Cultural Appropriation In Society

1118 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The effects of cultural appropriation

Cultural appropriation can be defined as the process of borrowing and changing the meaning of cultural products, slogans, images and elements of fashion. In todays society we see more and more of this, especially in the celebrity world. This essay will give insight as to what cultural appropriation is and it will examine the reasons and consequences of celebrities that “borrow” from other cultures.
Fordham University Law Professor Susan Scafidi defines cultural appropriation as “Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious …show more content…

For one, it is seen as being exploitative because it takes away the cultures credability they deserve. People that appropriate culture, especially in the arts and music form, usually use negative stereotypes and are very degrading to the minority culture. Another issue when it comes to cultural appropriation is that the history, beliefs and traditions of some cultures can be distorted. As a result, the history of cultures can be lost.
In our society today there are many celebrities that appropriate culture. Whether it be intentional or not it is a worldwide phenomenon. These celebrities include Miley Cyrus, Madonna, Gwen Stefani and Katy Perry. Katy Perry is considered the “queen of cultural appropriation” when it comes to her music videos and performances. Katy Perry tends to be extreme at this and whether she know it or not she is upsetting many different cultural …show more content…

The royal image of a royal woman would be elaborate grown, jewellery, plaited wig, hair ornaments and scented cone. The clothing that a royal woman would wear was sheaths with broad shoulder straps, the sheaths were decorated with gold thread and colourful beadwork. Egyptian elite had hairdressers that took care of their hair. Woman wore head pieces, wigs which often had braided pieces with beads. Elite Egyptian woman enhanced their appearance with make up.
Katy Perry is appropriating the Egyptian culture by wearing a costume that represents Cleopatra. The clothes she is wearing resembles the cloths an elite woman would wear but the clothes that Perry is wearing is more revealing and this show that she has no respect for the culture. Katy appropriates by wearing a head piece and a wig that is braided. She is conveying herself as an elite woman. She also wears make up like how the Egyptians used to wear and she also had the eye of Horus painted on her eye. Many people were offended by this music video because they felt like it was being racist and was not a true representation of the Egyptian

Show More
Related

  • Essay On The Real Cleopatra Costumes

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    When researching the three earlier versions of Cleopatra (1917, 1934, and 1963) I found a similar theme in costume for all three time periods. The role of Cleopatra in regards to costume design and character portrayal were all heavily influenced by the current state of America and its fashion. All three designs created for the movies were inaccurate historically for the real Cleopatra, but was accurate in depicting that specific times fashion.

    Read More

  • Article Analysis: How The World Loved The Swastika

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rogers from defines cultural appropriation “as the use of a culture’s symbols, artifacts, genres, rituals, or technologies by members of another culture” then it divides cultural appropriation into four different categories which is cultural exchange, cultural dominance, cultural exploitation, and cultural transculturation. Then it includes how other people define cultural appropriation. I would like to use this article to help my reader understand not only what cultural appropriation is and how it is bad but other people’s point of views and how they see it.

    Read More

  • Cultural Appropriation: Problematic Halloween Costumes

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cultural appropriation has been a controversial subject of debate for decades; hence it is not something “new” as society likes to think. The issue of cultural appropriation seems to have recently emerged in the 21st century because technology has allowed information to be more widespread and easily accessed. The borrowing of cultural elements of minority cultures, particularly black culture and indigenous culture, (hairstyles, music, fashion, art, etc.) by fashion labels and designers, celebrities, and the dominant culture often elicits unforgiving backlash from liberals. For example, Kylie Jenner has frequently been called out by the black community for continuously

    Read More

  • Native American Ethos Pathos Logos

    977 Words  | 2 Pages

    As people, like myself, who aren’t oppressed for their skin color, culture, or religion, it’s hard to sometimes understand what it feels like to have someone appropriate their livelihood, more specifically, someone who is appropriating someone else’s culture. I imagine it, on a much smaller scale, to be like doing a group project, but one is doing all the work and the others take all the credit. The result would be one not receiving any of the rewards. People would call them “creative” and “hard-working”, when in reality, they just showed up and didn’t contribute anything at all. Amy Stretten’s “Appropriating Native American Imagery Honors No One” provides a multitude of resources that go along with her main point of why appropriating the Native

    Read More

  • Cultural Appropriation Essay

    1651 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the article “What is Cultural Appropriation and Why is it Wrong? By Nadra Kareem Nittle and article “The Difference between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation” by Jarune Uwujaren. It talks about how cultural appropriation and about people wearing and using other cultural things such as the style of the clothes. It is usually known as borrowing but now it is not just borrowing since people who wear things/ objects with meaning and significance from other cultures do not even know the meaning. However, in cultural exchange it is much different when someone uses or does something that other cultures do for example, we celebrate Cinco de Mayo in the U.S, but it is the Latinos that live in the U.S who are celebrating and they are proud

    Read More

  • Cultural Appropriation: Oppression or Appreciation?

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    Its shows why things are cultural appropriation by showing the response of different public figures who have been accused of cultural appropriation. It gives examples of actions that’s are cultural appropriation. Its show how things that seem to be stereotypes are more than that it’s a form of racial oppression put upon only the African American community.

