I am interested hearing more of how “inside group” avoid being affected by it. It seems pretty tough to maintain or revive an cultural in the face of globalization. America is everywhere.

I really don’t know what in your comment struck a chord in me and I didn’t mean to come off as irritated or annoyed. It might have been that I felt important, relevant problems were being trivialized by some of the comments in this entire thread. I did already apologize for seeming to rag on you personally, but I’ll say again that I’m sorry as it was not my intent.

***But I don’t really see how deeming a particular piece of pop culture racist is wallowing in white guilt. (At least not as the link describes it.) Maybe you could clarify.***

Part of white liberal guilt, at least as I understand it, is being so hypersensitive that every possible ethnic or cultural reference is seen as a negative connotation or an intentional insult. As a result, there is a desire to fix or apologize for things that are minor in the scheme of things. Meanwhile, the truly major issues get lost in the details.

***And in my world, “prop” and “central part of the story” aren’t mutually exclusive terms–in the stuff I read & watch they’re often synonymous.***

Good point, but in Buffy the Vampire Slayer would you have preferred that the Nigerian mask was actually worn by a Nigerian warrior or that the Native American spirit monster was raised by an evil medicine man or woman? In any case, my point is that it could have been any other piece of tribal art or practice and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference to the Buffy plot. In Debbie’s case by contrast, the integrity of the entire plot appears to rely on the accuracy and authenticity of the mask ceremony.

***I don’t see any contradiction between your point about the lack of native voices anywhere and mine about the lack in a particular genre; I’m just making the smaller point.***

It is a fairly good bet that native voices are not being crowded out of the horror genre — native voices more likely don’t want to be heard in that genre. On the other hand, why does almost every piece of major Hollywood or literary production about native people get originated and told from the perspective of the white male? Lack of native voices in horror – understandable. Lack of native voices in popular narratives about native people – cultural appropriation.

***As for my thoughts on plot, in my experience cultural appropriation has usually gone hand-in-hand with a certain type of plot that disappears or dehumanizes the people whose culture is being appropriated. That seems relevent to me. You could certainly argue that that’s garden-variety racism, I guess, and a sideline to the question of what cultural appropriation is.***

True, it could be racist and/or cultural appropriation, but it should be viewed from the perspective of the culture being appropriated, not the knee-jerk reactivity of white liberal guilt.

yes! sprinkle liberally. especially do not practice the historical alternative: to deliberately exclude and negatively portray POC characters whenever it works…

I completely agree with you that the question of whether it’s cultural appropriation or not belongs to the tribe in question, and not you or me. That’s actually what was in my mind as I was writing the final rhetorical questions.

But I don’t really see how deeming a particular piece of pop culture racist is wallowing in white guilt. (At least not as the link describes it.) Maybe you could clarify.

And in my world, “prop” and “central part of the story” aren’t mutually exclusive terms–in the stuff I read & watch they’re often synonymous. (Nor does something being written mean it isn’t going to be rewritten or recycled in different form, or that I’m done thinking about it.) I don’t see any contradiction between your point about the lack of native voices anywhere and mine about the lack in a particular genre; I’m just making the smaller point.

As for my thoughts on plot, in my experience cultural appropriation has usually gone hand-in-hand with a certain type of plot that disappears or dehumanizes the people whose culture is being appropriated. That seems relevent to me. You could certainly argue that that’s garden-variety racism, I guess, and a sideline to the question of what cultural appropriation is.

Is that what you’re saying? I seem to have irritated you with my comments, and I don’t entirely understand why.

Firstly, I’m sure the rappers themselves don’t mind being idolized and having their product widely purchased, by suburbanites or not. Also, I doubt that the imagery of drugs, crime, and misogyny that typify most popular rap are cultural tenets that the majority of African Americans would like to claim as their own. I agree with you that it’s a form of cultural appropriation, I just don’t think gangsta culture is intended to have the same kind of ethnic integrity as, say, religious traditions.

“It’s like if I made a folk dance called the Holocaust, and said that it was really an old jewish dance to celebrate happiness, and sold videos and special clothes and set up schools where you, too, could become a Holocaust Dance Master (TM).”

You make a good point, but the Holocaust is the wrong example to use, because it’s not a term derived from Jewish culture. The word existed long before Nazi Germany, and refers to widespread destruction. It doesn’t belong to Judaism any more than Genocide belongs to Sudan.

“…the evil flying monkeys in Oz when actual flying monkeys in the Ramayana are the good guys.”

All the versions of the Ramayana I’ve heard of feature wingless monkey-people. And even if they were winged monkeys, unless the witch specifically said “Hanuman of the Vanaras, go and capture Dorothy!”, it would be hard to identify them as derivative of that specific mythos, rather than just a generic hybrid creature. I mean, gryffins, angels, and mermaids were all first invented in Mesopotamia, but their proliferation in European mythology and pop fantasy isn’t ethically problematic. Is it?

