Cultural appreciation or appropriation...
Ok, see what you think of what i've been making a start with for some new visuals... then read on. All these images were made before I did all the research below.
The 'with thanks to...' list features the cultures and people who were most exploited or appropriated by Colonialism, or who have most shaped the roots of our modern pop music.
This work in progress is part of an ironic title sequence that places me and other UK audiences in a place of self-awareness when we hanker after exotic faraway lives and cultures. It is supposed to bring about a sense of awareness about where out pop culture pastiche world that we gain such enjoyment and commerce in is made up of many other cultural roots, some of which have been totally abused and undermined for us to have access to them. I mention this in my post about the Artist and Empire show at the Tate Britain.
Oh and this piece is also supposed to kind of take the mick out of a lot of contemporary art in which people blindly use symbolism and imagery from tropical lands and cultures (and pot plants, euggghhh so redundant!). Which, for the reason of unaware cultural appropriation I get annoyed about - the art these young contemporary artists holds (more often than not) no sway with me because it's simply so self-indulgent and self-referential. It doesn't have to be - if due respect were paid to the origins of this imagery, through some crediting or conceptual message.
Before mindless appropriation with no reference to roots took place (which happens now due to a time lapse - we no longer consider the exotic to be a new discovery, although it is still a sort of novelty) there was rude and patronising direct referencing and appropriation of native people and 'exotic' cultures - see a still from the film title sequence below:
So i've been working more on creating imagery that represents my film's characters and narrative and scenario, BUT i've been showing them (the beginnings of them) to Dom and he pointed out that it may not be all that obvious to the general viewer that I am in fact calling out the cultural appropriation of indigenous cultures and of climate poverty scenarios.
It may not be clear enough that I am condemning such practices, and that I am aiming to raise awareness of how so much of our entertainment, culture and lifestyle here in the UK (and in other first world nations and demographies) comes out of Colonialism. For example, Disney appropriating Tigerlilly in Peter Pan, or D-Squared2's 'DSquaw' fashion collection).
I may not be being clear enough that it is ok to be inspired by other cultures and other lifestyles but you MUST not steal their autonomy by taking their ideas, cultures, property, designs or words, and re-contextualising them of claiming them as your own.
So I need to think about HOW I will put my film (the visuals that represent it - paintings, text pieces, zines etc) across more clearly, so that they act as an access point and a trigger for thought, and a frame in which the viewer is held responsible for ensuring they address the legacy of Colonialism, both in terms of human and indigenous rights, in terms of climate poverty, and in terms of environmental awareness.
***One thing I keep forgetting, is that I want a personal emotional aspect to this project. My plan for this was to represent some ways in which individuals or communities deal with disappointment or pain; coping mechanisms. A few coping mechanisms I came up with, that are familiar to myself, are: humour, ridiculing oneself or others, sarcasm, intelligent undermining of someone who has been lured into a false sense of security.
Now i'm not saying I do all of these! Don't worry I won't attempt to undermine or expose my friends to make myself feel better. But people do do this to their enemies. Sometimes rightly so?
Anyway - the coping mechanisms listed above all come under the Post-modern categories of irony, pastiche, parody and appropriation.
So i thought: perhaps I could apply those approaches to my film; some of the characters may exhibit such coping mechanisms, or be ironic. Some of the locations or scenarios may be invented as a pastiche or parody of something.
I thought this also fitted well with my decision to use a lot of pop culture references in my film, as pop as a genre is simply an accessible collage (pastiche) of other cultural elements.
And of course pop culture (films, entertainment, music, fashion, art, leisure pursuits) has a history of totally undermining indigenous rights and humans rights for the sake of the pop product.
p.s please read the article that the above link will take you to - it's a coherent explanation of my whole creative conundrum!
So, back to thinking about how to be more clear with my message and intentions for my 'film':
I've been reading articles, watching videos, and trawling through twitter in the past week to try and recognise the feelings that indigenous people and climate poverty victims have towards the rest of the world accessing their cultures and stories. I'm trying to see what the message is, what works and what doesn't, and how the message in certain pop products relates for different audiences:
Firstly: Beyonce's new video 'Formation' which is set in post-Katrina New Orleans and has some relatively shocking imagery of a very recent tragic event, which I'm sure didn't go down well with people who were directly affected by the hurricane. Indeed I was right as I found in the article by Maris Jones: 'Dear Beyonce, Katrina is not your story to tell' where she speaks of the trauma Beyonce's video revisited. You can read more by Maris here in her article: Post-Katrina Stress Disorder: Climate Change and Mental Health. Maris however does say she appreciates the black pride and power that Beyonce is exhibiting and promoting. So it seems Beyonce has her politics and racial pride in order, but not her geopolitical/geocultural approach.
