gah, it can be grating some times.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 09:09 pm (UTC)I don't think axe-wielding lesbian is an actual stereotype, since I don't think anyone really thinks all lesbians carry around weaponry so they can destroy the patriatricy or whatever. I was thinking of it more like owning the word 'bitch' -- if I'm going to be put in a box, I want to use it and mock it. I like women, where's my axe? ^_^
But there really need to be more non-mainstream characters who are actually people and not a token whatever, or stereotypes.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 08:33 pm (UTC)I find cultural appropriation issues sticky, because most of what I write is fantasy that isn't intended to be any more accurate than generic medieval western Europe is portrayed as in fantasy. I may borrow some of the superficial accoutrements of the culture-- dress or the language structure or a philosophy-- but underneath, that setting is not China or India any more than Arthurian myth is accurate to the British Isles of the fifth century. The problem comes in with the fact that while I know it's not accurate and I didn't intend it to be, I know there are people who are going to take it to be a real culture.
Unfortunately, I pretty much consider everything I write in the aforementioned fantasy world to be permanently unpublishable because of issues like this.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 08:05 am (UTC)Well, I wouldn't say that. I'd just say that because there are so many representations of the dominant culture available, inaccuracies are more likely to be only one example of many, as opposed to a minority culture, where there are less representations available.
But that doesn't mean there'll never be innaccuracies of a dominant culture, as your own experience shows. It just happens less often.
Unfortunately, I pretty much consider everything I write in the aforementioned fantasy world to be permanently unpublishable because of issues like this.
I think that's too bad. I'd really appreciate there being more fantasy out there that wasn't based on European culture, even if it's not perfect. It's like... okay, this is a weird metaphor, but have you heard of the white privilege list? It's not fair that when a white person enters a store, they're not likely to be followed by a security guard, while people of other races are. That sucks. But the solution is not to say, "Hey! Follow us too!" because then everyone is getting tailed by security guards, and that's just no fun. The solution is to stop the security guards from following anyone (or, well, to get them to choose people to follow based on something other than race).
So, what I'm trying to say is that some people are in positions of power and some people aren't, and that can make our choices more loaded than we intend them to be. But nothing gets solved by giving up the power you have; instead we want to try and make sure everyone can share in the power. Using things from other cultures is good, it's just very hard to do right, because we don't live in a perfect world.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 08:56 am (UTC)I found this particular comparison quite interesting, because when I lived in rural Japan, a good number of people, hyped up by the news media, really did think of Americans in that way. I know that a good number of rural Australians think the same, despite the fact that there are a good number of guns in the farmhouses around here.
So, yes, American culture is pervasive, but perhaps not quite so much as those in the US might think! I know my opinions were changed by meeting Asian-Americans, shy Americans, atheist Americans, gay Americans...
I do understand your point, though, that appropriation from a dominant culture is not the same as appropriation by one. It's just that the dominant culture is might be more variable than might be first thought.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 07:13 pm (UTC)You said a lot of interesting and thought-provoking things in this post. The above quote strikes me as odd, however. Now, I live in Canada, which is not that far from the U.S. We encounter Americans all the time. We also get the majority of our culture from the U.S. -- most of us probably see more American television and listen to more American music and see more American movies and read more American books than we do Canadian ones. Nonetheless, a huge number of people really do believe exactly your depiction of Americans.
My roommate in University participated in organizing an international student exchange, so we had people from other countries coming over all the time. We were supposed to take them out, show them around the town, get them oriented and take them out to dinner to talk about things and get a handle on any needs that needed to be taken care of. I wasn't in on it in an official capacity, but I usually tagged along because it was interesting (more interesting than going to class, anyway). I can assure you that by and large nearly every person (and these are people participating in international student exchanges, so I would assume that they're more interested in international affairs than the average person) really does think of Americans exactly as you described.
Probably the most frequent comments I encounter from people from other countries who visit the U.S. or when I have friends from the U.S. come up and visit Canada are either that Americans are exactly how the person always thought they were (obnoxious, sub-moronic gun-toters) (which, to me, indicates that they were only seeing what they wanted to see to reinforce their stereotypes) or that they were shocked (honestly shocked) to discover that Americans were not all like that. I especially hear a lot of shock if we invite an American up to visit and they're shy and soft-spoken. Many people worldwide think that all Americans are loud highly extroverted.
I'm not saying that any of the things you asserted are wrong, but it may be worth considering that I don't believe that being the dominant culture provides a whole lot of insurance against stereotyping in the way you seem to imply it does.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-21 12:33 am (UTC)