#cultural commodification

[inedibleroots]

There’s a website from the Netherlands that lets tourists purchase “locals” in Asia, and their logo is actually chinky-eyed! 

Also, they market their company philosophy as wholly concerned with empowering locals. Yet they take 20% of the price paid by tourists.

Cultural commodification meets the “sharing” economy. And the profits continue to be filtered into the same hands.

[inedibleroots]

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[xicanaresistente]

White Appropriation and Commodification of Chicana Chola Culture

http://www.vogue.com/12323524/givenchy-fall-2015-beauty-facial-jewelry/

The theme of this year’s Givenchy fashion show was “Victorian Chola Girl Gang,” a theme which sought to cleverly combine exaggerated aspects of the chola aesthetic with a more sophisticated Victorian look (a mashup that implies of course that there is nothing sophisticated or fashion forward about Chola aesthetics on their own). 

The stylists for Givenchy chose to focus on the slicked down baby hairs that cholas wear framing their face, large exaggerated hoop earrings, and what appear to be stylized takes on the teardrop tattoos through the use of semi-precious stones throughout the face.  While appropriation in and of itself is problematic, this particular runway show chose to over-exaggerate the features in a manner that would be interpreted as shocking or avant garde.  The problem with that is that for Chicanas that are actually part of the Chola culture, these features of their aesthetic displays are seen as trashy, low class, or “ghetto”.  No chola ever hears, “you know, your look would be perfect for fashion week in Paris”.  

This display on the international fashion runways brought to mind another instance of the commodification of chola culture by white society that had bothered me years ago.  Gwen Stefani’s video for Luxurious, released in 2004, was just one more culture in a series of cultures that Stefani would appropriate to create new fashion “trends” or to act as backdrops in her music video. 

In an interview with MTV News, Stefani explained that she was “inspired” by a high school classmate named Mercedes who would wear heavy white powder, black eyeliner as lipliner and would sit in class constantly applying makeup while using a safety pin to separate her lashes, which Stefani says she probably hadn’t washed off the mascara in months.  

http://www.mtv.com/news/1512621/for-gwen-stefani-egyptian-cotton-is-something-like-love/

Stefani’s comments show that she had a very limited understanding of Mercedes as a person and even in the course of sharing a class with her, was struck more by her visual embodiment and her Chicana aesthetics than as a complex individual.  Stefani’s lack of understanding of chola culture is even more evident in the video as she’s “freshening up” the three dots in a triangle at the corner of her eye.  This symbol, whose meaning varies from “Mi Vida Loca,” to acceptance of gang membership and gang culture, is one that does not come without consequences for the Chicanas and Chicanos who choose to sport it.  A Chicano with this symbol on their face is usually targeted by police, specifically the gang unit, and would be criminalized in many cases just for having the tattoo.  Stefani’s use of this symbol does not come with those consequences, and as a white middle/upper class woman, would most likely never be subjected to the kind of profiling, harrassment, and discrimination that a Chican@ chol@ would receive with the same symbol.

Stefani also uses the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in this video in a very provocative and disrespectful way.  The Virgin of Guadalupe, or the patron of the Mexican people, is a religious symbol revered in Catholicism and placed on the same heirarchical level as Jesus Christ himself.  Even for those of us Catholics that are just “culturally” Catholic rather than religious, the way in which the image of the Virgin Mary is split open and used as a revealing tank top is insulting and shows a severe lack of cultural understanding and respect. 

[alwaysbewoke]

Wyatt going in on those fools at Nike.

[alwaysbewoke]

this feels like a corporate money grab piggybacking on the black struggle.

[ishqoinqilab-blog]

let's talk culture.

no, let’s talk cultural commodification - what you steal from my house, rip from the pages of my history, place as a quirk on your personality resume; call it a color run or a fascination with saris or “henna tattoos” and “chai tea” - pretty pieces for your insipid world that are the mortar and brick keeping the integrity of my home. you pick at the walls with incessant, murderous boredom, eager for the ready-made and forgetting to love the maker. you want to be coddled but i am not your mother[land]. dear armchair adventurer, get. out. now. you are building unsafe structures with materials you know nothing about. stop waiting for me to forget my stories - to degenerate from that imperial disease: your perennial, deliberate ignorance. I am not dying. and in any case, this inheritance never belonged to you.

[whatiremembered]

Using the same rhetorical device over and over again like a crutch doesn't mean it belongs to you or that someone else has "appropriated" it if they use it to make a point.

[aznnotwhite]

"yellow apparel: when the coolie becomes cool" (2000) - UC Berkeley

“If somebody, say a white woman, they wear a bindi; at the same time they can give me a feeling that they are part of the struggle for anti-racist justice, for social justice; I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is when India or Asia becomes a symbol to be cool; when the coolie becomes cool, I have a problem with that. But if the coolie becomes cool at the same time as they're both ready to go and demolish the idea of coolie, that's fine.

I'm not saying that nobody should wear bindis; everyone can wear bindis. Wear bindis, it's great! As long as at the same time you're going to stand with us as we fight against different forms of white supremacy.”

- Vijay Prashad (Trinity College)

I can't believe it took me so long to see this! So good, and still so relevant.

From: http://thelangarhall.com/entertainment/turbans-on-the-runway-what-does-it-mean-for-sikhs/