Interestingly, my sister who is a Beyonce fan (this is actually the first Beyonce video i've ever watched!) said, when I asked her what she thought the video represented and meant, was that it was violent and maybe encourages gun culture. She may be right; in regards of a white girl from the West Midlands where we don't see guns or violence! Whatever feelings Beyonce's video provokes, those feelings can't be argued against. But the fact is that the guns in the Formation video are being held be heavily armed police, which Maris Jones says is conveying the increased militarisation of police in areas with a large black contingency. My sister, nor I, would ever have thought of this because that issue is so far outside our scope of experience. So - there is it, proof that I have to be VERY clear with my message so that the due respect is paid to the correct sources of my artwork.
My sister had no thought about the climate and emotional issues tied up with the Katrina scenario in Beyonce's video and the trauma it may have bought to the surface for many viewers. But that's Beyonce's (or her video team's) fault, because it should have been blindingly obvious.
There's also the potential for the floods in New Orleans to be considered as having be made into something darkly glamourous, as discussed in this article The Reductive Seduction of Other Peoples' Problems by Courtney Martin.
Here's the video:
And some stills of the bits I have mentioned in my visuals or research.
Creole Cowboys are a culture I learned about a few months back and found to be an interesting kind of hybrid culture: a pop culture in itself if you will. But I haven't done too much research on them yet besides watching a short documentary on Creole Cowboys culture below. But I decided they are included in the print i'm making (shown at top of post).
Here's that little film about the Creole Cowboy culture: Click the link here
Ghetto (to quote Beyonce) scene
For further research on the 'Formation' video's cultural message, and how that varies, watch these two videos, one is 10 mins, one is an hour.
Cultural References & Critique of Beyonce's Formation by SmartBrownGirl:
"Beyonce has no responsibility in...directly educating you... that's not her function as a musician and entertainer. But Beyonce used her music and her platform to spark a very important conversation." That conversation as I interpret it, in this girls' eyes, to be one about the non-monolith status if black cultures, and of exclusion from certain efforts such as #blacklivesmatter based on when or where one is born and raised.
Read the comments on this video on YouTube, more enlightenment.
Professor Griff speaks on Beyonce, Cultural Appropriation, and The Global African Presence:
Another example of pop culture appropriating native cultures with a perhaps careless approach and insensitivity is 'Hymn for the weekend' by Coldplay and Beyonce. This video is discussed here by Sundal Roy:
It's interesting that she says, "you need how to pick your battles, because this isn't one of them."
I think Sundal is concerned that the fight for racial equality is being saturated and slowed by people creating a fuss around cultural instances that may be either may appreciation rather than appropriation, or that may simply be so subtle and minor that most people won't detect anything inappropriate going on, therefore it would be better to concentrate on a more directly offensive or inconsiderate instance.
I agree with Sundal because I do not think this video is deliberately ignoring or misrepresenting a traumatic event or situation. In my eyes it is not subsuming Indian culture. However I have never been to India and am not Indian so I'll have to take Sundal's word for it.
Beyonce does appear to wearing make-up that is trying to make her look more Indian, but personally i'm not sure that's an issue. After all, we all got the idea for eye make up from the Ancient Egyptians; Rimmel and Maybelline cashed in on that way before these globals conversations were happening and nobody seems to have pulled them up on that. Nor on the film The Revenant in which Leo D sleeps inside his dead horse. Which did happen, as I read in Dee Brown's historical account of pre Civil War America from an indigenous perspective: 'Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.'.
As for Canadian fashion design duo D-Squared2's line 'DSquaw' - I was wary when I heard this story that the designers may have offended by not paying homage or respect by stealing native American cultural elements to their own gain. Which indeed they did. However I did not realise that the issue was more complex than that until I watched the video in this article, that the word Squaw is derogatory, and that it was also the fact that the designers had not employed native craftspeople do co-design or create or even consulted them.
Another concern is how easy it is for me to hold rural, fringe lifestyles and cultures where ancestral traditions and spiritualism are upheld in an idyllic light, because I live in the opposite culture: modern metropolis. So I need to shock myself out of this mindset and remind myself that it's often not a choice to be so marginalised:
By reading articles such as this one by Duane Champagne.
