Cultural appropriation

[wordsofastory]

There'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

Comments

[oyceter]

Thank you!

*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?

[wordsofastory]

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.

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.)

[childofatlantis]

That was really interesting to read, thank you. Not least because I automatically protested "America is the dominant culture" as a knee-jerk reaction, even though, on forcing myself to think rationally about it, I have to admit that it is.

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. >_

[wordsofastory]

Yeah, I think you're making a good point. When you have a character of a different race/ethnicity/sexuality, you should show how things are different for them and the different ways that they think and act because of it. Otherwise, you're just writing a White character with a permanent tan, and that- well, I suppose it's better than having no characters of other cultures, but it's not much of a step forward.

The problem I have with the idea that the culture of the character has to be the focus (and maybe childofatlantis feels the same way, though I don't want to speak for her) is that it reduces the Other character to a token figure. You know: "this is the Black guy, he does Black things". No one would write a straight character and focus their characterization entirely on his/her straightness, but you do see that happen to gay and bisexual characters. When I see characters from non-dominant cultures, I want them to be three-dimensional, human; just like a white character would be expected to have lots of interests and habits that are unique and

[mistressrenet]

Yes, yes, 100%.

[avenger_pudding]

That was great, thank you

[wordsofastory]

You're welcome! And thank you for the comment.

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*

[llorelei]

That was an awesome read, thank you for posting. I have nothing really useful to add, but I must say that I'd rather be considered a mystical zen fighting monk than an uneducated, naive, religious, overemotional buffoon, which seems to be the image most commonly associated with latin-americans in the media.

[llorelei]

You mean Xena? From what I gather, Xena wasn't a canonically confirmed lesbian/bisexual (she was awesome regardless). There are, however, examples of canonically gay/bisexual characters in the media that I think are/were more or less well-handled (as in not just an example of tokenism). Willow in BtVS, and Billy and Teddy in the comic-book Young Avengers come to mind. (Because I'm a fan of both - the tv show and the comic.)

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.

[gamera]

I think you've hit on pretty much exactly how I feel about the issue in this post. (I had slight qualms with the idea that inaccuracies regarding western cultures don't ever matter, but that's from the perspective of someone with a friend who spent his entire year abroad fighting predetermined stereotypes, but then I realized people like that are the exception, not the norm. Regarding the average "dominant culture" person who will never leave North America or a rich western European country, your point stands and makes sense.)

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

[wordsofastory]

I had slight qualms with the idea that inaccuracies regarding western cultures don't ever matter

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