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:
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