WEBVTT - Cultural Appropriation 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:14.280 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:16.599 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.279 Seger Robert Our. Last episode, we were talking about samurai swords, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.520 and I neglected to bring up one of my favorite 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.440 aspects of that historical Japanese culture sort of tied into 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:32.040 samurai swords. Do you remember ever seeing a net suke before. 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.920 They're these little carved objects that would be in different 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.360 shapes and you would use them. Essentially they had like 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.040 a hole through them that you would use to tie 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.680 strings like for purses and things like that, that you 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.000 would hang from a sash or belt. Yeah. Yeah, I 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.279 believe I've seen the Yeah, I've got one that's like 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.239 a little cat. It's an anthropomorphic cat that's wearing a 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.960 robe and it's supposed to be like a mythical figure 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.400 of this sort of like cat creature transforming itself so 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.120 it looks like a woman in tricking people. Uh. And 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.119 I got this at the pbody ESX Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.840 They have this amazing uh collection of Asian artifacts but 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:14.000 also just marines stuff. Basically, the gist is that um 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.240 sailors who are from the area would bring all of 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.280 these things back after their journeys around the world, and 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.760 they eventually went into the PVD SX Museum, so you 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.920 can see all of this really cool historical material there. 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:29.720 But I had this net suk. It sits on my 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.080 desk as I'm working on episodes like this one, and 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:37.520 I kind of wonder, like, is there something inherently weird 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:42.200 about me, you know, uh, fetishizing this and it mind's 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.160 not a historical and that's okay. It's like a mass 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.280 produced one that you get at the gift shop or whatever. 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:52.200 But there's something kind of odd about me incorporating that 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:56.440 into my I don't know, artistic aesthetic my setup of 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.640 my desk, right, you know, it's next to literally a 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.720 a plastic sculpture of a Xeno morph that ec Steiner 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:05.680 gave me for my birthday, you know, so it's like 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:11.880 it's not like I'm only into Japanese historical aesthetics. Well, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.639 this this is an interesting question because I mean, obviously 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.360 we're talking about the idea of cultural appropriation today and 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.480 I think we're more and more, uh, we're we're forced 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.200 to ask these questions about our lives and the things 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.880 in our lives, the physical objects as well with the ideas. 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.040 I like what you said about the sailors enturing out 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:34.799 into the world and returning home with these essentially knickknacks 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:39.040 and uh and and artifacts. And I mean our lives 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.480 are kind of like that. We we travel around, we 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.920 experience new places, new ideas, and we end up incorporating 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:51.760 those ideas into our own worldview, into our own sense 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:56.560 of self. We end up bringing um artifacts into our home, 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.880 and our homes become reflections of our of our interest 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.959 and our travels and our experience. Yeah. Yeah, and that's 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.079 how I think about it. I don't just like, it's 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:09.160 not like a just collection of random items that I 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:10.760 just throw on my desk or something, you know what 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:15.120 I mean, although you know, obviously there's certain things that 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:17.320 I will that stay on the desk and other things 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.960 that go in a box somewhere. But yeah, I don't know. 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.400 It's strange. Like the alien for some reason is fine 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:29.360 because that's like American culture, But there's or is it 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.480 Swiss culture, right exactly? That's true based on our our 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.440 Hans Rudy Geeker episode. There's also I have a statue 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.440 of Ganesh on my desk as well of the Hindu 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.440 god of removing obstacles. Well, I have I have a 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.560 goodesh in my pocket. I forgot about that. I always 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.720 always carry a ges with me. So we're kind of 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.320 laying out some of the details of our own um, our, 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.560 own homes, our own sense of selves self. And I 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.080 imagine everyone listening you're probably doing the same thing. You're 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.720 thinking about, all right, what what items are on my person, 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:02.880 are in my house and just in my mind? And 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:07.200 from what cultures do those things arise? Yeah, and there's 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.440 probably some of you two who are having a reflex 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.040 that I think is pretty common in Western culture, which 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.440 is like, well, what would be wrong about that? You know, 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.240 there's a there's sort of an immediate defensiveness, and we're 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:21.760 gonna talk a little bit about that today as well. Like, 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.200 you know, basically, we're looking at cultural appropriation and then 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.839 we're gonna look at examples that are positive and negative 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.640 of it, but then look at the arguments for and 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.560 against it, because there's been plenty, Like, let me tell you, 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.200 this is an episode that there was uh no lack 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:40.800 of research. There was plenty of stuff out there to 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.080 incorporate into the literature. And at the end of this episode, 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:45.760 we are not going to have This is not