    Read More

  • Cultural Appropriation Essay

    1126 Words  | 3 Pages

    One is bound to influence the other. Take New York’s music scene for example, it is a melting pot for all types of cultures and all thrive off of on another. But for one culture to take something from that culture and put it off as their own that is wrong. This is why cultural appropriation is a different problem all within itself. Cultural appropriation has next to nothing to do with someone’s exposure to different cultures. Cultural appropriation has more to do with the fact that someone from a privilege background or lifestyle exploiting someone’s culture from a less than privileged background hence Iggy Azalea, Katy Perry, Elvis Presley, and Miley Cyrus. This is more than often done through ethnic and racial means all while having little to no understanding of the history, experience, or

    Read More

  • Cultural Colonialism And Cultural Imperialism

    2090 Words  | 5 Pages

    The definition of the cultural imperialism in the Cambridge dictionary is simply as one “culture of a large and powerful country, organization, etc. having a great influence on another less powerful country." Yet to get the real and important meaning of cultural imperialism, we have to know more than its basic dictionary definition.

    Read More

  • Cultural Appropriation Of African American Culture

    1614 Words  | 4 Pages

    Have you ever taken offense when you saw someone dressed in traditional garments from your culture? In America, this happens quite often. Some people may not recognize it and some refuse to acknowledge that it even exists. Cultural appropriation is a situation in which a dominant culture steals aspects of a minority culture’s, such as hair, clothing styles, and music.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Culture Appropriation

    1126 Words  | 3 Pages

    Culture Appropriation is the idea of taking one’s culture and adjusting it to another culture, and has brought about many debates for years. One specific ongoing debate is if writers have the right to write about other cultures without being classified as culturally appropriating their culture. Five articles have argued their standpoint and what they believe is the correct way to interpret culture appropriation: “Who Gets to Write What” by Kaitlyn Greenidge, “Dangerous Ideas” by Kenzie Allen, “Commentary: Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible” by K. Tempest Bradford, “In Defense of Cultural Appropriation” by Kenan Malik, and “You can’t steal a culture: In defense of Culture Appropriation” by John McWhorter. While all the participants

    Read More

  • Cultural Appropriation and Its Effects On Other Cultures

    3733 Words  | 8 Pages

    This also brings up the questions of: Can cultural appropriation be defined and can it be avoided? With the new fads of Chinese character tattoo's, Hindu god t-shirts, and the selling of such things as Native sweat lodge kits and ceremonies, does this not show that North Americans can appreciate other cultures and that western culture has become a product of a multicultural society.1 Through examples of film and art, sports, and religion, I will answer the following questions and specifically how cultural appropriation has affected North American First Nation peoples. There is much confusion when it comes to the meaning of cultural appropriation. The literal meaning begins with Culture-Anthropological: the sum total of the attainments and learned behaviour patterns of any specific period, race or people; Appropriation's meaning is to take for one's own use.[2] Most people today then know cultural appropriation then as "to take someone else's culture to use for your own purpose".2 I believe that the argument is not that appropriation is "stealing", as some people claim, but that it does matter how a person goes about putting to use the knowledge

    Read More

  • Cultural Imperialism Essay

    2847 Words  | 6 Pages

    To understand cultural imperialism is to understand the diaspora of man across the globe along with the socially darwinistic interactions that follow. Modern homo-sapiens left the plains of Africa a mere sixty-thousand years ago. Today mankind populates six continents hundreds of islands with a seemingly endless ethnic diversity. But what comes of a culture that is antiquated on a global scale that comes to interact with a more advanced civilization. The Americas prior to 1492 where home to millions of indigenous people with wide spread and diverse cultures speaking over two-thousand languages. With western colonization of the Americas came disease and enslavement of the indigenous peoples. The enslavement, genocide and oppression the natives faced under the Europeans lasted for over five hundred years. Even the birth of civilized nations did little to stop the oppression as the United States military famously marched millions of natives to reserves in Oklahoma in what became known as the trail of tears. The innate nature of mankind is rather troublesome and largely counter-productive. We are extremely social animals yet instead of

    Read More

  • Cultural Assimilation

    1486 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many people come to the United States for change. Change they think will be given to them the moment they step foot on U.S soil, which happens to be incorrect. There is a process to undergo before an individual is able to experience change. A process which occurs once they allow it to begin. Cultural assimilation is “a process by which members of an ethnic minority group lose cultural characteristics that distinguish them from the dominant cultural group or take on the cultural characteristics of another group” (medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com). It is challenging to begin, that is why when deciding on weather or not to assimilate, “people usually weigh the benefits and costs” (Konya 2). For example, parents usually assimilate even if it “imposes very large costs for them, because they want the best for their children” (Konya 2). But, there are still ethnic groups that assimilate into American society at much lower rates than others because they refuse to until they finally decide to later in their lives. To be more specific, there is evidence to support that Mexicans in Los Angeles, CA are assimilating at lower rates than any other race: “Now, a new study lays bare what sociologists and others have long argued: Mexican immigrants are assimilating to life in the United States less successfully than other immigrants” (Schulte 1). The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse portrays the terrible effects caused by the slow cultural assimilation of Mexicans in Los Angeles compared to other races. These effects such as poor income and daily struggles can be seen through Felicia Esperanza and remarks made by Freddy Blas as well as Efren Mendoza.

    Read More

  • Appropriation of Images in Art

    709 Words  | 2 Pages

    Today appropriation is a necessary part of artmaking in our high speed visual and information based society. Some people feel that appropriation is not necessary in art. I feel that this idea is ridiculous. If an artist needs to appropriate found or ready-made objects, contemporary images or art historical images to help in conveying his or her feelings, then so be it. Appropriation in art is here to stay.

    Read More

  • Multicultural Culture Essay

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    If the appreciation for different cultures is not done correctly, it can seem to be cultural appropriation. Any piece of a culture can be stolen, mocked, and disrespected, from music, clothing, food, etc. As a society with such a vast amount of cultures, it is important to know the difference between multiculturalism and cultural appropriation. We can unknowingly steal or disrespect another culture all while thinking we are appreciating the culture.

    Read More

More about Cultural Appropriation In Society

Open Document