Today I listened to a podcast with Ryan McMahon (4th one down in this page) who founded Indian and Cowboy media organisation, which is a podcast network for indigenous people. He says podcasting is great because it is autonomous: you can make them at home for next to nothing and there are no publishing restrictions/censoring.
He mentioned three podcasts that Indian and Cowboy are making which interested me a lot:
One is about the appropriation of indigenous culture in pop songs - literally my exact interest area!!!
Another was about the Powwow tradition, an aim of which was to examine the traditional sexual and physical abuse that goes on at powwows. I think it's important that while people respect each others' cultural practices, we mustn't be afraid to address plain human rights abuse that goes on there.
The third was called Stories from the Land which is community storytelling, inviting listeners to speak.
I'm not sure that the first two have been made yet; I think they are in production.
If you are inspired (as I am) by others' lifestyles, locations, spirits etc, then be sure to pay obvious respect to them. Do not decontextualise or undermine the autonomy of other cultures or the seriousness of their practices.
Label such appropriation as inappropriate somehow, perhaps by turning the lens back on yourself and placing your own self and artwork/actions in a vulnerable position. Hold yourself accountable.
So some ways I could be clearer in my message:
- Send a message by taking exact words from direct sources and credit the author/s: e.g use twitter etc. to write my film script.
- Create a zine/supporting research tool which could list all the research sources and summarised decisions... such as the writing and material in this blog post.
- Create a trailer, or a pre-warning, or a 'lesson plan' - the inspiration for this is Buffy Sainte Marie. She is a Cree Canadian political musician and singer who, whenever I have seen her live, has issue the audience with a 'reading list' of 5 essential books or articles which are important to understanding indigenous American struggles and rights issues.
I'm also thinking about the musician Grimes and all the popiness in her videos; the characters, costumes, scenarios etc.
I think that the reason Grimes has never been accused of cultural appropriation or racism is because (besides the fact that she isn't racist) her characters and their scenarios are definitely a celebration of something liberal; the best-case scenario that is freedom of creativity and speech in a contemporary global world, and with absolutely no mention of this freedom at the expense of marginalised or abused demographics.
Grimes does not steal from other cultures of which she has no experience, and repurpose those elements to her own ends.
She doesn't de-contextualise other cultures.
Her music and imagery is made up of very modern elements and techniques for a very modern audience. For this reason she seems to be an antidote to painful cultural histories simply by not depicting those histories and by instead depicting only the current.
Yes there is blood and comedy violence in her two most recent videos, but I personally think that this is just some personal emotion/anger stuff. Nothing political. Apart from perhaps that fame and celebrity are messy, based on the fact that she is filmed in some Hollywood Hills/Mullholland Drive/luxury settings.
The bloody scenes could be interpreted as being social commentary though:
She may be drawing attention to the problem of glamourised violence or honour violence, or perhaps the taboo of violence in video games. In the Flesh without Blood/Life in the Vivid Dream video she is seen dressed up as a contemporary Marie Antoinette (symbolic of extreme excess) character who has a dagger in her stomach and is bleeding out while dancing and singing. This, if one thinks about it, may be a ridicule of the glamourisation of violence or suicide; something Lana Del Rey has been accused of - POP CULTURE IS SO EXHAUSTING!! It may also be referencing the (in my opinion slightly slippery slope-esque) Sad Girl theory/phenomenom that was popular with young adults and teenagers last year.
Either way, if this violence were used as a thematic device for social commentary, one could say Grimes has achieved this through ridicule by using over-exaggerated blunt crudeness that places the behaviour clearly in an inappropriate non-sensical light.
Here Grimes is however with her own explanation of those characters' inspirations and roles and her annoyance at a certain historical figure:
So Grimes is modern, with a modern message and her inspiration is modernity.
Something else that has the power of the modern: Here is an article about why indigenous American males often choose to wear braids. Something that appears to be a simple aesthetic choice is actually a symbol of progression, and of choice itself.
So, back to appropriation vs. appreciation:
It seems that direct consultation and relaying of direct messages from implicated people (in my case those suffering at the hands of climate poverty and indigenous or racial rights abuse) is a key focus.
Consultation is looked at more in this video on Aljazeera American about Bernie Sanders' (American presidential candidate) popularity with natives, but also the problem that he has not appointed a National Native American Tribal Outreach person to increase consultation effectiveness, and indeed the amount of consultation there is.
And just for some more background research for you all... What first got me alert and annoyed about indigenous rights abuse was the problems of White Australia and the Aboriginals.
Had some good news today on that front but it's still 230 years or so late!
That's all.
....More studio pics:
