I’ll be honest with you. For a while, I felt like I’ve seen everything there was to see when it comes to things regarding cultural appropriation, blatant disregard of respect, and all of that fun stuff… But I was sadly mistaken. I’ve recently come across a new musical sensation that will stir the world of Korean pop music and make me lose my faith in basic human decency once again. Let me introduce you to the newest “K-pop” group: EXP Edition, a “Korean pop music” group consisting of all-American members. And in case you’re wondering, no, the token Asian member is not Korean. I first came across news of this group as different media networks started sharing the news that there will be a group that will soon debut as the first ever K-pop group that consists of all-American members. When I first saw the headlines, I thought that that would mean the group would consist of Korean-American artists or other musicians of Asian-American descent. As the picture above shows, that’s obviously not the case. Following this mass media craze about the group, EXP Edition very quickly gained notoriety as the center of memes and jokes. I mean, how can they not? And secondly, can you blame anyone? I’ve heard rumors about the group originally being a part of an art project conducted by a student at Columbia University. The project was supposedly meant to explore appropriation, culture politics, and gender in K-pop. However, the project has evolved since then. The group members have since relocated to South Korea in order to pursue their music and to try to “make it” in the K-pop industry. I can kind of see this as the result of admiration for the culture and the K-pop music market (and I say this very, very lightly), it’s extremely hard for me to acknowledge it as anything other than distasteful and complete disrespect for Korean entertainment and culture. While looking into this group, all I can see is disregard for the hard work, planning, and thought that actually goes into the creation of not only K-pop groups, but music as a whole. No matter the reason, profiting or benefiting off of anyone’s hard work, effort, and struggles is not okay. So all in all, I hope this is a joke. But hey, check out the music video and see for yourself. Let me know what you think. And if you’d like, send me some positive vibes so I can forget about this mess. :)
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Last week, the movie trailer for the new Netflix live-action adaptation of the anime Death Note was released. Growing up, Death Note was one of my favorite series and I watched and read the story more times than I can count. With that being said, you would think that I would be excited for the release of the upcoming movie, but let me tell you, I was not happy. I was livid. (Image: Google) For some context, Death Note is a Japanese manga and anime that was released in the mid-2000’s. The story takes place in Japan and follows the protagonist, Light Yagami, who finds a mysterious notebook called the death note that allows him to take someone’s life by writing their name down in the pages of the notebook. Light is written as an extremely complex character. He is a charismatic, smart, attractive, and a seemingly friendly Japanese high school student who strives to work in law enforcement. After discovering the death note, Light uses its powers to begin ridding Japan of its criminals as well as people he deems as corrupt or evil and doesn’t deserve to live. That being said, things are quite different in the Netflix adaptation. In the upcoming movie, Light Yagami is portrayed by Nat Wolff, an American actor. Right from that start, everything goes downhill. Netflix’s adaptation of Death Note is clearly and unabashedly white-washed with a predominantly Caucasian cast. Starting from the casting of the protagonist to the rest of the supporting characters, there is no mistake that the film has an issue with representation. (Images: Netflix) Some people argued that this change is due to the fact that the movie is set to take place in the U.S. However, I would have to disagree. In the new film, Light Yagami is renamed as Light “Turner.” If the writers wanted the story to be adapted to fit the U.S., they could have easily made a spinoff or created a new character. They could have also, I don’t know, maybe hired Asian-American actors? Instead, they decided to make the main character white and give him an Americanized name while keeping the plot. I can only imagine how this change will negatively affect the story, as it takes away the Japanese cultural background and context that heavily influences the characters and drives the plot in the Death Note series. The fact that Netflix of all platforms – a platform that created a culturally sensitive and diverse show like “Sense 8”) – would pull this stunt baffled me. I immediately took to social media to express my frustration with the casting after seeing the trailer. When I shared the revamped Death Note trailer with a status that expressed my discontent, I received lots of support and similar comments from friends and strangers who also saw problems with the adaption. But then, I received this comment. After seeing this comment, from one of my own acquaintances no less, I was furious. I went through stages of feeling genuinely confused as to why she would say this, then feeling angered by her insensitivity, to finally feeling motivated and confident enough to reply to her comment and speak my mind. I am a pretty sensitive and non-confrontational person. It was always ingrained into me to steer clear of conflict and to “be the better person.” One thing that I learned over the past few years is that sometimes, just avoiding conflict doesn’t mean that you’re being the better person. Sometimes, you need to stand up and speak up for your beliefs and the right for your thoughts and feelings to be validated. So this is what I said. I had a conversation with a friend recently about how tiring, frustrating, and upsetting it can be at times when we’re “fighting ignorant trolls on the internet” or just trying to inform someone about things that they might not necessarily see eye to eye on or be informed about. This is especially the case with topics such as feminism and issues surrounding people of color/ minorities. We came to the conclusion that no matter how difficult or frustrating it gets, it’s important now more than ever, to stand up for ourselves and call things out, such as discrimination, sexism, white-washing, etc., when we see and experience it. Unless people voice their concerns and opinions regarding societal injustices, nothing will ever change. Stand up for yourself, your thoughts, and your rights. If someone says something that is wrong, call them out and inform them. It’s okay to feel uncomfortable doing so. We’re all learning. PS. Death Note already had three well-produced movies featuring Japanese actors in JAPAN. We really don’t need another one. :-) @World: YOU. SERIOUSLY. NEED. TO STOP. WHITEWASHING. EVERYTHING. (Image: Google) Check out the movie trailers for the original Japanese adaptation (2006) and the new Netflix adaptation (2017) below and let me know what you think!
I know that cultural appropriation is not something new. However, it’s something that has been becoming more and more upsetting to me as I continuously see instances of it happen in popular media. After months of making passing comments on this issue to friends and family, I felt like it was finally time for me to get my thoughts together and express my feelings on the subject.
(Image: Vogue)
Let me start out by answering this question: What exactly is cultural appropriation and why is it bad? Cultural appropriation is when people of one culture use the elements of another culture. That explanation may seem simple, but that’s not all there is to it. Cultural appropriation happens when a dominant culture adopts elements of a culture from a group that is marginalized or is a “minority.”
So why is this problematic? This question has complicated answers. Some good points about why cultural appropriation is bad is stated in an article published on Everyday Feminism. The article states that, “it trivializes violent historical oppression, lets people show love for a culture while staying prejudiced against its people, makes things ‘cool’ for white people, but ‘too ethnic’ for people of color, it maintains racist culture” and more.
(Examples of cultural appropriation/ insensitivity in popular media)
The reason why I’m bringing this up right now is because of an incident that I came across last week. In a spread for Vogue magazine’s “diversity” issue, an American supermodel named Karlie Kloss was featured on a six-page spread titled “Spirited Away” (a reference to Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 film). Though the spread seemed like a tribute to Japanese culture to some, many took offense to it – offense that I consider to be totally justifiable.
In the spread, which actually takes place in Japan, Kloss is dressed up in full-on geisha wear, posed in various docile poses. Some people argued that her photoshoot was beautiful and a proper tribute to the culture, but many saw flaws (to say the least) with the spread. What Kloss dons in the photoshoot is essentially yellowface – basically when a non-East Asian person plays the role of an East Asian person. A blogger by the name of Angry Asian Man describes her as sporting “thick black hair, pale skin and kimono-like attire, posed in various Japanese-y backgrounds.” “There's even a friggin' sumo wrestler for bonus stereotypical Japanese-ness,” he states.
(Karlie Kloss images: Vogue; Authentic maiko (geisha apprentice) photo: Yasuo Hirai)
Despite the growing controversy over the photoshoot, an alarmingly large group of people, including both Asian and Asian-American people, defended Kloss. Some of their reasons for defending her included excuses like “she’s just doing her job” or “it’s not actually yellowface” or (my personal favorite) “that social justice warriors and millennials are just being too sensitive.” I find this extremely troubling.
With this spread, Vogue failed to be mindful of the fact that by hiring a Caucasian model to represent “diversity,” they actually fed into stereotypes, instead of being progressive or truly “celebrating diversity.” In addition to that, while Kloss received a six-page spread, most other models of color merely received a one-page feature. Again, this isn’t anything “new.” However, this instance was a wake-up call for me, many of my friends, and a lot of others around us that we need to continue to educate ourselves and to hold ourselves and others accountable. The big takeaway from this blog post is this: don’t be ignorant, be empathetic. And most importantly – never stop learning and educating yourself. Lastly, here are my final thoughts about cultural appropriation and racism: I’ve noticed that there seems to be a strong emphasis placed on music based on where it originates from. For instance, Korean music is always prefaced with exactly that, “Korean” music, such as k-hiphop, k-indie, k-pop, the list goes on. When I asked some friends about this, a lot of them didn’t think of it as that big of a deal – and I agree. I think it’s fine to acknowledge a song’s culture and language of origin. However, I find it a bit troublesome when music starts to get belittled because of its place of origin. DEAN, a Korean R&B singer, songwriter, and producer A lot of times, music from different cultures get categorized into a separate genre and is oftentimes automatically pushed down and considered as somewhat inferior. A comment I commonly hear is, “This is really good for a (insert ethnic culture) song.” Most of the time, these kinds of statements aren’t said with malicious intent. It's usually just a passing thought. However, that in and of itself becomes problematic, especially since at that point, it’s something that’s so innately ingrained in our thoughts that things like “American” or “western” music is automatically better or is the ideal. This goes beyond the music and onto the musicians and artists as well. It’s so common for me to hear things like “This artist is Asian? I had no idea because he sounds so American,” “He sounds pretty good for an Asian rapper,” or “She sounds like a Korean version of Ariana Grande” and so on. 1LLIONAIRE, a Korean hip-hop label and collective That being said, I think it’s important that we make a conscious effort to be less segregating when we listen to different music and artists based on their ethnicity or cultural background. How we judge music should be based on the music alone, rather than their cultural or ethnic background or the musician's similarity to American artists. Check out some of my favorite songs by Asian and Asian-American artists below. ↓
(Note: All photos were taken by me)
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