Cultural Appropriation Of Slumdog Millionaire

Cultural Appropriation: Not Applicable to Asia?

Much ink has admittedly been split over the seemingly never-ending series of controversies surrounding the issue of cultural appropriation, yet at risk of appearing completely void of any reticence, I’ll continue to spill yet a little more.

Andray Domise recently wrote one of the more palatable pieces in opposition to cultural appropriation in Macleans. He defined cultural appropriation as "superimposing one's own understanding of another culture over that actual culture, slapping a package on it, modeling it, and often selling it.”

He gives the case of Amanda PL, who he doesn't fail to mention is a white woman, and how her scheduled exhibition at the Visions Gallery in Toronto was canceled

In the words of one of India's preeminent filmmakers, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the film "underlines and endorses what the west thinks about of us." How exactly did Danny Boyle not superimpose his “own understanding of another culture” and end up selling it?

Perhaps the reaction of Indians to Slumdog Millionaire might best illustrate how people really feel about cultural appropriation. Many elites – filmmakers, academics and even some politicians – made quite a fuss about how the film imposed a western stereotype of India which many argued denigrated its true nature; however, the average Indian was quite happy with the film. It was well received amongst both the domestic Indian audience as well as the Indian diaspora around the world. Indians who were involved in the film, like AR Rahman who wrote the music, were celebrated across the

The video is shot in various locations across India and shows stereotypical scenes of swamis in Varanasi and locals participating in the festival of Holi in Calcutta – in addition to showing Beyoncé dressed in traditional Indian attire.

As @kissmyazka inquired of the world via twitter: “Are we gonna discuss how Beyonce dressing up as an Indian woman for the Coldplay video is cultural appropriation, or no?”

The answer, according to Associate Professor of African Studies at the University of Texas at Austin Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley, is yes we’ll discuss, but no it wasn’t cultural appropriation.

Writing in Time Magazine, she begins by pointing out that Bollywood has had a handful of actresses not native to South Asia. She mentions Katrina Kaif, Sunny Leone, and Amy Jackson. With Katrina Kaif, she at least admits that her father is Indian. With Sunny Leone, she calls her light-skinned and of Canadian heritage, despite both her parents being Indian. With Amy Jackson, who has no connection to India, she may have thought she hit the jackpot, save for the fact that her first role in Indian cinema was to play the daughter of the British