one 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:47.800 of those episodes where we're gonna have a you know, 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.960 a bullet list of what something is. We're hopefully going 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.680 to provide you with some additional tools to evaluate, uh, 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:56.680 your own life, your own sense of culture, to know 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.440 what sort of the arguments are on both sides. We 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.640 are also not going to do an exhaustive examination of 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:09.520 every form of alleged cultural appropriation out there, because I mean, 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.320 you get into say, the music genre, the fashion genre, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.160 and there's so many different examples that pop up, and 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:18.520 many of them are specialized, and they had their their 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.080 arguments on both sides in many cases. I can think 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:22.680 of one example off the top of my head that 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:24.479 I came up in a bunch of the articles, but 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.359 I didn't include it here. The singer Selena Gomez apparently 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.520 wore a bindy at one point like a music video 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:34.440 or maybe a live performance or something like that, and 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.320 she was criticized for it. I was just like, I 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:39.440 don't feel like this really fits into the discussion that 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:41.480 Robert and I are going to have. That is probably 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:43.920 for some of you, like one of the first examples 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.200 that comes to mind, right like Likewise, I don't think 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.480 we're going to talk a whole lot about hip hop 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.240 culture and it's uh and and it's and and how 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.240 it is treated in an American culture, but that certainly 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.200 is a huge area of discussion as well. Now, I 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.159 guess the first thing we need to do is just 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.919 say what is cultural appropriation? And that really that really 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:09.159 splits into two questions. Here, what what is cultural appropriation? 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.400 And then what does it consists of? So the first 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:16.279 question is a little easier broadly, and I mean broadly speaking, 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.799 we're talking about the adoption or use of the elements 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.279 of one culture by members of another culture. But of 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.280 course that that again, that's extremely broad because this sort 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.720 of cultural exchange has been going on as long as 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.760 human society has experienced a convergence of cultures. Uh, the 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:35.720 cats kind of out of the bag in terms of 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:41.920 keeping most global cultures entirely pure for a variety of reasons. Now, 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:43.880 we'll get on into a lot of this as we progress, 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.080 but it should come as no surprise that there are 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.560 plenty of vantage of individuals out there who prefer the 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.200 term cultural misappropriation. So it's not merely the fact that 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.520 one culture is adopting or using elements of another culture. 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.000 It's that they're doing so in a way that is 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:04.040 dishonest or harmful, insensitive or crass, or plays on some 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:08.320 some larger inequity. Yeah, there were actually arguments made in 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.240 some of the articles that I read for this that 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.960 essentially we're like, there's a linguistic problem at hand. Here 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.840 are semantics issue that cultural appropriation is the term we're 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:23.800 all using for this thing, but misappropriation might be better. Yeah, 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.520 because if you you often hear it just thrown out like, oh, 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.280 that's cultural misappropriation, that's like that's a sin stop it, 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.520 where whereas there's obviously going to be a lot more 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.680 nuance at play. Yeah, if you just look at like 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:41.240 the Salem Encyclopedia, it's entry on cultural appropriation says that 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.520 it is quote the lifting of aspects of one culture 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.280 or society for use by another culture. Pretty close to 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:50.040 what you just said. This can be anything from art 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:56.040 to music, fashion, etcetera. Sometimes the intermingling creates highly regarded 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.880 new pieces of work, though right and regardless, some argue 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:04.040 that the adoption of their culture by outsiders is seen 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:08.400 as disrespectful and offensive, so sometimes it's actually defined as 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:12.680 quote the use of works of indigenous people's by non 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.040 indigenous people, so there's a little bit of a distinction there. 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.880 The concept actually emerged in academia in the late nineteen 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.880 seventies and nineteen eighties, and it was a critique of colonialism, 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:26.400 so you can see why it applies, for instance, to 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:32.200 our Western society, American society, or British colonized society. But 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.240 by the nineteen nineties it had a solid place in 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.280 academic discourse, and I can say when I studied for 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.040 my master's degree between two thousand and six and two thousand, 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.120 it was a significant part of the literature for rhetoric, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.800 cultural studies, and communication. I mean every class I was 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.959 in there was at least a section on cultural appropriation 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.640 and how it fit into the theories and discourse around 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:57.120 those ideas. Now, I think one way to help us 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.839 get started here is to keep in mind, what is 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.360 culture right? Like that alone is a really hard question 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.319 to answer in my mind. When I'm usually just talking 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.679 about culture casually or on one of these shows, if 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:11.400 I don't have a lot of research in front of me, 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.680 I'm thinking about culture as how people make sense of 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.640 the world. There's too much of a cacophony of sensory 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.600 information going on for us as human beings to make 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.800 sense of There's so much happening our brains literally can't 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.800 keep up. So culture is how we understand all of 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.880 this stuff. Is basically like a filter, right uh. And 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.040 obviously it's way more complicated than that. But some people 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:42.200 will say, well, culture is norms or social behavior, or materialism, 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.640 or politics, or customs and traditions. But let's not forget 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:51.600 there's also subcultures as well that exists within larger umbrella ones. 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:53.599 The main one that I always think, well, you just 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:55.320 brought up hip hop. Hip hop is a good example 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.640 of the subculture, but I think of punk is a 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:02.000 subculture that exists within what dain culture, right uh. And 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:06.120 then the dictionary says culture is quote the way of life, 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:10.079 especially the general customs and beliefs of a particular group 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:14.240 of people at a particular time. In general, it's used 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:19.160 to refer to our use of symbols to represent our experiences, 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.800 but done in a creative way. Yeah, this is one 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:24.679 of those areas where I often come back to this, 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.280 this analogy I keep rolling out of lenses and uh. 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:30.400 And while it's it's easy, it's easy to think that 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:35.560 our view of reality is completely unfiltered by by anything. 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.480 Or we might think, oh, I'm seeing reality through a 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.120 single lens, you know, a single pane of glass that 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.360 that comes down over my space helmet. But I feel 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.960 that all of us have multiple lenses that are employed, uh, 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.679 many at the same time, and then in various combinations. 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:56.960 And and so when you try and yeah, when you 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.520 try and boil down what is this culture, you end 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.600 up countering not one lens, but several, and some of 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.360 them may not be employed at all times. Yeah, that's 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:07.080 a really interesting way to look at it. And I 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.319 think too, And I'll get into this, we'll talk a 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.680 little bit later about a guy named Gert Hofstad and 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.600 his sort of cultural theories. Uh. But I think that 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.320 is the best way to keep this in mind, that 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:22.200 your analogy of lenses essentially is that like, different people 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:24.720 have their different lenses on, right, and they're not always 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:30.480 seeing the same thing. They're understanding those symbols through different experiences. Yeah, 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.440 and that's important for understanding how we're viewing the world, 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.520 but also how another individual is looking at the same topic. 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.280 And that's key to this whole entire discussion because it's 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.439 there's the aspect of how am I interacting with a 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.400 cultural idea or an artifact? But then how was another 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.040 person looking at that? And then and then how are 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.199 we supposed to have a conversation about it? Yeah, that's 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.480 the inherent problem in human communication, is that there's going 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:58.160 to be a misunderstanding no matter what. There's always what's 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.760 like referred to as psychological noise is in verbal communication. Right, 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.000 we're not telepaths, We're not beaming our thoughts directly into 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.480 somebody else's head. But through words and the use of 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:12.080 other symbols, we're trying to convey meaning back and forth 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.800 to each other. It's just that our way of understanding 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.760 that meaning is vastly different, especially depending on what kind 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.200 of culture you were raised in. All Right, we're gonna 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:21.880 take a quick break, and when we come back, we're 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:26.559 gonna jump into some examples of sort of positive cultural appropriation, 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:32.560 definite negative examples of cultural appropriation or cultural misappropriation, as 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:41.280 well as the the ever cantalizing gray areas. Thank Okay, 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:45.000 we're back. So before we get into positive and negative 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:49.440 examples of cultural appropriation here, I actually have one that 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:53.000 I'm concerned about for myself. It's something that I'm working on. 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:55.559 Most of our listeners now that I work on. Well, 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.160 both of us do we both do fiction outside of 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.400 the podcast. I do comics. You do short fiction. Uh, well, 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.480 you've you've written long fiction too, right, Yeah, the short 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.160 stuff is the main the main material that is out 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.640 there though, and and of course that that means something. 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.280 With both of our work, we're talking about multiple characters, 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:20.480 multiple voices, and the characters of varying um ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, etcetera. Yeah, 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.200 so I mentioned this actually in the Samurai Saw It episode. 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.120 I'm working on this project right now, and basically I 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.800 recognize that the diversity of race, gender, sexuality, nationality, and 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.800 age really needs to improve in modern fiction, especially if 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:39.360 we want our culture these artifacts to represent the world 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:41.840 that we live in. This is kind of tricky for 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:46.000 a straight white, middle aged guy like me. Uh. And 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.120 I'm working on a news story that's a sci fi story. 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.040 It's set in Trinidad and the majority of the characters 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.359 are black. It's also going to incorporate elements of Japanese 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.600 culture into it, including the samurai ethos that we're referring 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.559 to in that other episoisode. So I'm trying to write 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.040 this thing, and I want to address themes of class 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.120 and race and violence in it. But I genuinely wonder 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.000 am I appropriating somebody else's culture here? Right? Like? This 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.960 is a tricky tightrope. Should I stick to only what 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.680 I know? Should my characters only be white, an American 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:22.360 and male? Right? Or should I try to improve diversity 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.960 leading by example through my storytelling. I don't know. It's 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.440 something I like, I genuinely worry about. I've done stuff 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:33.119 in the past, um where I've had characters of diversity 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.520 that I've made the focal point of my work, and 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.240 other stuff I've written have been from characters who are, 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.360 you know, essentially variations of meat. Yeah. I mean, this 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.600 is always a quandary as as a writer, as as 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.960 a creator, probably of any form, because there certainly are 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:52.240 voices that insist that say, an African American perspective should 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.160 not be approached from from a non African American writer. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.400 So is a writer, then, you know, forced to exist 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:00.880 within the confines of their own cold sure? And if so, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.760 how far does it go? Can Stephen King right about 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:08.480 a Southerner. Did did Tennessee raised Coleman McCarthy appropriate the 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.480 cultures of Mexico and the American West when he moved 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.640 out there and started to write westerns. Uh yeah, this 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.320 is this is the kind of way that I think 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.480 that the modern writer's mind especially continues to eat away 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.040 as yourself. You know, it's like a dog gnawing its 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.000 own tail, your second guessing all of your creative choices. 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:29.120 But but I have to I have to say from 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.040 my own part, like when when I've written, say, I 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.840 wrote about a biracial character in one of my Grave 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.440 Stoppers tales and it was a it was a slide 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.400 homage to Joe Christmas and Faulkner's Light in August. But 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:43.920 and personally, I always approach a character like that as 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.320 an attempt to understand another viewpoint, uh, you know, to 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:51.280 to respectfully understand how they are viewing the world, what 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.880 their worldview consists of, and and you know, and putting 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.040 in some research as well, like looking at at authentic 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.200 voices from those realm is to try and create it. 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.600 I mean, that's part of the exercise. What what you 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:06.480 don't want to do in My opinion is to is 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.320 to sort of go the the old school pro wrestling, 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.880 you know, root where someone is is nothing more than 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.880 the archetype. There's nothing more than the stereotype character, and 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.359 that's all they are, right. Yeah, that's a really good example. 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:24.040 Um the like sort of wrestling characters from like the eighties. 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:26.680 I'm thinking of like the Iron Cheek here, and that 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.600 guy is kind of still performing that personality, Like have 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.080 you ever seen the Iron Cheeks Twitter feed? That's pretty wild. 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.080 I understand there's some disagreement on to what extent that 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.120 is him or people who handle it for him, So 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:40.640 I didn't know that, but I don't know a lot 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.000 of detail about about that argument. But to Glow on 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.360 Netflix is a is a big right now, and that 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.320 that discusses some similar territory. Yeah, And Glow is fascinating 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.120 because you see these women come in in the first 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.880 couple episodes and they have all of these different backgrounds, right, 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.440 but they are essentially coming to the same project, Like 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:01.960 what on earth is this? Like they've all got this 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.320 like what we're gonna be female wrestlers? Huh. But then 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.119 the characters that are created for them are totally two dimensional. 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:12.320 And kind of grotesque. Um. Yeah, And so like, when 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.720 I'm thinking about these projects, I think, well, diversity should 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.600 be improved behind the scenes as well. Right, it doesn't 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:19.359 just make up for a lack of diversity to have 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.720 white people appropriating culture there. There should be more creators 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:26.320 of diversity given a platform. And I was trying to 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.879 think of recent like examples to do like a uh 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.919 compare and contrast here, And the two that came up 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.600 for me was I just started watching the American Gods 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:37.879 TV show that's based on that Neil game and novel, 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.400 and it really attempts to tackle the African American experience. 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.480 But at the same time, it's based on a book 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.080 by a white Englishman and it's adapted by a white American. 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:51.960 Then I think of a show like Atlanta, which we 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.959 talked about in this Ironically we talked about Atlanta in 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:58.159 the in the Samurai storied episode. Uh, that is written 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.480 and run by a majority of African Americans. Is one 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:05.160 necessarily better than the other? Is one more authentic than 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.480 the other? They both. As I'm watching them, I'm getting 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.120 different things out of them, and I'm enjoying the experience 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.359 and maybe listeners out there who are engaged in creative 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.400 projects to have this floating in the back of their head, 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:21.439 like what am I allowed to engage with? Yeah, alright, well, 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.120 let's let's continue to discussion then by discussing some some 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.080 some first of all clear positive examples or or what 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.800 I'm I'm presenting as a as a positive example. So 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.359 one that came to mind instantly is British British singer 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:40.600 of Swiss and Greek heritage, Cat Stevens. He famously converted 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:44.400 to Islam and uh and became use of Islam. Now, 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.240 clearly this is a case of an individual entering into 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.880 another culture's customs and religious worldview with with clear permission 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.280 to do so. As with Christianity and Buddhism, Islam is 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:59.040 a missionary religion with a clear mandate to bring other 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.600 people's into the faith. Everyone, it is said, our our 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.280 Muslim at birth. So actually, one of the pieces that 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.879 I turned to for research on this was in the 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.320 Atlantic and it was by an author named Jenny Avans, 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:16.120 and she argued that without cultural appropriation, we wouldn't have 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:21.000 the following things. These are positive examples. New York pizza, 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.560 Japanese Denim. I didn't know that was a thing. Uh, yeah, 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.720 I didn't either reading what she was talking about. Apparently 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:33.360 it's an older style of denim may democratic discourse. That's interesting. 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.919 It makes sense like democratic discourse came from Greece, but 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.520 here in America we've sort of assumed that it's like 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.840 our thing, right, you know. Uh, and then from the 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:48.040 Atlantic as well. Connor Freedersdorf also had an interesting interview, 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.720 and he provided the following examples. Imagine a Korean food 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:56.000 truck owner who puts beef bulgogie in a burrito. Are 0:19:56.080 --> 0:20:00.800 they appropriating Mexican culinary culture? Or a malays Asian housewife 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.160 who rents a kimono when they're on holiday in Kyoto? 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.439 Is that appropriating traditional Japanese dress? Or a Canadian who 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:13.120 writes a novel that's inspired by Cervantes, they're technically appropriating 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:17.080 Spanish literary culture. Or an Irish American who sings opera 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.439 for a living they're benefiting from the world's appropriation of 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.640 Italian art. So there's a lot of complication here, right. 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.000 It's not as easy as just pointing at Selena Gomez 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.160 or Miley Cyrus or somebody and saying stop doing that. Yeah, 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.040 I mean the culinary example. Um, I'm glad you brought 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:33.840 it that up, because I was I was turning a 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.360 number of these around it in my mind, like, oh, 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.240 what about the Portuguese influence on Thai cuisine, you know, 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.880 the incorporation of of peppers for instance, Or a better, 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:47.160 more clear cut example, I suppose would be the French 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:51.080 influence on Vietnamese cuisine, because there you have an even clearer, uh, 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:56.080 colonial influence. And of course this leads to an important 0:20:56.080 --> 0:21:00.600 detail in charges of cultural misappropriation. It's it's usually the 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:05.199 superior power, the colonial force, that is charged with misappropriating something, 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.000 and the reasons should be obvious. I mean, for instance, 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.160 if you're if you're a population of Africans transposed to 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.040 to a Caribbean island, and you incorporate aspects of the 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:17.320 colonial and local culture under your own practices, I mean 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.040 that survival that falls in line with a lot of 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.840 what we're talking about in our Cargo Cults episode. But 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:27.680 when the colonist appropriates the culture of subjugated people, I mean, 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:33.000 that's that's where it gets a lot ickier or potentially ickier. Right, Okay, 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:35.719 So yeah, I'm seeing that as like definitely like a 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:40.280 hallmark for these cases that are brought up with outrage, right, 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.439 is that usually it's if somebody who is from a 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:48.920 colonial culture is appropriate again indigenous versus non indigenous. Um. 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:50.639 One of my favorite books of all time is a 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.320 graphic novel called Pride of Baghdad. It's about lions that 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.640 escape the zoo after the Americans bomb Baghdad in two 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:01.199 thousand three, and the lions, or of the story, they 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.040 essentially become symbols for us to see different versions of 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:06.879 the war through. It's written by Brian K. Vaughan, is 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.639 drawn by Nico Henrikin. Neither of them are Iraqi, but 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:13.600 this modern folk tale really made me think about the 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:18.000 Iraqi experience differently. I think about, uh, this is a 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:23.800 non colonial example Japanese post rock bands I like Mono 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:29.120 and the band Boris. Uh. These musicians adapt Western styles 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.000 of rock. They come up with something that's totally new 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.000 and kind of wonderful in the process. I'd never dream 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:39.800 of referring to Boris as cultural appropriation, right, but arguably 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.359 it is. It's just because Japan is not a colonizer 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:45.879 of the United States, we don't really think of it 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:48.239