Media Culture - Why Cultural Appropriation Is A Problem?

Cultural Appropriation - Why some communities cautious of, or against this practice?

The reason why the communities are cautious of or against this practice are because, cultural appropriation remains a concern for a variety of reasons. For one, this sort of "borrowing" is exploitative because it robs minority groups of the credit they deserve. Art and music forms that originated with minority groups come to be associated with members of the dominant group. As a result, the dominant group is deemed innovative and edgy, while the disadvantaged groups they "borrow" from continue to face negative stereotypes that imply they are lacking in intelligence and creativity. In addition, when members of a dominant group appropriate the cultures of others, they often reinforce stereotypes about minority groups.

Katy Perry performed as Geisha at American Music Awards

When singer Katy Perry performed as a geisha at the American Music Awards in November 2013, she described it as an homage to Asian culture. Asian Americans disagreed with this assessment, declaring her performance "yellowface." The Wall Street Journal's, Jeff Yang said that her performance did not celebrate Asian culture but misrepresented it entirely. He found it particularly problematic that Perry dressed as a geisha to perform the song "Unconditionally", which describes a woman who pledges to love her man no matter what.

The King - Elvis Presley

A large aspect of cultural appropriation, as explained by the prior definitions, is borrowing is particularly problematic in the music industry because of the lack of attribution to black artist's contributions. 

In the 1950's, when black music began to gain traction and recognition among white musicians, record labels chose to record and market black music in the form of white musicians. As a result, musical forms like rock 'n' roll, jazz and the blues were associated with white musicians even though black musicians were pioneers of those genres. Consequently, black musicians were not financially compensated. We have seen the results of this commoditization of black music when Elvis was crowned as "The King Of Rock 'n' Roll." 

It is my profound view that upon exploring through the above examples which depicts exploitative cultural appropriation where it affects the soul of black musicians/artists, a sense of their inherent values and it also affects their pockets, their capacity to rise above their circumstances through the fair rewarding of their creativity.

Bibiliography:

1.blog.sonicbids.com/appropriation-vs-appreciation-in-music-where-should-we-draw-the-line
2.Kareem Nittle, N. (2017) What Is Cultural Appropriation And Why Is It Wrong? [Online]. Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/cultural-appropriation-and-why-is-it-wrong-2834561 (Accessed on 12 June 2017)
3.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzItHH-r2yw