By Guest Contributor Julia Caron

Florence + the Machine released the latest video this past Friday, for “No Light No Light,” the third single from their new album Ceremonials. Since frontwoman Florence Welch is known for her theatrical music video productions, the clip was eagerly awaited by her fans.

The video, directed by Iceland-based duo Arni & Kinski, has already garnered over 800,000 views on Youtube, in addition to generating countless responses over the images in the video. It’s actually slightly astounding how much racist imagery they managed to pack into just four minutes and 15 seconds.

You can watch the video for yourself to get your own interpretation, but if you can’t watch it for whatever reason here’s a brief summary: Welch, a thin white red-haired British woman, is the focal point, but at various points, we see what seems to be an Asian man in blackface, misreprentations of the voodoo religion (which of course inflicts harm on the poor white woman). The overall plot of the video seems to be of a white woman pursued by “darkness,” represented by the aforementioned man in blackface, who ends up falling into “whiteness,” represented by a choir of young white boys in a church. Oh yes, that old trope. Black = evil, white = good. Echoes of British religious imperialism and its violent history of colonization abound. You get the picture.

The video has already attracted criticism from around the blogosphere, and Jezebel’s Dodai Stewart mapped out why the representaion of the Voodoo religion in the music video is not only negative, but factually incorrect:

Haitian Vodou is a religion that is very misunderstood. Slaves were brought to the Caribbean against their will and forbidden to practice their traditional African religions as well as forced to convert to the religion of their masters. The Bond movie/Eurocentric/Americanized viewpoint presents Vodou as an evil, primitive version of witchcraft. But it’s a religion like any other, with a moral code, gods and goddesses. Many ceremonies deal with protection from evil spirits.

In addition, the “voodoo doll” itself has been misconstrued. In Haiti, it was traditional to nail small handmade puppets or dolls to trees near graveyards; these small figures were meant to act as messengers to the spirit world, and contact dead loved ones. It’s safe to imagine that European folks didn’t understand this — and assumed an evil intent behind a doll with nails in its body.”

On the other hand, all sorts of defenses and excuses are being pulled out of the hat to try and label this music video as anything other than what it is: racist. Glorifying the white female central character as representing goodness, all while vilifying the evil dark skinned heathen Other. The number of times this has been done in film date back to one of the very first blockbusters, D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, and continue on until today with this latest incarnation. But in this age of “colour-blindness” and “post-racial” talk, we confront a fairly new beast: vehement denial.

That’s where a large part of the problem with the discussions around this music video lie – the desire to talk about anything other than race. Fans of Welch’s have offered their own denials, including:

•  ”it’s not blackface, he’s green!”
• “It’s not blackface, people in Britain don’t know about blackface.”
• “It’s not blackface, it’s a representation of darkness.”

Even fans who will readily agree that this music video is “symbolic” and uses darkness (in the shape of a, lest we forget, a human being, an Asian man in blackface who practices voodoo and chases Welch) to represent “evil” and whiteness to represent “good” will still find ways to vehemently deny it is racist. “Maybe it looks like it could be racist, but it didn’t mean to be!” they say. When it comes to confronting the argument of whether or not the video was “intentionally” racist, I’ll point to  minh-ha t. pham’s response for Threadbared to Crystal Renn’s yellowface photoshoot, where she explains:

Racism is so deeply entrenched and pervasive in many societies that everyday racism is often unintentional. On the other hand, what is always intentional is anti-racism. The struggle against racism resists the pervasive ideologies and practices that explicitly and invisibly structure our daily lives (albeit in very different ways that are stratified by race, gender, class, and sexuality). Anti-racism requires intentionality because it’s an act of conscience.

What Pham hits on there is the need to first acknowledge we live in a world where racism and white privilege exist. In the end, the excuses over why “No Light, No Light” is not racist are pointless to entertain if you can’t even begin to acknowledge that. You’d have to live in a very sheltered world to believe that this video is anything other than a giant platter of rehashed racist imagery.

Now, one thing I’m surprised others have not raised in their criticisms of the “No Light, No Light” music video is that this isn’t the first time Welch has been criticized for being “culturally insensitive,” to put it mildly. Her other music videos could hardly be excused as perfect, either.

A quick look at “Dog Days Are Over” (which has over 20 million views on Youtube) features a mishmash of unidentified Othered cultures in the background, such as women in head scarves banging on drums, an all-black gospel choir with silver foreheads, and two blue women (yes, blue). The already very light-skinned Welch is painted an even whiter white, and is featured prominently in the foreground leading the masses of ambiguously ethnic backup dancers in a frenetic crescendo:

At the end of the video, they all explode into bursts of bright colours, leaving the “wild” Welch draped in a furry tattered garment, waving a flag.

What these music videos show is the amount of misrepresentations around race that many (white) artists are able to use, all under the guise of “art.” It happens in fashion photoshoots, music videos, films, books, etc on more occasions than one could possibly count. While it happens all the time, that does not make it any more defensible. And being a fan of an artist who makes a misstep and ends up creating something racist, intentionally or not, does not oblige you to running to their defense. Being a card-carrying fan of an artist or musician does not make them infallible.

Discussions about whether or not Welch is personally responsible for this racist music video have cropped up. When you break it down and imagine the number of people who were behind the storyboarding, choreographing, casting and creative direction around this video, it is slightly astounding that not one person raised concerns about how problematic this video is. Many petitions have cropped up, asking that “be pulled, edited, or reshot and she and her label should issue a sincere apology.” In putting forth this music video attached to her album and her persona, Welch has given it her unspoken seal of approval. In this case, she has also simultaneously alienated any number of people of colour and critical folks in her fanbase.

We’ll probably be waiting with bated breath, as Welch nor her label have responded to the public outcry so far.

In the end, the most important and all too often ignored factor in the case of this racist music video is just that: calling it racist. The fact that in 2011, a top-selling young creative artist has released a music video like this one means we still need to have conversations about racism, stereotypes, blackface, and impact that images in music videos like these ones have. Let’s take this opportunity to talk about how to hold artists, including pop stars, accountable for propagating racist imagery. Let’s talk about why blackface is always wrong, about why reductive stereotypical misrepresentations of people of colour are harmful and need to be confronted, and why we still have to unlearn colonial histories and legacies.

I know, I know. It’s just a clothing line! Lighten up! And it’s so kawaii as the ads keep telling me, forcing the word on me like a pacifier to the lips of a crying, reluctant babe. (Wouldn’t be surprised if Gwen Stefani had tried to trademark the Japanese word for “cute” some time in the last 5 years or so. She’s already pretty much got “Harajuku”–the name of a Tokyo neighborhood–locked down legally.) And look, the Harajuku Mini for Target children’s clothes collection, which launches Sunday online and in stores, is“kawaii,” in a “What if a little panda cub who was part skater-punk threw up and it looked like lollipops and rainbows?” sorta way.

But, you know, I can forgive, but I can’t forget. Wait, who am I kidding? I can’t forgive either! Because when I see this ad plugging Gwen Stefani’s latest business venture…

…all I see is this:

And that is still, always, and forever whatever the Japanese word for “bullshit” is.

[The Stir: Gwen Stefani Harajuku Mini Arrives in Target Sunday!]

Longtime Racialicious readers know this time on the calendar has prompted the R to read someone (or several folks) about their racist costumes or some other Halloween-related foolishness. Well, this year, Ohio University’s Students Teaching about Racism in Society (STARS) put on posters what we’ve been putting into words for quite a while.

I think that, for the most part, the campaign deserves the accolades, coverage, and support it’s been getting around the web, from Angry Asian Man to the 17,575 (and counting!) responses on the STARS president’s Tumblr to The Root to Bitch to the former Racialicious owner Carmen Sognonvi .

Of course, we can argue, among other things, that phenotypes don’t equal culture and cultures aren’t static or even talk about the historical-religious appropriation of Halloween itself.

My only quibble with the campaign is that I may have chosen photos where the models conveyed different body language. Not that the models didn’t pose how they wanted, being a student-driven campaign. What I do think is quite a few photographers rarely get The Shot in one shot; in fact, several photographers submit several photos for clients/collaborative partners to choose from.

I would have chosen, say, the Latino looking down at the photo, the East Asian woman giving the “geisha” picture the side-eye. Or all of the models giving their respective photos the side-eye. Or all of them looking out at the viewer. Or all of them looking down. As is, the photo of the East Asian woman looking down may suggest non-confrontation (“meek Asian girl”)

juxtaposed with the men of color (the photo at the top of the post and this one)

and the Black woman

may  inadvertently suggest stereotypes of anger and aggression (“angry Arab,” “Latino with a temper,” “aggressive Black woman”). Just a thought if and when STARS decides to tweak this incredible campaign.

But, again, that’s my only quibble. STARS did a wild-applause-and-rose-tossing job with this campaign.

Others, however, have taken this serious and timely message and parodied—if not downright attacked–it. (Color me unshocked by this, Racializens.) Now, some of the parodies made me chuckle, like this Avatar-based one

and the zombie one

mostly due to the ideas of the creatures being symbols for people of color.

The ones about white people, especially poor whites, produced mixed results mostly because the parodies don’t quite grasp that, yes, poor white people do have a mitigated privilege via their skin color and that white people of various class standings making fun of poor whites may be viewed as “inside joking,”

but white poverty is also thoroughly ridiculed and dismissed—and, therefore erased–in US society by that very same mitigated privilege.

Oh, and let’s not forget the sexism and the fatphobia in these parodies.

As we’ve witnessed in our posts about racism in costuming, people have rushed to defend their choice to dress up in racially offensive Halloween garb in some of the comment sections about the campaigns, with the usual mixture of the “I got my rights!”, “my best [insert race and/or ethnicity here] friend/partner/co-worker/neighbor didn’t find my costume offensive,” (bonus points if the person saying this is a person of color wears the stereotyping costume of a PoC culture), “y’all are being oversensitive/overemotional/hostile,” “you’re the racist for calling out my racism,” and other derailing techniques.

Some of the Derailing/Apologist/Other-Blaming hits and remixes?

From “Jerry Stein” at Autostraddle

OMG, get a life. This is pathetic. Would an Asian woman be OK to go as a Geisha on Halloween? If not why not? And if so are we now saying that only people of the exact origin or race can have fun dressed as a CHARACTER on Halloween? Stop being so sensitive. If America is to get passed all of this nonsense then it needs to get some perspective and start smiling again.

Watch any movie or TV show and you will see a racial stereotype. Are all stereotypes negative NO! Why is it that this campaign only sees that.

This country is dividing itself. Nobody wants to be American. Everyone is so narcissistic and self important it makes me sick to my stomach. Bring back people with humility and a sense of humor before we all end up selfish deluded idiots thinking the world owes them something.

Based on this all costumes which feature Cowboys, Irish Leprechauns, Michael Jackson, Lady GaGa, Bin Laden, OJ Simpson, Madonna, Jersey Shore cast members will all now be banned because they offend the Irish, African Americans, Italians and Muslims. Thats pretty much Halloween cancelled.

This country is becoming a laughing stock for the wrong reasons.

Mohamhead from GOOD

I am not white myself but I don’t see what’s wrong with people doing that kind on stuff on Halloween. I might even dress up as a white guy. Is that racist too? Or is it only racist if white people do it? Hypocrites.

didimydoe3, also at GOOD

I don’t mind stereotypical costumes of my race because I’m mature enough to know it’s a costume.

Sometimes it is offensive. Mine is. It’s the only reason I’m doing it. I’m going blackface.

Oh, I could go on and on and on with these kinds of comments–because these comments are out there ad nauseum–but you get the jist.

But see, here’s the thing, People Who Defend Racist Costumes: you all are proving STARS’—and Racialicious’—point…and quite well. You’re welcome.

As Bitch’s headline says, don’t mess up as you dress up, and have a Happy Halloween!

Image credits: Uproxx and Hard to Be Humble When You Stuntin on a Jumbotron

By Guest Contributor M.Dot, cross-posted from New Model Minority

Returning a book back to the library Monday, I decided to look at the magazine section. I came across the most recent issue of The Nation and decided to pick it up. I know that Professor Harris Perry had discourse with Cornel West and Chris Hedges in May around President Obama’s positions and policies around race, racial alliances, identity and class. So I decided to read this article because it seemed to be a follow up to the conversation. It also helped that the title was “Breaking News: Not All Black Intellectuals Think Alike.” #Heheheh.

A particular part of the article spoke to me, the section where she connects voice to citizenship. She writes:

Citizenship in a democratic system rests on the ability to freely and openly choose, criticize and depose one’s leaders. This must obtain whether those leaders are elected or self-appointed. It cannot be contingent on whether the critiques are accurate or false, empirical or ideological, well or poorly made. Citizenship is voice. West exercised his voice, and I mine. But the history and persistence of racial inequality and white privilege in America means that the exercise of voice for black citizens is fraught with the dangers of surveillance. It’s yet another challenge of being black and exercising citizenship in the United States. Even as we articulate our grievances, black citizens are haunted by that “peculiar sensation” that W.E.B. Du Bois described as “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”

I thought of voice and the fact that two White men have been impersonating queer women of color on the internet.

I thought of how my colleagues, other Black women who are teachers and graduate students from across the country who write anonymously on the internet for fear of retribution from their departments and future potential employers. Whereas on the other hand, here are these two heterosexual White men assuming the identity of women of color, to further their own career ends.

I thought of how I routinely have to tell Negro men to sit down when they try and debate me about gender theory, racial theory or political economy on the internet. It’s not that I don’t mind being challenged, that is a part of the game. The issue is their willingness to challenge me while being woefully under read. When I am dialoging with people who know more than me in an academic setting or on the street, I shut the hell up and listen and learn. These men, and some women on the internet learn real quickly that they can learn from me  or ask me questions, but unless they know my arguments, and the arguments of the people I have read, I will sit them down with the quickness. My work will be respected. This ain’t JV, this is elite. I have the bills and bifocals to prove it.

As a Black woman that writes about race, gender, pop culture and sexuality on the internet, I was excited when I saw Harris Perry write,

I vigorously object to the oft-repeated sentiment that African-Americans should avoid public disagreements and settle matters internally to present a united front. It’s clear from the history of black organizing that this strategy is particularly disempowering for black women, black youth, black gay men and lesbians, and others who have fewer internal community resources to ensure that their concerns are represented in a broader racial agenda. Failing to air the dirty laundry has historically meant that these groups are left washing it with their own hands.

To say it another way, failing to air our dirty laundry leaves the deviants, the single mothers, the queers, the lesbians, the gays, the felons, the hustlers, the sex workers-basically anyone who is lewd and lascivious shit out of luck.

Using your voice makes you a target, but as Audre Lorde has famously said, your silence won’t protect you.

You use your voice lately?

How did that turn out?

You choose NOT to speak up lately?

How did that turn out?

In the midst of her excellent takedown of Urban Outfitters’ “Navajo” appparel line, Sasha Houston Brown focused on one suspiciously-named piece of underwear:

I doubt that you consulted the Navajo Nation about using their tribal name on sophisticated items such as the “Navajo Hipster Panty”. In fact, I recently became aware that the Navajo Nation Attorney General sent your company a cease and desist letter regarding this very issue. I stand in solidarity with the Navajo Nation and ask that you not only cease and desist selling products falsely using the Navajo name, but that you also stop selling faux Indian apparel that objectifies all tribes.

Wednesday, Sasha passed along an update to the story from the Indian Country Today Media Network: a few days after UO spokesman Ed Looram said the company had “no plans to modify or discontinue any of these products,” the word Navajo has been completely scrubbed from its’ website.

In a release, the Navajo Nation Justice Department told the Associated Press Wednesday the move was “more consistent with the corporation’s responsibilities than previously demonstrated.”

As of Wednesday, items with the word “Navajo” in their description are now referred to as “Printed,” like the infamous Hipster Panty, which went from this:

to this:

Of course, the name “Hipster Panty” still makes it sound like it was made out of hair from Zooey Deschanel’s unicorn PBR puppy or whatever. But regardless, congrats to the Navajo Nation on this victory, and to Sasha and everyone who posted about this issue for pushing UO into the change!

This past weekend, I had the unfortunate experience of visiting a local Urban Outfitters store in Minneapolis. It appeared as though the recording “artist” Ke$ha had violently exploded in the store, leaving behind a cheap, vulgar and culturally offensive retail collection. Plastic dreamcatchers wrapped in pleather hung next to an indistinguishable mass of artificial feather jewelry and hyper sexualized clothing featuring an abundance of suede, fringe and inauthentic tribal patterns.

In all seriousness, as a Native American woman, I am deeply distressed by your company’s mass marketed collection of distasteful and racially demeaning apparel and décor. I take personal offense to the blatant racism and perverted cultural appropriation your store features this season as “fashion.”

All too often industries, sports teams and ignorant individuals legitimize racism under the guise of cultural “appreciation”. There is nothing honorable or historically appreciative in selling items such as the Navajo Print Fabric Wrapped Flask, Peace Treaty Feather Necklace, Staring at Stars Skull Native Headdress T-shirt or the Navajo Hipster Panty. These and the dozens of other tacky products you are currently selling referencing Native America make a mockery of our identity and unique cultures.

Your corporate website claims to “offer a lifestyle-specific shopping experience for the educated, urban-minded individual”. If this is the case, then clearly you have missed the mark on your target demographic. There is simply nothing educated about your collection, which on the contrary professes extreme ignorance and bigotry.

My primary concern with your company is the level on which you are engaging in cultural and religious appropriation. None of your products are actually made by Indigenous nations, nor were any Native peoples involved in the production or design process. On the contrary, you have created cheap knock-off trinkets made in factories overseas. Selling imported plastic and nylon dreamcatchers disrespects our history and undermines our sovereignty as Tribal Nations.

Did I mention that marketing inauthentic products using Native American tribal names is also illegal? The company’s actions violate the Federal Indian Arts and Crafts act of 1990 and the Federal Trade Commission Act. According to the Department of the Interior:

“The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-644) is a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits misrepresentation in marketing of Indian arts and crafts products within the United States. It is illegal to offer or display for sale, or sell any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian Tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization, resident within the United States. If a business violates the Act, it can face civil penalties or can be prosecuted and fined up to $1,000,000”.

I doubt that you consulted the Navajo Nation about using their tribal name on sophisticated items such as the “Navajo Hipster Panty”. In fact, I recently became aware that the Navajo Nation Attorney General sent your company a cease and desist letter regarding this very issue. I stand in solidarity with the Navajo Nation and ask that you not only cease and desist selling products falsely using the Navajo name, but that you also stop selling faux Indian apparel that objectifies all tribes.

Urban Outfitters Inc. has taken Indigenous life ways and artistic expressions and trivialized and sexualized them for the sake of corporate profit. It is this kind of behavior that perpetuates the stereotype of the white man’s Indian and allows for the ongoing commodification of an entire ethnic group. Just as our traditional homelands were stolen and expropriated without regard, so too has our very cultural identity. On this day that America still celebrates as Columbus Day, I ask that do what is morally right and apologize to Indigenous peoples of North America and withdraw this offensive line from retail stores.

Sincerely,

Sasha Houston Brown, Dakota
Santee Sioux Nation

A search for “Cherokee” on the Urban Outfitters website reveals 1 result. A search for “Tribal”: 15. A search for “Native”: 10. “Indian”: 2. But Navajo? 24 products have Navajo in the name alone.

This post started as a massive Urban Outfitters take-down, I spent an hour or so last week scrolling through the pages of the website, and adding anything to my cart that was “Native inspired” or had a tribal name in the description. I got through JUST the women’s clothes and accessories (no mens or apartment), and had 58 items in my cart. So, then, like any good researcher, I began to code my cart for emergent themes, and the one that jumped out far above the rest? Urban Outfitters is obsessed with Navajos.

I want to show you some examples, and then talk a little about the issues with using tribal names in products that are decidedly not-. Finally, I want to share what the Navajo Nation in particular is doing about it, and the action they’ve taken is pretty cool.

Without further ado, some of the “Navajo” products to grace the pages of Urban.

From the basic:

To the totally random:

The Antiquated:

And, finally, the totally offensive:

^{Navajo Hipster Panty}

Of course, there are many more if you head over to the site and search “Navajo”.

So what’s inherently wrong with using Navajo in product names? And what can tribal nations do about it?

First of all, these products represent a stereotype of “southwest” Native cultures. The designs are loosely based on Navajo rug designs (maybe?) or Pendleton designs, but aren’t representations that are chosen by the tribe or truly representative of Navajo culture. Associating a sovereign Nation of hundreds of thousands of people witl a flask or women’s underwear isn’t exactly honoring.

Additionally, it’s more than likely that Urban chose “Navajo” for the international recognition–to most of the world Navajo (and Cherokee)= American Indian (my Jamaican friend didn’t even know there were other tribes in the US until she met me). This conflation of Navajo with “generic Indian” contributes to the further erasure of the distinct tribes and cultures in the US and solidifies the idea that there is only one “Native” culture, represented by plains feathers and southwest designs.

Navajo has taken a bold step, and actually holds trademarks for 12 derivatives of “Navajo”, three of which I’m citing below:

2061748: NAVAJO Sportswear; namely, slacks, shorts, skirts and jeans.

2237848: NAVAJO Clothing; namely, tops, vests, shirts, sport shorts, polo shirts, golf shirts, * jackets, * T-shirts and sweat shirts.

3602907: NAVAJO Online retail store services; namely, on-line ordering services in the field of clothing—specifically, men’s and women’s sportswear, namely, jeans, tops, shirts, sport shorts, polo shirts, golf shirts, T-shirts and sweatshirts.
I’m no law expert, but it feels like the products above might be violating the trademarks?

A few months ago, they Navajo Nation Attorney General actually sent a cease and desist letter to Urban Outfitters, and there are some great quotes from the letter (I’ll try and post it in full in another post):

Your corporation’s use of Navajo will cause confusion in the market and society concerning the source or origin of your corporation’s products. Consumers will incorrectly believe that the Nation has licensed, approved, or authorized your corporation’s use of the Navajo name and trademarks for its products – when the Nation has not – or that your corporation’s use of Navajo is an extension of the Nation’s family of trademarks – which it is not. This is bound to cause confusion, mistake, or deception with respect to the source or origin of your goods. This undermines the character and uniqueness of the Nation’s long-standing distinctive Navajo name and trademarks, which—because of its false connection with the Nation—dilutes and tarnishes the name and trademarks. Accordingly, please immediately cease and desist using the Navajo name and trademark with your products.

As a Nation with a distinguished legacy and unmistakable contemporary presence, the Nation is committed to retaining this distinction and preventing inaccuracy and confusion in society and the market The Nation must maintain distinctiveness and clarity of valid association with its government, its institutions, its entities, its people, and their products in commerce.When an entity attempts to falsely associate its products with the Nation and its products, the Nation does not regard this as benign or trivial. TheNation remains firmly committed to the cancellation of all marks that attempt to falsely associate with the institution, its entities, its people or its products. Accordingly, immediately cease and desist using Navajo with your products.

I haven’t heard what the response was from Urban, if any, but I think it is a bold and positive choice for the tribe to take matters into their own hands and push back on instances of misrepresentation and cultural appropriation.

What do you think? Should tribes go the route of Navajo and trademark their tribal names? Do you think this will be an avenue for positive change or just mean tribal courts will be mired in lawsuits, taking away time from other important tribal business?

By Arturo R. García

According to some of my fellow geeky bloggers, the woman in the picture above is a victim.

That’s the new Miss USA, Alyssa Campanella, who some people are seemingly rushing to induct into the “scene” because of some comments she made in this interview:

Campanella expresses her love for shows like The Tudors and Camelot, and says she was a “science geek” in high school, which is commendable. I don’t question her fandom. But interpreting her statements as some sort of victory for fandom in general not only appropriates her words, but strikes me as vexing for a number of reasons.

First is the fact that this interview was only aired because of Campanella’s participation in an industry promoting an exclusionary body standard, an industry that tacitly encourages parents to exploit their children in hopes of “moving up the ranks” to reach her level. Campanella was on this platform to begin with because she’s trafficking in privilege. If she were a plus-sized woman, a transgender woman, or a woman of color, it would be much less likely for us to even hear the name “Alyssa Campanella” in this setting.

In Campanella’s case, her geekdom will more than likely be framed as a way to make her “exotic” to certain advertising demographics – and make no mistake, she is not there because she enjoyed studying biology, or chemistry. She is there because of her body, and people who do not have her kind of body, or the cis-male equivalent, are Othered by many of the people who both control events like Miss USA or watch it. That is privilege, and while recognizing that doesn’t excuse any rationalization for insulting her, neither is it evidence of “jealousy” or “self-loathing” when discussing that privilege.

At this point I’d like to make a couple of key distinctions: it is sexist when people only accuse female celebrities of “pandering” to geeky audiences. There’s little evidence that male actors and performers aren’t scripted to declare “relatability” any less than their female counterparts; male celebrities have their own set of stereotypes and corporate messages to live up to. But it’s also problematic to equate skepticism regarding declarations of “geeky cred” by celebrities of any gender with the street-level harassment many women have reported at conventions or at comic-book shops.

The factors behind that harassment go beyond the individual misogynous acts or attitudes practiced by their attackers. It’s the encouragement of that mindset by many of the companies supplying our geeky products. When DC Comics tells retailers it plans to continue to target the 18-to-34-year old male demographic, despite promises of a “new, diverse DC Universe,” that fuels the narrative depicting fandom as an all-male fiefdom. That attitude should be questioned by geek media at every turn, not only at the storefront, but at the corporate level.

When DC promotes hyper-sexualized character designs like the new one (shown at right) for Harley Quinn, or allows writers like Judd Winick to emphasize that titles like Catwoman will be “sexy,” while marginalizing female creators, that sends a message of exclusion to anyone who is not a white cis-hetero male, and it perpetuates the corporate-driven perception that women who look much like Campanella are only valued at all because they’re handy props to entice customers to buy their products.

The fact is, geeky women are not, and have never been “Unicorns.” Despite what advertisers want you to believe, women have always been involved in fandom, be it as creators, critics, cosplayers and consumers, of all body types and ethnicities. Want proof? Here’s a picture from Newsweek, taken at an early Star Trek convention, along with the caption, emphasis mine:

In the early conventions, a majority of attendees were women, [costume designer Angelique] Trouvere says. Because of that, more men started to attend, and today convention audiences are usually evenly split along gender lines.

Despite that fact, businesses haven’t just been ignoring female consumers, they have been telling their clienteles that “hot girls” can’t be geeky, and telling them that geeky women have to be “hot” for their opinions to matter, or to be taken seriously as characters across the media spectrum. Movies like She’s All That and television shows like The Big Bang Theory depict female geekdom as something that is Not Normal, something they must be “cured of” before they can be accepted into society at large.

And make no mistake, a lack of acceptance is part of the real-life experience for many geeks, both male and female: in some of the threads involving the debate over “hotness” and geekdom, people have mentioned being mocked, harassed or outright bullied by schoolyard peers. But seemingly at every turn, people who discuss being bullied are told to “grow up” or to “get over high school.” As if bullying doesn’t really do anyone any harm. Just tell that to the parents of this anonymous child in Lakeside, Calif.:

“My prevailing thought when I wake up in the morning is, ‘I don’t want to find my son hanging from the rafters,’ ” said the mother of a Lakeside middle schooler who has been bullied for three years. She asked that her name not be used for fear of further assaults on her son.

He has been punched, slapped, hit with rocks, called names. Asked about transferring to another campus, he declined. What if the same fate — or worse — awaited him there?

“And why should he have to leave?” his mother asked. (The students and parents interviewed for this story asked that their names not be used for fear of further assaults.)

Or tell that to the mother of 17-year-old Tyler Long in Murray County, Ga.:

“They would take his things from him, spit in his food, call him ‘gay, faggot’,” Long said. “One day to the next, it was continuous harassment from the other kids in the classroom.”

His parents said they complained to school authorities about the pattern of bullying early on, but no action was taken.

“‘Boys will be boys’,” was the response Long said he got from school officials. “‘How can I stop every kid from saying things that shouldn’t be said? What do you want me to do Mr. and Mrs. Long? I’ve done all I can.’”

Is death now the litmus test for bullying? At what age does the “Get Over It” caucus believe bullying becomes “official”? Would these people also tell women who like Star Wars but are not “hot” to “get over it” if they’re sexually harassed at conventions, or while playing games online?

I know friends who were pelted with pieces of meat by schoolmates, years before any PSA campaign was there to tell them “It Gets Better.” In my own experience, I was able to avoid physical harm because a) I was fortunate enough to develop a circle of friends with some of my fellow Honors students and b) I showed just enough athletic ability in phys-ed classes and pick-up games in the playground to not receive much more invective than to be accused of “acting white” because I was a good student.

That was a privilege that I worked for, sure, but it was privilege just the same. Other people were not as fortunate, and there are kids out there today who will continue to be subjected to the same stereotypes older geeks were regarding gender and body identity, only through many more media outlets. These problems will not automatically start to disappear because an actor or popular musician tells a breathless interviewer he or she is a gamer, regardless of intention.

All of which is not to say that celebrities or “hot” people can never be members of the community. In calling herself “a history geek,” Campanella herself seems to fit the definition of a geek ally: she has some geeky interests, and she believes in evolution (thank goodness), but it’s not like she chose to cosplay Wonder Woman for the swimsuit competition, either. There might be some common tastes between some celebrities and their fanbases. But, again, barring any evidence to the contrary, there’s experiences common – not unanimous, but common – to this subculture that they did not go through. A star watching The Tudors doesn’t make him or her a “bandwagon jumper,” but it also doesn’t mean he or she can automatically empathize with a non-famous woman who’s treated coldly or ignored by her local comics retailer, or a non-famous man whose geekdom, while acknowledged “without complaint,” is painted as “less of a man” because of it.

Acknowledging that disconnect doesn’t make either side a bad person. That’s often a good starting point for newcomers to learn, and for day-to-day members to share their stories. That’s one way communities strengthen their ties. But it takes effort on both sides.

As rosasparks pointed out (via our own AJ Plaid) on Tumblr:

Perez Hilton may be a gay man, Lady Gaga may be an out bisexual woman but their identities alone do not make them awesome members of any particular tribe.

I am a bisexual woman of color. I don’t get a cookie, a medal or even a high-five. Not because of identity alone, because I hope my actions and contributions to society speak louder than my identifying markers.

If I act like shit, say horribly hateful and ignorant things, I’m not doing anyone any favors, myself and whatever tribe I belong to, nor does it reflect well on my ‘tribe’.

Come on. It’s absurd to assume that one’s self-identified ‘group’ makes them somehow an ally or a responsible member. That’s bullshit. We’re all required to be more than our ‘titles’.

F-CK THAT.

And there is nothing wrong with being an ally; people like Tim Wise do valuable anti-racist work from that position. When celebrities participate in campaigns like “It Gets Better,” it’s a gesture of support and empathy that deserves credit. But that is different than just saying, “I like [x] television show” – it’s people doing work for the communities they’re supporting. Even then, I don’t think Wise would argue that his work as an ally disqualifies him from his white privilege.

Recognizing that distinction, and the fact that many of the industries of choice for celebrities have played to insecurities and biases defining millions of people – geeky or not – as falling below a set of money-driven “standards” is self-awareness, borne of individual experiences that cannot be trivialized just because corporate America tells us geekdom is “chic” right now. And Campanella is the latest example of someone who is in a position to become a valuable ally, if she chooses to. But that takes more than telling us she’s a fan. Without that acknowledgement, any claim of “empowerment” is really an argument for privilege. And no celebrity, male or female, needs our help with that.

White rappers aren’t the problem. Exploitation of Black culture is.

Black culture is diverse with various meanings; and how one defines Black culture varies from individual. In the case of Kreayshawn, I’m referring to her misinterpretation of what she thinks Black culture and hip-hop is.

One could argue she is exactly what hip-hop has become–gimmicky, devoid of substance, whack, the glorification of a street life, sexualized and talentless. If that’s the case, is she appropriating Black culture or just a part of a watered down genre?

I don’t believe for one second her image is authentic. It is one derived of the stereotypical “sister girl” trope we’ve seen time and time again. Understand, I’m not arguing whether “sister girl” actually exists. I’m not even arguing that the “sister girl” is to be shunned. But Kreayshawn’s image, how she carries herself, her lyrics are all derivative of her very limited view of Black culture.
- From “Kreayshawn: Another Case of Appropriating Black Culture,” by Bene Viera, June 6

By Guest Contributor Monique Jones, cross-posted from moniqueblog

Before I get to the huge review of “Charlie Curries a Favor from Todd”, I figure I should have a post where I analyze Outsourced as a whole, particularly becasue the show has been cancelled. Will NBC listen to what I have to say and use my suggestions as valid input on what to do or not do in their next culture shock office sitcom? No. In fact, I’d be shocked to pieces if someone from NBC even knows I, and Moniqueblog, exist. But at least my opinions will be here for the record.

I’ll tackle this in four parts, starting from the broadest to smallest of issues: 1) How the premise of the show was tackled, 2)How the characters were developed (with a subset on the sartorial choices the characters made, as the clothes also tell a bigger story-and perhaps one of the most egregious mistakes-of where the show veered the wrong way), 3) How relationships were handled, and 4) The character of Todd: how his characterization could’ve been saved mid-season. Let’s jump in, shall we?

Part One: The premise of the show

I’ll start the analysis by quoting  the official synopsis of the show from NBC:

“Outsourced” is NBC’s new workplace comedy series centered around a catalog-based company, Mid America Novelties, that sells American novelty goods including whoopee cushions, foam fingers and wallets made of bacon, and whose call center has suddenly been outsourced to India.

After recently completing Mid America Novelties’ manager training program, Todd Dempsy (Ben Rappaport, off-Broadway’s “The Gingerbread House”) learns that the call center is being outsourced to India, and he is asked to move there to be the manager. Having never ventured out of the country, he is unprepared for the culture shock. Overwhelmed, Todd discovers that his new staff needs a crash course in all things American if they are to understand the U.S. product line and ramp up sales from halfway around the world.

The sales team Todd inherits includes Gupta (Parvesh Cheena, “Help Me Help You”), a socially awkward employee; Manmeet (Sacha Dhawan, BBC’s Five Days II), a young romantic who is enamored with America; Asha (Rebecca Hazlewood, BBC’s Doctors), a smart, striking woman who finds herself intrigued by Todd; Rajiv (Rizwan Manji, “Privileged”) the assistant manager who wants Todd’s job; and Madhuri (Anisha Nagarajan, Broadway’s “Bombay Dreams”), a wallflower who suffers from extreme shyness.

Todd also discovers other transplants working in his office building, including an American expatriate, Charlie Davies (Diedrich Bader, The Drew Carey Show), who runs the All-American Hunter call center, and Tonya (Pippa Black, Neighbours), a beautiful Australian who runs the call center for Koala Air.

On paper, this show seems not only like a sure bet, but an easy task. How can a show about an American transplanted in India not be good? The culture clash alone would be entertaining. So it would seem.

However, just like how some conversations between Todd and his Indian workers might have become convoluted from a language barrier, something got lost in translation when the show went from the pitch phase to the pilot/filming phase. Several elements rubbed the majority of people (and critics) the wrong way:

1. Todd and other Western characters had an air of entitlement, while the Indian characters were secondary in an Indian/American comedy; the Western characters were the foreigners needing to learn about Indian society, but the native Indians were treated as sidekicks, or worse, like children needing to be educated in the Western ways.
2. India was treated as a backwater country, whereas America was held on a slightly higher pedestal. Possibly, this is because many of the writers might be more familiar with America, and also, it be a tone that’s a carry-over from the film version of Outsourced. But still, it’s highly insulting to a country that has the tenth largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), fourth largest economy by purchasing power parity, has become a newly industrialized country and is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, boasting such industries as automobiles, software, biotechnology, aeronautics, and other scientific areas,  aside from their fast-growing IT and business process outsourcing fields.In Mumbai alone (the place where I believe the tv show Outsourced is set), there are fast-paced IT, engineering, healthcare and  financial career fields. Mumbai is also the financial center of India due to being the location of both of the country’s major stock exchanges. Mumbai is also the home of Bollywood, so acting opportunities are also big. Many major ad agencies are also located in Mumbai. Sure, India has a very large group of people who are unskilled and still faces the upward challenges of eliminating poverty, illiteracy, and less-than-favorable public health conditions, but India is not as backwards and out-of-touch with Western society as Outsourced makes it out to be.
3. The humor of the show–particularly the pilot–was crude to both countries involved. The humor made Americans look like self-absorbed idiots and the Indians look like simple-minded country folk. Neither of which is true. The joke that Indians no nothing of Western culture is null and void in the first place–does India not have India’s Got Talent, a show that is a spin-off of the original Britain’s Got Talent? Do they not have Indian Idol, a version of (again) the original British show Pop Idol? (Keep in mind America also borrowed the models for those two shows for America’s Got Talent and American Idol.) And what about the huge market they have for American television shows and films? The idea that the Indian characters in Outsourced have never seen an American movie is almost impossible to imagine. The reverse is also true for America. On the whole, we are intellectually and culturally-stimulated people, too–do we not have the Bollywood-esque Broadway show Bombay Dreams as well as a growing market for Bollywood films? And did we not have American made films like The Namesake? Each culture has their own set of jokes and idiosyncrasies, sure; not every expat knows everything to expect from a foreign culture. But that doesn’t mean that two countries’ popular cultures can’t overlap at any point. And lets not pretend that America doesn’t consume their fair share of Indian cuisine. For Todd not to have eaten an Indian dish or snack ever is almost preposterous in today’s society. The same holds true for the Indian characters on the show; there are McDonald’s restaurants in India.

There might be a few more issues in the pilot and the show as a whole, but these are the biggest ones I can think of. Am I holding the cast at fault? No. In all of the reviews I’ve done thus far, I haven’t held the cast at any fault because they aren’t the ones to be blamed. The main problems were created below the surface, during the show’s initial planning and writing stages. Here’s how the people behind the show could have fixed said issues, though:

1. Make sure to eliminate any part of the Western characters that would give the characters that odious air of entitlement. One of way of fixing this, aside from doing through characterization of Todd and co., would be to have more Indian writers on staff. Out of the 17 writers hired to work on Outsourced, a very small number are actually Indian. I think hiring more Indian writers would have helped even out some of the script problems. Also, the writers needed to make sure they were well-versed enough in Indian culture to make jokes about it. I’m not saying some weren’t well-versed, but if we’re speaking in generalities, the whole writing unit should have had not only the standard show bible, but an Indian bible–a book put together by the producing staff and head writer(s) that outlined both major and little-known facts about Indian culture, a list of contacts on Indian culture for research, and various movies, television shows, food items, and other forms of pop-culture in India. Also, if it could’ve been worked in the budget, the entire team should have gone to India as a research trip, similar to how Disney would pay for its team of animators to go to faraway locales to sketch, sight-see, and do background research in order to bring the local flavor back to their animated films such as  The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Paris, France), Mulan (China), and The Lion King (Kenya, Africa), to name a few. Pixar and Dreamworks also did this for Ratatouille (France) and The Prince of Egypt (Egypt, Africa), respectively. Also, Dreamworks head Jeffery Katzenberg utilized the minds of the top biblical scholars, Arab-American leaders, and Christian, Muslim, and Jewish theologians in order to create the best possible (and least-offensive) movie, since the film, much like Outsourced, had the potential to alienate several cultures, ethnic groups, and religions.
2. Understand India fully. I touched on this with the suggestion of an Indian bible already. This is where such a book would come in handy for writers, as would that trip. In order to write about a certain group of people and their country, you have to have immersed yourself in it for quite a long time. In order for the show to really be both hilarious and hard-hitting, the writers could have not only used the lighthearted parts of India, such as Holi, but also the dark parts, such as the high poverty rate, the illiteracy, and the health issues. Other parts of Indian society, such as the latent colorism, the residual caste society, and the argument over arranged marriages could have been talked about, or, in the case of the arranged marriage issue, talked about more often and in much greater detail. Perhaps the writers were saving some of their Indian knowledge for later seasons, but if the show was to be a success, they should have put some of their heavy guns in the first season. Similarly, the same type of treatment could have been done for America, particularly Kansas, where Todd is from. While the lighter side of America was always talked about on the show, the darker issues could have made its way into the show as well. Issues like racism and discrimination against people from the Middle East and India due to the fear of terrorism, the theatricality and “horse-race” quality of our political system, race relations issues, our own healthcare issues, fear-mongering, etc. If the show seriously dealt with both sides of both countries, Outsourced could have been a very well-written, possibly controversial, but very successful dark comedy. Also, placing the show in a more believable setting than a soundstage (or perhaps, just a more believable soundstage) could have helped immensely.
3. With the above research suggestions completed, the humor would have come naturally. There’s a bevy of things in both countries to choose from that would make compelling television. Such a rich bounty of harvestable material should have provided scores of ideas. And, coupled with the right amount of knowledge, the jokes could have had some substance other than something as simple as Jingle Jugs.

Again, some of the tone of the show, might be from the film, but where the film stops, the tv show could have picked-up and become even better than the film.

Clueless was a film, and the television show was, in many cases, much better and zanier than the film (which, if we’re being honest, was already fantastic, except for the squicky stepbrother-loving part. I know they’re not related, but it still grosses me out!) M.A.S.H. was a film, and whereas the film was a gritty take on life as a medical officer in Korea, M.A.S.H. the television show was serious, funny, tinged in Vietnam-era sensibilities (so much so that I thought it was about Vietnam) and engrossing that it became much more popular than the film ever was. Hogan’s Heroes was based on Stalag 17, a classic Billy Wilder film based on a play about American soldiers in a German POW camp, but the show, also showing a more contemporary sensibility than its film counterpart (though not as much as M.A.S.H.), became much more popular than the film because of the humor involved.

In short, stuff could’ve been done to make the easy premise work and develop the show into a hard, scathing, slightly satirical, funny comedy, the comedy I think it was supposed to be, instead of the slightly-unfocused, soft-hitting show it turned out to be.

This is the first in a multi-post series, which will continue at moniqueblog

By The Racialicious Editorial Board

Beyonce might not completely run the world, but she’s certainly dominated the blogosphere news cycle since the release of the video for “Run The World (Girls).” Rather than each of us having a go at analyzing the song and the video, we decided it best to get together online and talk about not just the message Beyonce’s song is promoting, but how it fits in with other representations of Girl Power, as well as the song’s problematic backstory.

Latoya: Here’s something I’m pondering:  Beyonce bought this beat from Diplo’s Major Lazer outfit. I was already a bit skeeved because it’s Diplo and we’ve had some issues with his work in the past.  But I could almost overlook that part – the beat is sick and everyone doesn’t necessarily pick up a track looking for past appropriation.  Then I made the mistake of watching the song video for Pon de Floor:

Pon De Floor featuring Afro Jack & VYBZ Cartel from Mad Decent on Vimeo.

I had no words y’all.  But to put my shock into written terms, it’s an outfit designed to amuse hipsters at clubs, peddling in images of black depravity.  This isn’t about dancing or dancehall – it’s just straight up black women as fetishized sexual object/black men as crazed beasts stereotype feed.

Just check the audience for these shows:

Most folks felt the same way.  Couch Sessions couldn’t even comment, except to say “The video is … um, yeah. If there is nothing else you can take from this, at least maybe you can find some new positions in bed.”

And in case you were curious about who made the video, Stereogum explains:

Tim & Eric’s Eric Wareheim continues stockpiling hipster cred by taking a directorial credit on this new Major Lazer video. He brought a bit of an Awesome Show Great Job! sensibility to that clip for MGMT’s “The Youth,” but this one is more akin to his work on that hardcore-sex-masked-by-cute-animations piece for Flying Lotus. Maybe Eric misread the title as “Porn On De Floor.” Or maybe Eric just really loves putting banger beats to people banging. Anyway, great job!

Arturo: I am not at all surprised that T&E were responsible for that bit of T&A. I suppose that vid is what passes as a Couples Skate for their audience.

Andrea: “Great job?” Ummm…ok. I can get to why some folks may be down with this vid: beyond the amazing beat, you do get to see plus-sized women moving their bodies and being what some may see as playfully sexual. (That whole seeing empowerment in imperfect spaces.) Beyond that, I completely agree with your assessment, Latoya.

Much in the same way I can see why Arielle Loren and some other folks can interpret Beyonce as a feminist icon, especially after “Run The World (Girls)”:

It’s one thing to complain that there are too many Beyonces in the media. I’d agree, but suggesting that she isn’t about the empowerment of women is blasphemy. Too many Destiny’s Child songs and black female karaoke sessions have proved otherwise. And there’s a reason why our First Lady can publicly state that she loves Beyonce.

Beyonce plays her role in feminism and admittedly, she’s not the spokesperson for “the pay gap between men and women or the degrading lyrics of hip-hop,” as my writer-friend Bene Viera argued. Her brand of empowerment definitely focuses on women stepping outside of the realm of shame for being sexually confident, independent, and driven in their careers.

I am disappointed in feminists that simply label Beyonce, tits and ass. Her multi-platform success has proven otherwise, she’s not just “another video vixen.” Until feminism stops becoming a clique and something primarily exclusive of the Academy, it will continue to lose power and fail to connect with a new generation of women.

Latoya: I can feel that. Like Marisol LeBron likes to say, we take what we need from what we are given. The subversive is everywhere. It’s why I feel two kinda-ways (excuse my appropriated Southernisms) about Bey’s video. It does nothing for me now. I’m grown. But it’s hard to figure out how it will impact younger folks. For example, I was the quintessential Spice Girls feminist. Really into the girl power pop days, saw the movie, thought Scary Spice was the most fabulous chick on the block, and rocked a tee shirt purchased for about $5 at a fast fashion spot that said in big silver letters “Girl Power.”

Arturo: I had a major crush on Sporty. She liked football – the real kind – rocked Adidas and drank pints. (Sorry, had to include that.)

Andrea: What? Bro… (gives Arturo side-eye)

Arturo: I was in college! I was in Kansas! I was barely old enough to drink! Different mindset, is all I’m saying. (No, but really, her solo album wasn’t horrible. Uh, I heard.)

Thinking about it a little more, though, that shows how the Spice message worked on somebody who hadn’t really thought about issues like privilege and empowerment: Sporty and the rest of the group were positioned as having taken different avenues toward independence, but the presentation was just cheeky enough so guys like me – or, perhaps more pointedly, any fathers who went to shows with their daughters – didn’t feel threatened.

Latoya: LOL – wait a sec, Art – are you copping to being a Spice Boy? Aww snap, I know what we’re doing in the karaoke bar. Anyway, back on topic. For me, that hyper commercialized super-femme performance art meets pop culture madness actually  prompted a feminist awakening – because I wore the shirt and a guy friend laughed.  “Girl Power?” He smirked at that, which pissed me off – and did start me critically thinking about “girl power” and what it actually meant and why people responded with rage, mockery, and indifference.

So, awakenings happen for all kinds of reasons.  If hearing “Girls run the world” works for some, it works.

But still – saying it in it self a feminist statement is a stretch.  I can see the critique about losing an understanding of (cis)women’s (heteronormative expressions of) sexuality – but it’s not the root of all power.  Neither is financial security, though that is a major part of women and security and freedom and power. It’s a lot of things, but it bothers me when only the bits of that are currently pop-culture acceptable are framed.

Also, just because something is fun doesn’t mean it’s feminist.  That’s why we have the fuck it, I like it rule.  Everything doesn’t have to be feminist to draw value from it.  But I think the idea of feminism has gotten super muddled.  I was watching Love and Hip Hop (more stuff to write about) and Mashonda, Swiss Beats’ ex-wife, was talking about being dropped for Alicia Keys.  And she was like “You know, you listen to these songs [like “Karma”] and think, ‘Girl Power!’  And then this happens.”

And I was sitting there on couch like “How the f-ck did you get a girl power message from ‘Karma’?”  What goes around comes around, yeah I can see that. Being jilted by a lover, can see that too.  But that song wasn’t feminist! Just like most of Bey’s songs aren’t feminist – she’s generally singing to a lover, either about loving him or leaving him.  Same thing when people were telling me “Pretty Girl Rock” was feminist – about being the cutest chick and letting boys look but not touch? Okay then…*Johnny Bravo whatever*

Again, you don’t have to say something is feminist to derive value from it.  I don’t remember people hollering that Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” was feminist, but it’s the same basic formula with a couple words swapped out.  It’s a great step song, a great cheer song … but I’m not seeing feminist intent in the Bey machine.

Andrea: I applaud Southernisms, wherever we can get ‘em in.

I know the Bey stans may want to jump on me for saying this, but here it goes: Bey tends to be behind the curve on what some may think of as subversive or transgressive visual ideas of gender and feminism, compared to artists like Ciara. When Ciara released the (still) brilliant drag-king video, “Like a Boy,” quite a few people of color were like, “Well, all right, gurl!” (We’ll skip over the overall white-feminist silence around that vid. And the bullshit misgendering from the colored quarters.)

Then, Bey followed her with “If I Were a Boy.”

And at that point, everyone just looked at it and said, “Oh.” She’s doing a “man’s” job that folks are more used to seeing women doing instead of doing a full-on take on masculinity, which really was rarely done in a mass medium like TV until Ciara.

Same thing with Willow Smith and her song, “21st Century Girl”:

Parts of the WoCasphere were in awe with her (literal) girl-power message. Beyonce rolls out this:

And there’s contention about if she’s even feminist. Take @NineteenPercent’s excellent breakdown on what’s so jainky about the video’s message. I would disagree with her on Full Frontal Feminism being the be-all-end-all of feminist texts/ideas/whatnot. That’s a book that helped her and other people formulate their thoughts around Bey and feminism–like empowerment, people find feminism in what seems like imperfect spaces. And quite a few Indigenous people would even tell her to check her facts about her claim of matriarchal societies never existing – it’s from First Nations peoples that quite a bit of what we think of as “feminism” in the West is rooted.  (To be fair, Amber agreed with this point when I brought it to her in a separate discussion.)

On the other hand, some of folks who see Bey as “girl power” may have never heard of Valenti or may even want to be bothered with her writings or what they perceive to be “white feminism” that she embodies. Bey is their feminist text and their idea–and ideal. And whatnot.

I posed this question to folks on my Twitter timeline: What’s the difference between Beyonce’s Girl Power message and Willow Smith’s Girl Power message.  Of course, folks came back with some variation of “Willow’s ten. Beyonce’s a grown-ass woman.”  More than that:

@ChrisMacDen: [Willow’s] not saying girls run the world; she is saying love your girl-self…is more “we can do it together” than “we made it.”
@ShelbyKnox: Willlow’s video is saying, “I believe girls can be powerful if we do it together.” Lots of sisrteerhood, self-love imagery.

Racializen @KJenNu tweeted this insight:

“Beyonce, this time, is more direct about her support for girls…[it] seems B needs to refute the idea girls are inferior, but Willow assumes that girls are equal, so she can talk about other things.”

Fair enough. On the real though, Bey is not my sort of feminism — and that’s not blasphemous to say. Then again, neither were the Spice Girls … or the Riot Grrls, for that matter. And I remember folks tripped on each of those pop-cultural “generations” of feminist representations, too, trying to figure out their effects on younger people. And, in the midst of those worries, we got “Like a Boy” and “21st Century Girl.” And, yeah, we got Valenti — and we got To Be Real, The Color of Violence, The Hip-hop Wars, and Feminism for Real. Feminism is rather malleable as each generation figures out what it means to them, even when we’re fighting the same old battles.  Or because of them.

Arturo: Isaac Miller and I seem to have arrived at a similar conclusion regarding the “Rule The World (Girls)” video: it struck me as an unintentional counterpoint to Sijal Hachem’s “Khalas,” video:

That song also traded in “wartime” imagery (though, as Ethar El-Katatney noted, “Khalas” takes on another context when viewed in the wake of the Arab Spring.) As a song, though, Beyonce’s track didn’t seem to have anything to it. It’s a beat pretending it’s looking for a meaning, interrupted by the hook every so often. For the sake of comparison, “Pretty Girl Rock” came across a lot clearer, even if it’s not as heavy, thematically.

I also have to agree with @NineteenPercent on the “bill of goods” argument here: what’s Beyonce is presenting (again) is a rather vague bill of goods. It’s sort of empowering, but without any examination of what’s going on in the world around the subject. And, not to get too tin-hat here, but it does what “good” pop-culture product – like my gal Sporty – is supposed to do: keep the consumer coming back to the artist for more of the same, without asking more critical questions for him or herself.

Latoya: I think that’s an excellent point, Art – this whole idea of consumption without critical thinking leading to co-option.  I think, at the core, that’s what much of the feminist protest is about.  Movements, after they make some progress, tend to be co-opted in mass culture, even as people are acting against the core values of that movement.  We see this in race, where suddenly talking about race openly is by default “racist” and people hide behind words like diversity while still excluding nonwhites from full participation in society. And we see counterculture icons like Kurt Cobain and Sid Vicious being used to sell shoes (Doc Martens, specifically, before Courtney Love raised hell.) So it’s frighteningly easy for today’s rebel cause to become tomorrow’s marketing shtick.

But the other hand is that because the personal is so political, it’s hard exactly to state what women, as a whole, should be doing, because we all come from such different spaces and have vastly different relationships with feminism.  Samhita sent me a link from a rant by Natasha Theory defending Beyonce’s vid:

I like stiletto heels and make up. I like men. I like attractive men. When I was a single woman, I liked to look at attractive men and I liked them to look at me. Does being a feminist mean that I cannot love and embrace these parts of myself?

I used to feel a deep internal conflict between who I was and what I thought my feminism should look like. But like Joan Morgan said in When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, I’ve learned to embrace a feminism that’s not afraid to “f*&k with the gray areas.” A feminism that lets me find peace in the understanding that my job as a feminist human being is to constantly work on checking the “isms” within myself, while also loving the parts of me that are healthy and conducive to my growth—even if they don’t fit into someone’s pre-conceived notion of who I should be.

And, it’s worth noting that the fabulous Ms. Morgan also wrestled with this issue herself, writing this:.

Can you be a good feminist and admit out loud that there are things you kinda dig about patriarchy?

Would I be forced to turn in my “feminist membership card” if I confessed that suddenly aking up in a world free of gender inequities or expectations might bug me out a little.

Suppose you don’t want to pay for your own dinner, hold the door open, fix things, move furniture, or get intimate with whatever’s under the hood of a car?

Is it foul to say that imagining a world where you could paint your big brown lips in the most decadents of shades, pile your phat ass into your fave micromini, slip your freshly manicured toes into four inch fuck-me sandals and not have one single solitary man objectify – I mean roam his eyes longingly over all the intended places – is, like a total drag for you?

Am I no longer down for the cause if I admit that while total gender equality is an interesting intellectual concept, it doesn’t do a damn thing for me erotically? That, truth be told, men with too many “feminist” sensibilities have never made my panties wet, at least not like that reformed thug nigga who can make even the most chauvinistic of “wassup baby” feel like a sweet wet tongue darting in and out of your ear.

I understood these things in one way, when I first read her book back in 2003. My politics have changed since then. I see these things very differently. But I bet Joan Morgan does too. It’s part of the complications of having ideals and living in society – navigating these ideas and structures and trying to parse out who we are from who we are allowed to be.

Joan Morgan asked above, so what if you don’t want to pay for your own dinner?  But later, she talks about the power of fiesty money – enough cash for a cab ride home if you and your date aren’t getting along.  I learned about the power of fuck you money – first in the context of dating (always have enough to cover your half…no, I don’t owe you $46.97 worth of pussy, I paid, thanks…and enough to get home after), then in the workplace, as a way out of really abusive and damaging work environments. And my understanding has grown.  From money and finances as a personal point, to a political point, to a global economics point.  So our understandings of things do change.

My understanding of empowerment has also changed, which is something I picked up in Natasha’s post:

I think any form of empowerment starts with an internal decision to be empowered. Beyonce’s song is just that…a creative, aesthetic, call to empowerment. NineteenPercent thinks Beyonce is a liar because she failed to speak about all of the challenges faced by women. I think Beyonce is an artist doing what artists do…creating her vision of what reality should be.

I think this is the issue with making everything in feminism about individual women’s choices.

Arturo: I would suggest, however, that Beyonce – much like, say, Lady Gaga now and Madonna back in the day – is an artist who’s positioning herself as a leading figure. Like it or not, that gives her both more attention and more scrutiny. I would agree that the lack of a bigger context behind works like “Run The World  (Girls)” and “Born This way” isn’t the artist’s fault, but it’s a part of the discussion that the market doesn’t want us as consumers to address, so it ends up surrounding the artist – and attempts to engage the issue more critically comes off as “hating.”

Latoya: Or, we can just quote Renina:

We need to be honest about who we are tying to be equal to.

Women do not run the world. The world shits on women. Ask Ester Baxter. Ask SusanGiffords. Ask the woman who claims that she was assaulted and raped by the former President of the IMF. Ask Shaniya Davis’s family.  Ask Ayianna Jones’s family. AskSakia Gunn’s family. Ask. Ask. Ask.

Now if we want to celebrate the catchiness of a Beyonce song, or honor her athletic ability, her fierceness as a dancer, that is perfectly legititmate. But to call her the face of modern day feminism is ahistorical and a slap in the face to Black, White, Latino, Asian, Muslim, Native American women and men who have been working to change our world so that being born with a vagina does not automatically mean being raised to be someones wife, street harassment material, nanny, slave or prostitute, but a fully developed human being.

Latoya: I also really liked Samhita’s point here:

Beyonce herself is in many ways acting within the system she was brought up in, being a performer from a very young age, her parents and record companies handling her entire career and most likely influencing, if not limiting, her choices in terms of creative direction and depth of politics. She is a product of a system that exploits women for capital gain and frankly in the face of that has done amazing, brilliant things, but that doesn’t change the system.

System dynamics are also important – again, it comes down to people being able to understand what goes into what they consume.

Andrea: I also think what we’re dealing with in talking about in this convo is the “suicide gene” of “the personal is political” ethos, which started in feminism: in saying that people make choices in their daily lives has these macro effects not only leads to this individualistic feminism but also to discussions about who is and isn’t a feminist, who fighting the system correctly and who’s not. It’s as if we’re not sure about what’s feminism but we’re going to say who’s *the* face of feminism? That, to me, gets into that slippery slope of “more-feminist-than-thou” policing. While we’re carrying on over here, marketeers are grabbing the muddled message, reshaping it, and lining their pockets with it.

Latoya: Right! It all comes back to a key issue – feminism is about equality, and everyone’s equality doesn’t look the same. So while we’re over here debating, someone is trying to figure out what kind of price tag to put on the next single. There’s gotta be a way to acknowledge two truthful and contradictory ideas, such as: (1) different people need different things out of feminism and (2) we have to have some common ground, as a movement, in order to take action. Because I am so not trying to have this conversation 20 years from now.

Andrea: There has to be a synthesis of, – or, at least a detente on – this, on how to talking about Bey’s message and Willow’s message and Arielle’s message and Joan’s message and Amber’s message and Samhita’s message and Renina’s mesage.

Can’t it be something like, “Y’all work it like Beyonce and grab your gurls and whip it like Willow. And Bey and Willow got some things right and some stuff a little off-key. Come on over here and check the women of color who allowed Bey and Willow to say what they’re saying – and even at that, they don’t have all the feminist answers. And then boogie on over and check out some of the women nowadays who are talking about Bey’s and Willow’s messages on a grander scale, on issues that do and will affect our lives, like having access to reproductive options, getting paid at the job where you work or want to work, getting your representatives to hear you, getting your own voices heard in media, and so on–and these women are still struggling with feminist responses to making the world better. So let’s take Bey’s and Willow’s songs, remix them, and do our part by, say, throwing a block party in honor of Octavia Butler and Duanna Johnson, and have the proceeds go to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project? Shall we all pitch in to fund the party? And who’s got the turntable?”

By Guest Contributor Isaac Miller

While some critics are rightly noting the confusing and inaccurate message of Beyoncé’s new single “Run The World (Girls)” in the context of a world controlled by patriarchy, her song/video also raises the issue of how peoples, artists, and cultures from the global south are referenced and represented by artists from the first world. Several layers of referencing go on within this song/video, which makes this discussion a lot more complicated, lengthy and, at the same time, all the more necessary.

Please bear with me. This is an important conversation to have because of the ways in which this kind of sampling reinforces disparities of privilege and power. Furthermore, its important to note the ways that the profits and opportunities produced from this referencing are disproportionately transferred to people with white privilege or benefiting from larger structures of white supremacy.

I want to be upfront about my position as a white man from the United States. Recognizing my own privileges in this dialogue, I welcome critique and debate and I’m writing this in large part because I want to see what kind of conversation these issues can generate.

Beyoncé and the Ethics of Sampling

Beyoncé’s sampling from artists and cultures of the global south permeates this video. Her creative team saw a YouTube video of the kwaito dance troupe Tofo Tofo performing at a wedding in Mozambique and decided to reach out to them to choreograph and dance in part of the video. Frank Gatson Jr., Beyoncé’s choreographer, told MTV News that “It was hard finding them. They were really in a remote area; we had to get the embassy people involved. That was a process that took about two months or more. Beyoncé really loved them and I’m pretty sure we’ll see them again. It was magical.”

“Tofo, Tofo”

As “magical” an experience as this may have been for Beyoncé, its unclear what the experience was like for the dancers in Tofo Tofo. The MTV News interview with Gatson, Jr. offers the only information on them that’s available on the web. Nowhere are their names or backgrounds mentioned, let alone their opinions. Furthermore, as The Johannesburg Times notes, “While pantsula dance is nothing new to us Africans, it’s the first time that it has been given such exposure. I’m glad Beyoncé saw something great in them and the movement as a whole. But I wish the genre was as appreciated and respected here. Why do our artists always need the American/ European stamp of approval for us to value them?” We in the U.S. could also ask ourselves the same question: Why do we value third world culture only when its mediated via first world celebrity?

In one scene, Beyoncé is holding the chains of two hyenas, referencing the work of White, South African photographer Pieter Hugo and his photographs of Nigerian “Hyena Men.” This work has been stridently critiqued for the racialized and exotified undertones to his photography. This raises the uncomfortable issue of how so many images in Beyoncé’s video echo exotified, Orientalist representations of the third world (Africa and the Middle East in particular).

Gatson, Jr. explained that “The concept the team ended up settling on was a desert landscape ruled by two forces: Beyoncé and her supermodel minions and a very unwelcoming opposing army.” But these representations don’t take place in a vacuum. Particularly perplexing are the images of “Beyoncé and her supermodel minions” confronting phalanxes of riot police. Its unclear in what context we are supposed to read these images, particularly given the recent events of the “Arab Spring,” where protesters across North Africa and the Middle East have been facing the real life dangers of batons, water cannons, and bullets. Notably -in the context of Beyoncé’s video- many of the participants in these uprisings and revolutions have been Arab women who have fought for their freedom from repressive dictatorships. Many of these women have been met with violence, and even death.

Beyoncé’s audience is left wondering whether there is a clear reason for the imagery that she is using. While its possible to interpret these references as an act of solidarity with the protesters across North Africa and the Middle East, the contrast between the glamourized images of Beyoncé’s video and the violent struggles that those images reference seems disrespectful.

Furthermore, that lack of sensitivity for the experiences of women protesters actually undermines the ostensibly feminist message of Beyoncé’s song. Especially given that Beyoncé received $2 million to perform at a New Year’s party for the sons of Muammar Qaddafi, her politics on this issue are questionable. Though she eventually gave this money to Haiti earthquake relief efforts after the uprisings in Libya began, it seems hypocritical to incorporate this kind of imagery with such ease given her history here.

Ethar El-Katatney recently wrote an article (cross-posted on Racialicious), about a song by Sijal Hachem, a Lebanese singer whose video features “women as sexy riot police standing in formation behind barbed wire as men charge them”… “equating men standing up to their nagging wives with people revolting against dictatorships.” El-Katatney writes that “The imagery in the music video is disturbing on so many levels. To see scenes we witnessed in real life paralleled in a music video—of barbed wire, billowing smoke and burning tires and paper; of groups of men wearing masks to protect themselves from tear gas while holding sticks and rocks; and of state security standing in rows and hosing protesters standing peacefully with gallons of water—makes me shiver involuntarily. It was real, it was horrible, and it was traumatic.” Many of these same images also appear in Beyoncé’s video. What is their meaning there?

In thinking about these issues, its also important to examine the idea of “imperial feminism” discussed in Nadine Naber’s recent article “Imperial Feminism, Islamophobia, and the Egyptian Revolution.” Naber discusses the way that first world feminist demands for women’s rights intersect with U.S. geopolitical interests in the Middle East. Naber writes that: “Both rely upon a humanitarian logic that justifies military intervention, occupation, and bloodshed as strategies for promoting “democracy and women’s rights.” This humanitarian logic disavows U.S.-state violence against people of the Arab and Muslim regions rendering it acceptable and even, liberatory, particularly for women.” I wonder at what Beyoncé’s vision of women’s liberation implies when paired with these discourses over the “oppression of women by Islam.”

I’m not saying that Beyoncé’s video intentionally advances an agenda of Imperial Feminism, but that the very character of Imperial Feminism is that it takes a claim that is on one level liberatory -women’s rights- and grafts it onto a political project that in fact destroys the lives of those women, their families, and their communities. So no matter how earnest Beyoncé was in shaping the message of her video, that meaning is malleable depending on her audience. As an artist Beyoncé has the freedom to use whatever imagery matches her vision, but she should be conscious of the potential implications of that vision. Accordingly, does this video’s message subvert or provide sustenance to the imperial agenda that defines women’s liberation as military occupation?

Also striking is the way in which this trajectory of U.S. imperialism coincides with American cultural hegemony, or the way in which American popular culture has become global popular culture. In the video of Beyoncé’s recent performance of “Run The World (Girls)” at the Billboard Music Awards, she is introduced by such pop culture luminaries as Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga, Barbara Streisand, Bono, and (not insignificantly) First Lady Michelle Obama. This leads into Beyoncé’s re-creating in live performance the music video to “Run The World (Girls)”, which weaves together an array of dazzling digital images, including lion and elephant heads (continuing in animal form the theme of third world inspired imagery). However, one of the most striking images was with the line “Endless Power”, where Beyoncé literally holds (an image of) the world in the palm of her hand. This serves as a powerful visual representation not only of the influence of superstars such as Beyoncé, but also of American cultural hegemony as a whole.

Interestingly, while Beyonce re-enacts the Tofo Tofo dance sequence sans Tofo Tofo (replaced instead by a legion of digitally replicated Beyonce’s), she does include a sequence with Les Twins, a French dance duo made up of brothers Larry and Laurent Bourgeois. Though its troubling that Tofo Tofo’s contribution was absent from this performance (no mention of them in Beyonce’s acceptance speech for the Billboard Millenium Award when she thanked her family, Destiny’s Child, and her husband Jay-Z), they were swapped out as Beyonce’s male backup dancers with Les Twins, two other dancers representing global hip hop culture.

Opening with the words “Power is ever present” echoing through the auditorium, this performance gives little thought the way that power plays out in this very song. Taking this statement at face value, under the guise of a feminist anthem, “Run the World (Girls)” speaks much more directly to the dynamics of power between first world artists and third world culture. But to really get at the racialized dimensions behind Beyonce’s latest mega-hit, its necessary to not only examine her music video and Billboard Awards performance, but also the song and video that “Run The World (Girls)” samples for its beat.

“Pon De Floor”: Major Lazer and the Representation of Black Bodies

“Pon De Floor”

Major Lazer “Pon De Floor” from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.

Bianca I. Laureano writes about watching the “Pon De Floor” video by Major Lazer in her article “Major Lazer: Cyborgs, Dancehall, Racism, & Colonization in Music”:

“I was immediately excited because the dancing in the video was very much the kind of Dancehall I find fascinating, yet also complex as it is overly sexually graphic. Basically performers are reenacting some sexual activities on the dance floor, yet are doing so in a way that challenges our ideas of athleticism in dancing in this way. Another aspect of the video that I was excited about was that the women dancing were large bodied women. Some may even call them “fat dancers” yet for me their bodies were so much like my own it was as though I was watching myself dance…

My online searching led me to the shocking knowledge that Major Lazer is a fictional Black cyborg created by two White men, Diplo from Philidelphia (of M.I.A. fame), and Switch, from the UK who specializes in “House” music…

At the end of the day I kind of feel duped, hoodwinked, bamboozled. I fell for imagery that was crafted by outsiders to represent something meaningful that I valued as an important part of my Caribbean identity.”

My reaction to the video was different than Laureano’s. Before I saw the video I had followed the work of Major Lazer and knew that the group was composed of two white DJs. Watching the video, as a white person, I immediately felt uncomfortable because it seemed made by and for white people. That is to say it felt exploitative, racist, disingenuous, and totally uncritical of its own white gaze. The video was filmed by a white director (Eric Wareheim) for a group of white DJs. Though the vocalist on the track and the dancers in the video are all people of color and the song, as a Dancehall track, draws on a genre that originates from a community of color, it is interpreted through the gaze of white artists. Eric Wareheim had already created a similarly themed, but even more graphic video “Parisian Goldfish” for the group Flying Lotus and if the comments section of the Vimeo pages for both of these videos are any indication, the majority of the people watching them are white.

As Laureano points out, the Major Lazer project is itself a bizarre racialized fantasy where two white artists created a Black “cyborg” Major Lazer, who serves as their vehicle for representing Jamaican Dancehall culture to the world. What I question are the meanings conveyed when a predominantly white audience views this video and how it plays into racialized depictions of Black people as hyper-sexualized beings– stereotypes that go back to slavery and serve to reinforce characterizations of people of color as animalistic and inhuman (fundamentally Other and inferior to White people).

While “Pon De Floor” incorporates “Daggering” from Dancehall culture, the “Pon De Floor” video, as well as a subsequent one, titled “Major Lazer’s Guide to Daggering”, de-contextualize Dancehall as just another ironic commodity for white people to gawk and laugh at. Clearly these racist attitudes continue to this day (you need look no further than the YouTube comments sections to see this). So to play around with these hyper-sexual depictions of Black people in the name of hipster irony is not only confused but also dangerous. These images are not being controlled by people from the communities that are being represented. The lens is fundamentally different than if, for example, the video was conceptualized and produced by the women who appear in the video, and if they possessed the same level of creative control as Diplo, Switch, and the director Eric Wareheim.

“Major Lazer’s Guide to Daggering”

To highlight the importance of context in determining the meanings these images convey, it is necessary to understand where Daggering comes from. For example, A Newsweek article by Kate Dailey on “Daggering” quotes Jamaican DJ Jah Prince: “The majority of the time it [is] done with full disclosure to the patrons and only enacted by a hand few of ‘characters’ in the crowd.” Dailey writes, “‘Dancehall’ in fact, refers to music so suggestive that it could only be heard in clubs.” Dailey then quotes Annie Paul, a Kingston-based blogger who says “Jamaican society is extremely stratified, and people at the bottom are the core participants of dancehall culture… It is one of the few spaces and phenomenon they have control over.” The context that Dancehall comes from influences the meanings that the culture conveys. When “Pon De Floor” is posted on the internet and viewed by a majority white audience, those meanings change drastically.

And those meanings change even more live. This video interview with Diplo which showcases footage from Major Lazer’s SXSW showcase makes it clear that Diplo has no doubt about who his audience really is…

“Major Lazer Showcase at SXSW”

“We have this wild Daggering video *laughs*, its called “Pon De Floor”… anywhere you go, you can watch it. Its crazy and its just nuts. You can see it today, we’re gonna do it live. We have Skerrit Bwoy… You can expect a party that looks kinda like that video.” – Diplo

Major Lazer can’t be ignorant to the racialized dimensions of Black dancers performing a Daggering routine live in front of a majority white crowd. Diplo seems to glory in the irony of it all. But as with all minstrelsy, the contradictions do not diminish the racism involved. White artists presenting Black bodies as a sexual spectacle to a predominantly White audience is loaded with racism, however ironic it may be.

Diplo’s Relationship to Third World Artists/Artists of Color

Diplo (Wesley Pentz), even before Major Lazer, made a name for himself as a “musical Columbus” discovering the cutting edge of third world musical genres originating in some of the most impoverished and oppressed urban communities of color on the planet. He has been given credit for bringing introducing these styles to the global north, at tremendous personal success. Diplo, a former producer (and ex-boyfriend) of indie hip hop artist M.I.A. -producing her first mixtape “Piracy Funds Terrorism” as well as hits such as “Bucky Done Gun” and “Paper Planes”- is famous for bringing attention to the musical genre of Baile Funk (or Funk Carioca), originating in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The underside of Diplo’s rising success is his history of using the work of third world artists without attribution. This includes his baile funk mixes “Favela on Blast” and “Favela Strikes Back”, as well as the anonymous baile funk tracks he included on MIA’s Piracy Funds Terrorism mixtape, and the song Bucky Done Gun on MIA’s first album Arular, which reproduced without acknowledgement a beat from Brazilian funk DJ Marlboro. M.I.A.’s label later took steps to acknowledge DJ Marlboro (as well as Deize Tigrona, the MC whose song the beat was originally used for), and Diplo attempted to bring more attention to baile funk artists in Brazil through touring with some of them and even producing a documentary on Baile Funk called “Favela on Blast.” However, he continues to come under criticism for exploiting artists of color. This recently resulted in a heated twitter debate between him and DJ Venus Iceberg X (covered in a recent Racialicious post), a queer woman of color producer who played shows with artists signed to Diplo’s record label Mad Decent and noticed some of the shady patterns to Diplo/Mad Decent’s business practices. She called him out publicly after he tried to record one of her shows without permission. As described in another post on Racialicious, “Its Complicated: DJs, Appropriation, and a Whole Host of Other Ish”, Diplo has a pattern of using the work of artists of color who make music in the latest genre that he takes interest in and then leaves those artists behind as he moves on to the next genre that grabs his attention.

What will Major Lazer’s newfound mainstream success mean for all of the artists of color who Diplo has worked with who have not seen similar success? Diplo is now producing for some of the most powerful superstars in pop music. “Pon De Floor” was sampled not only for “Run The World (Girls)” but also for “Ass On The Floor” a Swizz Beatz produced track on Diddy’s Dirty Money album and Diplo recently co-produced Chris Brown’s hit “Look At Me Now.” Furthermore, Diplo recently starred in a BlackBerry commercial and continues to tour all over the world. In contrast, Maluca, an ex-girlfriend and artist signed to his label, recently released a video showing her life beyond the limelight. In the video Maluca contrasts appearing in fashion shows and touring as an opener for Robyn with qualifying for EBT and living with her mother. In the Fader article “Diplo Cannot Keep You Out of the Poorhouse”, the author zings Maluca for holding a Mud Truck coffee cup in her video, and in the comments section someone critiques her for showing up to apply for food stamps wearing a fur hat. But another commenter notes “In her interview with T Magazine she says that she doesn’t have a cell phone, so I think going out and buying a cup of coffee is a fair exchange. Just because she isn’t the poorest person in the world doesn’t mean she is not poor.”

What’s particularly complicated is that Diplo has placed himself in the role of ambassador and intermediary for an array of global hip hop genres originating in the global south (in particular Baile Funk and Dancehall). On the one hand, Diplo presents himself is as someone concerned with the well-being and success of the communities that he engages with. He claims to be committed to their development and has engaged in a number of projects that have brought considerable attention to artists and communities in the global south, as well as artists of color in the global north. He has worked on projects such as the “Favela on Blast” documentary on Baile Funk in Rio’s favelas and the Heaps Decent NGO that supports the development of indigenous hip hop artists in Australia. And certainly Baile Funk has received greater attention and audiences in the global north as a result of Diplo’s work. The same with Dancehall culture via Major Lazer. However, no artists in these communities have gained even a fraction of the mainstream success and attention that Diplo/Major Lazer has. Not. Even. Close. And if Diplo’s career continues to move in the direction that it has been going, that disparity will only continue to grow. Perhaps he will be able to bring increased attention to even more artists and will use his resources to support projects that create genuine impacts on these communities. I wonder, though, for how long and how deep will the impact be.

“Interview with Diplo”

“I’ve gotten a lot of criticism, from journalists mostly, and also other people who do what I do in America. I’ve tried to confront all of them because I think its really important to at least recognize that I’m a white guy from America and I can work under the guise that I’m a White guy from Mississippi, from Florida, I’m from a working-class family… [but] I have a passport and I have access to travel outside my country, which 90% of the world doesn’t have. Probably more. Doesn’t even recognize that they can do these things that I can do. So its important to confront that reality because it exists. I have the freedom to come to Rio and work, while at the same time almost all the favelados don’t have the freedom to leave the favela, or even have the notion in their mind that they’re capable of doing that because of the social aspects in Brazil…”

In this quote it seems like he understands that there are some serious imbalances in power between himself and the artists he works with in the global south. But what does it mean to “confront that reality because it exists”? And, really, what does that mean in practice, as in getting the people who came up with this music in the first place paid? It is significant that Diplo makes attempts to engage his critics, albeit in ways that are often cynical and dismissive. Perhaps this is just a publicity ploy, a learned tactic of leaning towards controversy, because of the resulting buzz. But Diplo doesn’t have to respond to these criticisms. No one is forcing him to acknowledge them, especially as he enters the rarified air of stardom. So it’s interesting that he continues to do so. It seems like a lot of his response is: What do you want me to do differently? That’s an important question for all of us who critique him. And a question that we should consider the answer to, not just when directed at him, but also when the answer is turned on ourselves.

Global Hip Hop: Creating the Alternative

Beyonce’s incorporation of Dancehall, as well as Kwaito through Tofo Tofo and “New Style” hip hop dance through Les Twins offers a glimpse into a more holistic, global hip hop culture. However, this global vision is still mediated through the work of a U.S. superstar. This is symbolic of the overarching global balance of power. However, while the U.S. still acts as the global center of media, music, and film, immense networks of media production are burgeoning across the global south.

It seems like Diplo wants to create networks, audiences, and opportunities for the communities he engages with. But so long as he is the necessary Western interlocutor for artists of color from the global south, I question how much will these artists and cultures actually be “represented” globally. Like other forms of Western “development” that created the very conditions of poverty that these musics and cultures exist in, Diplo’s brand of development reproduces the very inequality that it claims to solve.

Yes, Diplo plays a part in this and should be held accountable…but so should all of us. But what would it mean for us as consumers, fans, critics, and so forth, to genuinely support the work of artists from the global south, particularly women of color/queer artists (both in the U.S./first world and in the global south)? More specifically:

And…

When it comes down to it, this conversation is much larger than Diplo or Beyonce. They are not the creators of the systems of oppression that they participates in (consciously or not). Diplo is not the first white artist to perpetrate cultural appropriation. Beyonce is not the first First World superstar to capitalize on third world imagery and culture. And they will certainly not be the last.

Be that as it may, global hip hop culture has never been as expansive, diverse, and vibrant as it is today. There are musical genres like Dancehall, Baile Funk/Funk Carioca, Kuduro, Kwaito, and Reggaeton. There are artists like Anita Tijoux, ChocQuibTown, Buraka Som Sistema, Bomba Estereo, and DAM. There are documentaries like Homegrown: Hip-Life in Ghana, Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano, Slingshot Hip Hop, Democracy In Dakar, and, yes, Favela on Blast. Hip Hop played a role in sparking the Tunisian revolution and in raising international solidarity with the Egyptian revolution. There are even academic conferences such as the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival, and Stanford’s Global Hip Hop Conference.

If global hip hop is this vibrant, then we—white people and people of color, celebrities and everyday people– in the global north need to help create genuine collaborations and infrastructures with these artists to get them paid instead of continuing to feed off the global south’s creativity.

I’ve been following Diplo for some time, observing his work with appreciation, other times disappointment, and sometimes both at once. Back in the early days, when he was throwing warehouse parties in Philly, and later profiling DJs from around the world on his Mad Decent podcast (now a full-on record label and official site), Wesley Pentz was brazenly admitting to pirate-everything, right down to the clandestinely operated podcast itself. There was something refreshing and almost alluring about the nature of backpacking around the world with a passport and a tape recorder. Often considered a modern-day, musical Columbus, though his reputation for “discovering” new musical worlds would be one that would soon bite him where the sun doesn’t shine, Diplo made a name for himself by appropriating a variety of music and presenting it all with chameleon-like efficiency.

Some of you may know him for his production work on MIA’s first, albeit bootleg, album Piracy Funds Terrorism, a mashed up, remixed set of tracks which would later find themselves cleaned-up and repackaged on the official studio album Arular, or later for the Clash and Wreckx-n-Effect sampling “Paper Planes.”

However, he ultimate climax in Diplo’s fame has been in recent years, arguably months, with his promotion for Blackberry…

…and his collaborative work with UK producer Switch (producer for M.I.A. and Santigold) for the dancehall outfit Major Lazer.

But this month, Diplo’s spike in popularity came from a place slightly removed from his music by way of scathing criticism by a DJ named Iceberg Venus X. You see, much like other forms of appropriation (see: imperialism, colonialism, and popular use of cultural artifacts), a backlash always follows. The question of whether or not Diplo’s methods are ethical aside, the process is usually the same:

1. musical genre or artist relatively unknown in the United States (save small immigrant groups still connected to the homeland or marginalized American communities of color) gets samples or featured in one of Diplo’s live sets, recorded mixes, podcasts, or via the Mad Decent blog (sometimes without the artist’s knowledge, though this is a common practice in DJ culture and not exclusive to Diplo)

2. said artist might be included as a headliner to the show of a more popular Mad Decent artist when applicable

3. genre and the artists performing it gain popularity as a result of their association with Diplo/Mad Decent

4. Diplo picks up a new genre/artist and the previous artist, often still unsigned, is left to continue self-promoting

Iceberg Venus X, a Latina lesbian DJ who is one of the founders of the Ghe20 g0th1k party in Brooklyn opened for Maluca’s (a NY-based, Dominican-American female singer signed to Mad Decent) tour, took issue when she noticed the same thing happening in her case (notably Diplo’s recording a segment of Iceberg Venus X’s live set). But instead of addressing the issue directly with Diplo and the Mad Decent camp, she used Twitter to put him on blast, a move that cheapened her grievances, but ultimately resulted in a very public questioning of Diplo’s methods.

After a series of Twitter posts full of MC battle-style jabs, the vitriol reached a crescendo with other friends and members of Iceberg Venus X’s crew joining in the fight and, to put the icing on the cake, the fight was picked up and beaten like a dead horse by the Fader and XLR8R (both popular electronic/alt music mag). Funny enough, the newspiece from the latter, which apparently evoked Angela Davis in some dark humor-riddled, ironic attempt to discredit Iceberg Venus X, has gone missing.*

After reading the Twitter fight, I thought that using the social networking platform as a means to address the issue was a bit ill advised, but it was simply a reminder as to who holds the power and purse strings in such a situation. And many already know, rarely do underground DJs, and even less so underground DJs of marginalized groups (read: class, color, nationality, gender identity, sexuality outside of the dominant culture-defined norm). When identity politics are at play, the process gets muddier, particularly within a musical subculture that relies quite heavily on sampling, borrowing, lifting, and editing beats until they are damn near unrecognizable.

Despite Diplo’s humble upbringing, which he cites in his twitter fight (and quite often when his extracting of foreign music is questioned), his whiteness still lends itself to fortifying his legitimacy as an ambassador in the music world. But it also begs the question of whether or not his methods would be scrutinized at all were he from a different country, a person of color, or from a more visibly marginalized community? Much like any other art culture, is the DJ community subject to the same values as other mainstream industries, particularly as electronic music and it many subgenres gain increasing popularity in the US, despite its rogue beginnings?

–
*Ed Note: We recreated the piece here. – LDP

Around April Fool’s Day, I got this tip from friend of the blog Christina:

So, (queer) (Latina) DJ VenusxGG got in a Twitter fight last week with well-known but kinda slimey bass producer/DJ Diplo. Venus accused Diplo of being imperialist in his appropriation of musical forms (something he’s been accused of lots of times) and it ended up as a pretty entertaining/interesting public discourse for the bass community.

THEN today, XLR8R (another big bass magazine) decided to tap this for their April Fools joke…except they got Angela Davis involved. Kinda sloppy.

According to Fader’s Naomi Zeichner, who documented the tweet stream, the twitter fight began after Diplo came into one of their parties and began recording part of a set on his cellphone. @Ghe20Goth1k’s issue is extremely clear:

I told @diplo to stop and he was embarrassed by now we won’t get ant [sic] credit and he keeps making $$$ I can’t pay rent lol

Now, apparently DJ Diplo has developed a reputation for cultural appropriation – a term we’ve discussed often here, without much resolution. Since culture, by nature, is fluid, it is difficult to pinpoint when an homage or inspiration ends and appropriation begins. Diplo is best known for taking the sounds of other cultures and presenting them as hip consumables for a western audience. He rose to prominence alongside collaborator M.I.A. – and interestingly enough, even that story was steeped in appropriation of the work of a woman of color to advance his own ends. Despite being friends, Diplo (née Thomas Wesley Pentz) revealed to Drew Tewksbury:

“With M.I.A., we made a pop song totally by accident,” Pentz says. “We didn’t aim to have a big record. But she’s so cool, and that resonated with people.” He loaned a baile funk beat for her song “Bucky Done Gun” and got much of the credit for producing the whole album, which he says isn’t exactly the truth. “Back then, I told people that I produced [Arular], to get them to know who I was, but that was a total lie,” Pentz says.

Just another Diplo hustle.

M.I.A. didn’t seem to mind at the time, but presaging her second release, Kala, she set the record straight about Diplo’s participation. The media deemed Diplo the “mastermind behind M.I.A.,” but she says he had little to do with Arular. When pressed to name a chief collaborator, she credited Switch.

However, the idea that Diplo was the mastermind behind Arular clearly began to grate on M.I.A. In an interview with Pitchfork she calls out the racist, sexist, and cultural assumptions being made:

M.I.A.: Yesterday I read like five magazines in the airplane– it was a nine hour flight– and three out of five magazines said “Diplo: the mastermind behind M.I.A.’s politics!” And I was wondering, does that stem from [Pitchfork]? Because I find it really bonkers.

Pitchfork: Well, it’s hard to say where it originated. We certainly have made reference to Diplo playing a part on your records, but it seems like everyone plays that up.

M.I.A.: If you read the credits, he sent me a loop for “Bucky Done Gun”, and I made a song in London, and it became “Bucky Done Gun”. But that was the only song he was actually involved in on Arular. So the whole time I’ve had immigration problems and not been able to get in the country, what I am or what I do has got a life of its own, and is becoming less and less to do with me. And I just find it a bit upsetting and kind of insulting that I can’t have any ideas on my own because I’m a female or that people from undeveloped countries can’t have ideas of their own unless it’s backed up by someone who’s blond-haired and blue-eyed. After the first time it’s cool, the second time it’s cool, but after like the third, fourth, fifth time, maybe it’s an issue that we need to talk about, maybe that’s something important, you know. [...] I don’t want the whole interview to be about this, I just really wanted to be like ‘look, if anyone’s going to get credit for helping me produce this album, it was me and Switch who co-produced this album.’ Diplo has got two tracks on there, Timbaland’s got one track, Blaqstarr’s got two tracks, but the rest of it, the bulk of it, is built out of me and Switch. And if I can’t get credit because I’m a female and everything’s going to boil down to ‘everything has to be shot out of a man,’ then I much rather it go to Switch, who did actually give me the time and actually listened to what I was saying and actually came to India and Trinidad and all these places, and actually spent time on me and actually cared about what I was doing, and actually cared about the situation I was in with not being able to get into the country and not having access to things or, you know, being able to direct this album in a totally innovative direction. I was just kind of taking what I was given, and took the circumstances I was put in. And I wanted to make the most of it. And the only person that believed in it was Switch, and he gave me the freedom to have the space and have thinking time and have the experiences or whatever and came and shared them with me.

Pitchfork: I’m a little surprised by what you’re saying, not because I don’t agree with it, but because, in a way, you seem to be ceding or maybe even resigning the marquee to Switch out of frustration. All of this attention has been put on someone else in helping you make this record, and I completely understand why that would be upsetting, but at the end of the day, no matter who produced the tracks, it still says M.I.A. on the spine of the record packaging.

M.I.A.: That’s what I’m saying. There is an issue especially with what male journalists write about me and say “this MUST have come from a guy.” I can understand that, I can follow that, that’s fine. But when female journalists as well put your work and things down to it being all coming from a man, that really fucks me up. It’s bullshit. I mean, for me especially, I felt like this is the only thing I have, and if I can stick my neck out and go for the issues and go through my life as it is, the least I can have is my creativity. And I think that’s probably the stupidest thing about it. I wish somebody did conjure the spirit out so I can change that, and now I’m going to spit some politics, I was going to be like this… fucking… whatever, the thing that I was, I wish that somebody did conjure it out. But I’m not going to give that credit, whatever my life is and whatever my lifestyle and whatever people in Sri Lanka feel is right, like somebody masterminded it. You know what I mean? I think that’s bullshit.

But that interview was back in 2007 – and in the last few years, Diplo and M.I.A.’s careers have taken huge bounds in different directions. Diplo has been on a rising trajectory – which has left a salty aftertaste in the mouths of those who perform or create similar music, but don’t get the same kind of props. So when Venus Iceberg X notes that she isn’t getting going to get credit which means Diplo gets paid and she can’t pay rent, she’s talking about that opportunity cost. Interestingly enough, it seems that quite a few people are paying that cost. Fader, in an article called “Diplo Cannot Keep You Out of the Poorhouse”, discussed the fortunes of Maluca, another artist associated with Diplo’s Mad Decent Family:

A couple years ago, Diplo met Maluca (bka Nathalie Yepez) at a karaoke night at 205 Club in New York. They dated for a while, and when they broke up she played him the music she’d been working on and became a part of his Mad Decent family. She released a song with Mad Decent and a mixtape on her own, hung out at the mausoleum in Philly and helped clean it up.

Last week in Sally Singer’s revamped T Magazine, Maluca bemoaned that in spite of her high-profile affiliations (she just toured with Robyn, who commissioned plenty of Diplo production for her Body Talk albums), she’s hard for cash. She told Marcus Chang that, “It can be really expensive for an opening act. I had to pay for my travel, my manager came with me, who helped out with a lot of the expenses, but obviously I have to reimburse that money eventually. I got paid a performance fee, but it didn’t cover the costs for renting equipment, DJ, hair and makeup, my outfits.”

She’s dropping a series of Wepasodes dealing with being “fly on a budget” – recreating ODB’s food stamps run, explaining that she’s an unsigned artist and the costs associated with promotion aren’t always recouped. Juxtaposing images of her walking catwalks at fashion shows with her swiping her EBT card, Maluca tries to paint a picture of the decidedly unglamorous parts of a high profile career:

Maluca: Yo, it’s rough out there. People think because you’re on magazines, because you work with this producer or that producer, you got money – I ain’t got no money! I got four dollars in my pocket, I live with my mom…and I want you to see, what its really like, out here in the real world.

So maybe Venus Iceberg X is right in not trusting that an association with Diplo will lead to massive checks. But she takes the issue one step further – and calls Diplo out on imperialism:

Diplo (in red) starts saying some interesting things – calling himself an ally to Venus, and then inferring he doesn’t fit into racial or cultural categories (#columbusneedsapassport – we need to revisit that at some part):

It’s a fascinating conversation, complicated by a lot of factors. Race is one, but cultural imperialism, positioning, and authority also arise. This situation could be explained by the mercurial whims of the music industry – what propels some artists into the collective consciousness, while allowing other, equally talented artists to stay stuck in the cultural kiddie pool? Part of it is timing, part of it is management of brand and funds – and part of it is our societal structures that ascribes authority to certain groups of people over others. When we talk about cultural appropriation and musical imperialism, we’re ultimately asking who gets to be the arbiter of what is cool. Baile funk was doing its own thing pre-Diplo – but did it only make it to the States because there was a white face to make the sound more acceptable?

DJs are always tapping influences to create new soundscapes – it’s a part of the business. But the structural inequalities that manifest in the music industry, in many ways do have a common root: the violence of revulsion. Minh-ha was discussing blackface, when she explained it “highlights the privileged universal empty point that white bodies continue to occupy even in this so-called postracial moment, and in so doing, it positions racial difference against whiteness, as the other to whiteness” – but that could just as easily be applied to Diplo, despite his simultaneous embrace and rejection of his own whiteness and what that means in terms of cultural positioning. Would Diplo be Diplo if he wasn’t white? Are artists like Maluca and Venus Iceberg X struggling because people aren’t feeling their music without a white lens to make it safer? Racism and cultural imperialism are not the sole controlling factor for success and failure in the industry – but it would be disingenuous to pretend they aren’t a persistent bass line.

Wendi has more on this, but I want to end by pointing out how even trying to have conversations like this in the music industry can lead to marginalization. For their April Fool’s Joke, XL8R ran this post (snatched from the Google Cache):

Angela Davis Taps Ghe20 Gothik’s Venus X as a Guest Lecturer

* Words: August Howard

Earlier this morning, legendary political activist and celebrated scholar Angela Davis announced an upcoming two-day conference entitled Never Stop: Revolutionary Tactics in a Postmodern, Pansexual Society. Scheduled to take place on April 22 and 23 at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Never Stop will be kicked off by a special keynote address from Venus Iceberg X of NYC’s Ghe20 Gothik party. Says Davis, “Venus X is truly an incredible young woman and a touchstone for her entire generation. During my time working with the Black Panthers, the Communist party, and various other political movements, we certainly struck some blows on behalf of the oppressed masses, but Venus’ pioneering usage of hardstyle, screwed Top 40, YouTube rips, and animated GIFs is truly sticking it to ‘The Man’ and taking the struggle to another level.”

Venus X was similarly effusive in her praise of Davis. “Angela Davis is, like, mad cool. She was the founding member of the #BadGirlsClub, ya know? I also heard she totally loves vogue house.” As for the content of her upcoming speech, Venus said that she plans to tackle a variety of issues. “I already STR8 blew up the spot on Diplo a.k.a. Columbus Part II on Twitter, so U know I’m not about 2 hold back. #GAMECHANGER. I might be broke because of all the str8, white, imperialist, racist, and sexist pieces of shit out there, but the system can’t silence me anymore. Thanks 2 me and my crew, ppl are finally starting to #WAKEUP.”

Plans for the keynote address to be livestreamed by the FADER were still being confirmed at press time.

Commenter Diane E wrote:

Diane E.
Wow- this is pretty disrespectful- goes beyond april fools’ for sure. But now we see how all the privileged white boys own shit and stick together in all facets of the industry!!! even the ‘indie’ ones!!! Educate yourselves with some Audre Lorde before you go mix some cumbia and ‘neo-baile’ css funk for all your hipster fans to watch and not dance to! #neoculturalimperalists

(Image Credits: Bao Nguyen via Brooklyn Vegan, Diplo/Venus twitter images via Fader)

By Arturo R. García

In the post-Airbender era, it’s more important than ever to talk about questionable casting decisions, and outright white-washings like the Akira remake is shaping up to be.

But it’s also important to keep an eye on who’s not talking about it.

With time running out ’til filming starts – GeekTyrant says shooting is due to begin in August – it’s becoming increasingly hard to decide if the project is just laughable, just offensive, or both. As if it this project wasn’t cringe-worthy enough when Zac Efron was reportedly up for the role of Kaneda, Racebending and other sites revealed more FAIL-worthy details this week:

The story, to be adapted from the original manga, as opposed to the anime, will now take place in “Neo-Manhattan.”In spite of this, the lead characters in the remake will retain the original character names, Tetsuo, and Kaneda – which would have been a reason for optimism, if it wasn’t for the list of actors being mentioned in connection with each part:

Tetsuo

• Robert Pattinson
• Andrew Garfield
• James McAvoy

Average Estimated Age: 27
Character age: 15

Kaneda

• Garrett Hedlund
• Michael Fassbender
• Chris Pine
• Justin Timberlake
• Joaquin Phoenix

Average Estimated Age: 30
Character age: 16

On top of that, the characters are reportedly still supposed to be members of a biker gang in this new incarnation. So, the selling points as of now include a cast whitewashing with people who are way too old for these characters, making for potentially the most awkward-looking bikers since Wild Hogs.

Our friends at Racebending.com, of course, made the case for diversity:

Last year, a Racebending.com volunteer ran a count of the 241 Warner Bros movies from 2000 to 2009 and found that only 2% had an Asian first-billed lead. Aside from The Matrix trilogy starring Keanu Reeves, the majority of films with Asian leads starred Asian nationals like Jet Li and Rain.

Although Asian American actors are sometimes cast as supporting actors in films like this month’s Sucker Punch, they still struggle for representation in leading roles in Warner Bros. films. If not in a film called Akira, for characters named Kaneda and Tetsuo, when will Asian Americans get to star in a Warner Bros film?

In contrast, even though 40% of movie tickets are purchased by people of color, 90% of the films released by Warner Bros between 2000 and 2009 featured a white lead.

Because one out of every 10 modern-day Manhattanites are Asian American (Lower Manhattan is 41% Asian,) it would make just as much sense–if not more sense, given the names “Kaneda” and “Tetsuo”–for the leads to be Asian American as it would for the leads to be white. Tetsuo and Kaneda should be cast with Asian American leads.

Besides this sound argument, Racebending has also created a Facebook petition to show Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures that there is an audience out there who wants to see some semblance of respect for the original work.

Warner Brothers isn’t talking about it yet, of course. The studio did not return a Thursday call from Racialicious seeking comment. But what’s really sticking out at this point is the relative lack of discussion on the matter from the geek community’s bigger outlets.

One would think that fan outcry over the mishandling of one of manga’s greatest works, particularly in the wake of the Airbender uprorar, would garner more attention. To be fair, it’s possible they’re waiting for the final casting to take place. But as of Thursday evening, Newsarama’s film section was all about the Marvel Comics movies and Simon Pegg’s Paul, and CBR’s normally-reliable Film Reel at Comic Book Resources has nothing on the story, and there’s nothing at Comics Alliance and not a peep at ComicVine, it’s just … off.

Wait, that last one’s not quite true. ComicVine’s anime-centric affiliate, AnimeVice, had a short story that started like this:

Once again, I’m sure this bit of news will cause many otakus’ heads to explode. I expect the beige walls of the communal parlor that is the internet to be absolutely coated with blood, bones and brains.

There’s a similar undercurrent of Othering to what little coverage the Akira issue is getting around other sites – ComicBookMovie.com seemingly only has a story up because a guest contributor submitted it, and sites like IGN are quick to pin the Airbender protest on Racebending – not just for proper credit, but almost apologetically, as if to placate the business outlets they rely on for the “exclusive” interviews and rumors they and their ilk are normally quick to pounce on: we don’t have a problem with the casting, it’s those people.

Seemingly the only writer outside of the usual progressive outlets who is actually taking a stand on the issue, and not couching her coverage with the usual, “What do you think?” and “Some people are accusing Warner Brothers of ‘whitewashing’ Akira” chestnuts you can find with a Google search is Emily Asher-Perrin at Tor.com, who asks, “Where’s the Hollywood Wake-Up Call?”:

The Last Airbender film famously called a lot of unwanted attention to itself by whitewashing their cast as well, particularly the lead character Ang. The most colorful people in that cast were, predictably, the villains. The trend is getting harder and harder to ignore.

One of the main responses to ire over the casting of Akira is that there are no young Asian actors with enough star power to get the big box office numbers that Hollywood is banking on. But isn’t that exactly the point? Where are these young actors? Why aren’t they being given a chance? It’s not as if they don’t exist; Grace Park and John Cho are pretty solid proof. Who is keeping them out?

It made me realize for the first time that all of the Asian actors I remember watching as a kid are gone now—and no one has stepped up to take their place. Jackie Chan was a favorite of mine as a kid, but he has retired. So has Jet Li. Chow Yun Fat hasn’t been around for a while. Michelle Yeoh occasionally appears in an action flick. Lucy Liu is…come to think of it, where is Lucy Liu? A lot of these actors created a place for themselves in cinema, using their own crews and creating their own projects, but Hollywood doesn’t seem at all anxious to fill their shoes.

Geeks like to tag themselves as being progressive. So why the silence on this issue?

Top image courtesy of Teaser Trailer
Actor image courtesy of Racebending

By Guest Contributor Adrienne K., cross-posted from Native Appropriations

Last night I was cold. So cold, in fact, that I had to pull out not one, but two, of my Pendleton blankets to add some extra warmth to my bed. As I shook them out and laid them on my bed, I thought about how special these blankets are to me–one was a graduation gift, the other a thank you gift for serving on a panel about the “Future of Indian Education.” In many Native communities, Pendleton blankets are associated with important events, and have been for hundreds of years. They are given as gifts at graduations, at powwow give-aways, as thank you gifts, in commemoration of births and deaths, you name it. In addition, I’ve always associated the patterns with Native pride–a way for Natives to showcase their heritage in their home decor, coats, purses, etc. There’s something just distinctly Native about Pendleton to me.

But recently, Pendleton prints and fabrics have started popping up everywhere. It started with Opening Ceremony’s Pendleton line in 2010, and now Urban Outfitters has started carrying a Pendelton line, celebrities are wearing Pendleton coats, and Native-themed home decor is apparently all the rage. Now Pendleton has announced their newest collaboration, The Portland Collection, which fashion blogs are proclaiming will be the big thing for 2011.

Some examples from the line are under the cut.

So what’s the problem? I openly admit that a lot of these designs are adorable, and I would fully sport them (that bag! I love!), if I had a spare $1000 or so. I can’t cry straight up cultural appropriation, because … well, it’s complicated.

A study of the color and design preferences of local and Southwest Native Americans resulted in vivid colors and intricate patterns. Trade expanded from the Nez Perce nation near Pendleton to the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni nations. These Pendleton blankets were used as basic wearing apparel and as a standard of value for trading and credit among Native Americans. The blankets also became prized for ceremonial use.

It’s almost a symbiotic relationship–they saw a market in Native communities, and Native communities stepped up and bought, traded, and sold the blankets, incorporating them into “traditional” cultural activities. Pendleton has also maintained close ties with Native communities and causes, making commemorative blankets for organizations like the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Indian Education Association. They work with Native artists to design the special edition blankets, and even donate some of the proceeds to the causes.

As the marketing buzz controversy surrounding Lady Gaga’s new single grows, it should be pointed out that, as with arguably other aspects of her act, this is nothing new.

The lyrics in question in Gaga’s new single, “Born This Way,” center around an oddly-phrased call for self-empowerment:

Don’t be a drag, just be a queen
Whether you’re broke or evergreen
You’re black, white, beige, Chola descent
You’re Lebanese, you’re Orient
Whether life’s disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
‘Cause baby you were born this way

What sets Gaga’s use of the term apart, for now – there’s been no video released for “Born This Way,” though she will perform it at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 13 – is the direct use of the word Chola in the lyrics, as opposed to visual shorthand. And that’s where the controversy comes in: the word it’s derived from, Cholo, originated in the 16th century as a slur, similar to “mutt,” in both Perú and Mexico. But in the U.S., some would argue that they’re tied in with the Chicano identity and culture, following the lineage of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s.

While the examples she uses in the stanza are questionable at best – “Orient”? Really? And is “beige” supposed to stand in for mixed-race people? – the use of Chola, besides serving as an awkward short-hand for Latinas, might be an attempt to play on the image of the Chola as a street-smart, empowered woman And Gaga is far from alone in using this maneuver.

Perhaps no other American pop singer has used Chola imagery to her advantage more than Gwen Stefani. In the video for No Doubt’s first hit, “Just A Girl,” Stefani introduced herself to mainstream audiences in the tank top, Dickies and Old English lettering long associated with the culture. As a solo artist, she returned to a glammed-up version of the look in the videos for “Hollaback Girl” and her collaboration with Slim Thug, “Luxurious.” Jennifer Lopez used chola-like make-up, though not in a neighborhood setting, in her 2005 video for “Get Right.” Three years ago, Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, a Southern California native like Stefani, followed suit, donning the look for portions of the video for her duet with Ludacris, “Glamorous.”

YouTube has provided a bigger platform for the chola “look,” and in the case of the blogger known as Baby Smiley, opportunities for national television exposure, with “chola makeover” segments like this one involving Sandra Bullock on Lopez Tonight:

And then there’s the case of Chloe Michalopoulos, a Greek-American blogger who put up 55 videos as Ask A Chola, including this one on “Chola Culture,” and identified herself as “Soledad,” a Mexican, before her identity was exposed this past November:

(Speaking of Michalopoulos, on Monday, according to O.C. Weekly, she compared the revelation of her identity to the furor currently directed at the hosts of the BBC show Top Gear. Not exactly a sound move for someone who once rejected accusations she “mocked brown people.”)

There is a certain subversiveness in Baby Smiley getting to dismiss Bullock, who fits most “mainstream” definitions of beauty, as looking like “scrap metal,” even if it’s played for laughs. But for some, like the group Chicanos Unidos Arizona, the word chola carries a different meaning, as reported on Examiner.com:

Phoenix-based Chicanos Unidos Arizona spokesperson Cecilia Maldonado understands Lady Gaga’s intent, but thinks the terms “Chola” and “Orient” are harmful. “These are stereotypical terms. “Chola” is as derogatory as the “N” word when referring to a Hispanic female.”

Robert Cardenas of MEChA thinks Lady Gaga may help popularize the term. “Right now, Chola isn’t a widespread word. But after this song is released, it could be used against Latinas. This is very disappointing.”

Having grown up in Mexico, I can at least partially corroborate Maldonado’s statement: Cholo was very much used as a stand-in term for crook; my mother once freaked out when she saw me attempting to grow my hair long, having decided a ponytail was a first step of sorts into adopting the overall look – and from there, perhaps, worse behavior. It was blatant stereotyping on her part, of course, but it was there. And it won’t be long until we find out if that’s the vision Gaga chooses to present.

Top photo by Marco Patino

By Arturo R. García

Well, they kind of warned us with that picture, didn’t they?

Thanks to our reader Abigail for tipping us off to this glowing feature in Spin Magazine about L.A.-based rock Grouplove. And while it’s good to see an up-and-coming group get some shine, the video for the band’s single “Colours” takes a turn far, far off the Common Sense reserv – uh, let’s just say it’s not very sensible. We can’t embed the video (though you can watch it at the link to the article), but there’s a plot round-up under the cut.

Directed by Jordan Bahat, the video starts with lead singer Christian Zucconi being led by two men toward a tree somewhere in the desert. A rope is slung around a tree and Zucconi’s kicked down. Yup, he’s about to be lynched. (One wonders how this led the magazine to compare the video to Where The Wild Things Are.)

But wait! Zucconi’s fearless bandmates appear on the scene, clad in “warpaint,” feathers, “headdresses” and brandishing “tomahawks” and skinny jeans. They rescue Zucconi, who is revealed to be part of the “tribe,” as he’s also sporting feathers. After an “emotional” reunion with his love interest, played by keyboardist/vocalist Hannah Hooper, the quintet gallops off Monty Python-style, their journey intercut with shots of them “dancing.” On a positive note, their pogo-ing did not lead to any spontaneous rainfall.

Later, Hooper dabs blue paint on Zucconi’s shirt, presumably to welcome him further into the circle of American Apparel, or something. We see the group celebrate for a bit longer before getting hit with the Big Twist: it’s all been a dream. Zucconi was not rescued. The video closes with a shot of him hoisted from the tree. Well, okay then.

Normally Bahat would be to blame for the stunningly tone-deaf costuming choices made here, but in the article, Hooper gets (unintentionally?) thrown under the bus:

Zucconi and Rabin credit Hooper with much of the video’s artistic vision, and love her fresh perspective; the painter and graphic designer had never been in a band before. “Hannah did all the costumes herself,” says Rabin. “The visual presentation is always really important, and we tend to divert to Hannah’s opinions on that stuff. She tells us when shit sucks.”

Yeah, but who was around to tell her that?

By Special Correspondent Jessica Yee

Many of you know just how riled up I get when talking about cultural appropriation and willful ignorance of things like protecting Indigenous knowledge, or just not showing any damn RESPECT for things people really know nothing about.

I wanted to alert you all to some amazing Native peeps that are taking de-bunking Indigenous stereotypes to a whole new level – via music, dance, electric beats, hip-hop, and mind-blowing remixes to decolonize you all over – especially in those hard to reach places.

They are A Tribe Called Red and they hail from un-ceeded Algonquin territory in Ottawa (Canada). I’ve been going to their monthly Electric Powwow dance parties for a little while now where I’ve been known to shake my butt off and whisper politikin’ sweet-nothings into my friends ears as the unrepentant drum mash-ups beat on. I actually got to meet one part of the Electric Powwow craze DJ Bear Witness a while back when I emceed an Indigenous women’s spoken word show where he played a 65 minute beat set to an anti-war critique of colonization.

So I was beyond pleased to learn that MTV writers are now picking up on their stuff and making progressive-for-MTV-statements about them like, “it’s as right on and brilliant as a fashion shoot with emaciated European models in war bonnets is ignorant and lazy.” Which is interesting because lest we forget that MTV also produced the Dudesons who as some may recall me writing about here, very famously rode the train of appropriation and kept going west on their “Cowboys and Findians” episode that had just about every Native stereotype you can think of (and attempts from community to pull the show off MTV and issue an apology were unsuccessful). Not to mention of course the myriad of racist typecasting that plays on MTV 24/7.

Part of the reason (and there are many reasons) why I call myself an Indigenous hip-hop feminist is because I’ve often felt like hip-hop for me is a way to reclaim my roots and speak my truth where it’s been erased in the sea of people just not getting it, and that the process of colonization is pretty linear to where hip-hop has gone from its origins (you know, been exploited, appropriated, commercialized, capitalized off of, etc).  A Tribe Called Red reclaims all that and more with fiercely composed electric beats, some hip-hop, and centralizing the many voices of our peoples whether through traditional singing or the creation of new stories in song that talk about our time. Watch any of their videos and you will see that it’s a take-no-prisoners approach in facing what everyone else thinks about us, and what we know is the truth. You decide what you see.

So here’s to another year of fighting cultural appropriation – and yes we’re going to keep on fighting. I mean, what’s another year after more than 500 of this? At least we’ve got beats for the battle where we’re calling the shots to keep us company. Who’s calling who an Indian now?!

It’s hard to imagine a more egregious anime or manga “re-imagining” than the debacle that was The Last Airbender, but this might do it.

The long-fearedrumored live-action Akira remakes garnered attention over the weekend when rumors spread that the “lead role” in the two-film series would be offered to … Zac Efron.

Yes, that would be Zac Efron as Shotaro Kaneda, leader of a gang of motorcycle-riding funboys in a post-apocalyptic urban dystopia. But it looks this remake wouldn’t necessarily be a whitewash – it’d be a complete westernization of the story.

The basics of the story itself are the same in both the original six-volume manga series and the anime adaptation: Kaneda and his gang, normally content to wreak havoc around the ruins of Neo-Tokyo, get in far over their heads when one of their weaker members, Tetsuo Shima, is kidnapped by the military and subjected to experimentation. Tetsuo, revealed to be a vastly powerful telekinetic, escapes from custody and sets off a chain of events that threatens to engulf the city in yet another disaster, as both Kaneda and the authorities close in on him.

Akira is rare in that it’s considered a seminal story in both of its’ formats, one that propelled Japanese media from kitschy curiosity into more serious acclaim from North American audiences For a generation of kids reared on feel-good fare like Voltron or Robotech, the original anime was a mind-bender, the forerunner for challenging works like Neon Genesis Evangelion. More recently, it also inspired some of the images hip-hop’s own Tetsuo, Kanye West, used in the video for Stronger.) Here’s a trailer for last year’s blu-ray release of the film, where you see Kaneda – and his rather cool motorcycle – in action:

Somehow, director Albert Hughes and writer Albert Torres are reportedly going to attempt to turn the original manga – which spotlighted more characters beyond the Tetsuo/Kaneda love/hate relationship, but was by no means more kid-friendly – into two PG-13 movies, with the setting shifting from Neo-Tokyo to “Neo New-York.” That’s like turning Blade Runner into a Saturday-morning cartoon. At least one role, Colonel Shikashima, is allegedly being offered to a POC actor, in this case Morgan Freeman.

Still, at this point it’s fair to question whether it’s worth it for the films to even be called Akira. The original fanbase is not going to dig these changes, and the prospective new audience likely could give a damn about the source material, with an adaptation that might go a little like this:

True Dat Yo, indeed.

In a funny coincidence, Akira is also set to be referenced in the pages of Marvel Comics’ Generation Hope, the latest X-Men series. In issue #2, out Dec. 1, readers will be introduced to Kenji Uedo, one of the first five new mutants to appear on Earth following the near-extinction of the species, with powers that he can’t control. Kieron Gillen, who wrote the story, calls Kenji an “hymn to eighties Japanese body horror, nineties British modern art, 19th century banned literature and the whole concept of art and artistry generally.” Courtesy of Bleeding Cool, we present these images without comment for you to compare.

First, Uedo:

Now Tetsuo:

Here’s a scene from Generation Hope:

And here’s one from Akira:

Top image courtesy of Joblo.com