“And of course the most egregious of all was the appropriation of the auspicious Hindu swastika symbol by the Nazis.”

Actually, Hindus weren’t the first to use that design. The geometrically simple shape has been an icon since the stone age. Who can rightfully lay claim to it? I’ll grant you that the widespread negative associations with the swastika create an unfortunate association for other cultures that use it. But appropriating that symbol is one area in which I don’t the Nazis weren’t particularly unethical. Wow do I feel weird saying that phrase.

“How would you feel if the next big breakaway Studio Miyazaki film, say, featured Jesus as a pathetic, shambling zombie revenant, who tried to destroy the world and was eventually banished by a powerful Japanese guardian spirit, to huge acclaim? If for a long time thereafter the internet featured non-Christians earnestly discussing America’s primitive belief in gods that rise from the dead and demand that you eat their corpses, and asking you about whether you feel that these superstitions have held your country back?”

Since you mention it, the studio Hayao Miyazaki cofounded is actually called “Studio Ghibli,” and it’s name is a great example of cultural appropriation. Miyazaki, a fan of aviation, named it after an Italian nickname for a fighter plane. The Italians, in turn, got the word from the Arabic “gibliy”, which refers to south Saharan wind.

And, while not as overt as the example you mentioned, the anime show Evangelion does feature an analogue of the Biblical God, along with a series of angels, as a destructive force trying to end the world. Judeo-Christian iconography, as well as various eras of European culture, have been broadly incorporated into Japanese animation, and often wildly distorted. But you’re absolutely right that such portrayals in no way threaten to usurp popular perception of Christianity, whereas that danger exists with less dominant cultures.

For that matter, the internet is doing well enough as it is discussing the backwardness and superstitions of Christianity. That it is such a dominant and widespread power is what makes it a target in this regard. Few internet commentators write diatribes about why tribal Aborigini religions are harmful to society.

I don’t mean to sound contrarian or dismissive with these responses, I just want to make sure the issues are properly clarified.

I’m not sure it makes a difference what the plot is about. In any case, the script is already finished! It either offends/ insults the typical member of this particular Pacific Northwest tribe or it doesn’t. Not appropriate for me, you or Debbie to decide that. If Debbie is concerned about cultural appropriation, she should consult the tribe in some reasonably adequate way (not just one member).

Native Americans aren’t some super-sensitive babies or ultra-private hermits who have to be handled with kid gloves. They are people like everybody else and coddling would insult them as much as it would you.

You’re dangerously close to wallowing in white liberal guilt (see http://theangryblackwoman.com/2006/07/19/white-liberal-guilt/ ) by projecting “very racist” overtones to Buffy the Vampire Slayer stage props or making comments like “it’s a genre in which native voices have not had a significant and shaping influence”.

I doubt Debbie is using the mask as a prop, it is the central piece of her story. Otherwise she could just change it to something like an amulet and not have to “pull” the script.

Native voices in the horror genre is trite — I would humbly suggest we start out with concern about native voices in ANY genre.

Sorry to single you out as the above could be said about plenty of other comments in this thread.

it raises a lot of interesting questions, and both today and in past posts has given me a lot to think about

i’m a first time commenter here, but i’ve been reading for a while now… and while part of me is unsure whether this is an appropriate place for these questions, i also think they’re relevant to the discussion, so here goes

how is someone whos culture (greek) has been appropriated for so long and whos mythology is now so bastardized as to be almost unrecognizable in many of its current forms supposed to address this issue?

i was raised in a household (mainly by first generation immigrants – my grandmother, great grandmother, and great uncles all came through ellis island in the 40s) that treated greek mythology with the same respect that christian mytholgy gets from the vast majority of americans

yet when i got to school and we studied greek history and myths it was a heavily censored version mixed up with the roman retelling of those myths… and my questioning of that version was considered wrong (and i failed a few papers and exams as a result)

and then when i was a teenager i was lucky enough to travel to greece with my grandmother and see many of the places talked about in those myths – only they’d been torn apart, with large pieces of the temples shipped to museums elsewhere and those that were left in place were often the pieces deemed “inferior”

i was also priviledged in that my grandmother had made enough of her life in the states that she could afford to take me not only to athens, but on a cruise to the islands where i was able to meet some of my relatives and get another perspective on what i still see as a mistreatment of my history

but as my cousins pointed out, our history and mythology had been re-told by so many people over so many years that we were lucky to still see the vestiges of it in things like shakespeare’s plays and the olympics, even if they were only distorted reflections

i guess the questions i’m trying to ask are: do the questions of cultural appropriation become irrelevant at some point? does the fact that my history has been co-opted so often and by so many mean that i should no longer be angry about it? does the fact that the sites and ceremonies of my mythos are still revered in some way make it acceptable that for instance the british museum refuses to return the friezes from the parthenon?

i suspect that other groups have these same questions and i’m really curious how other people perceive these issues and their relevance in today’s world…