Preview

Cathy Young's View On Cultural Appropriation

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
409 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Cathy Young's View On Cultural Appropriation
Cathy Young, is known for contributing her writings to Reason, Newsday, and RealClearPolitics.com and is also the author of two books. In this particular article titled “To the New Culture Cops, Everything is Appropriation” she discusses her view on cultural appropriation and how it hurts diversity, art and ignores history.

Young gives examples of incidents where artists incorporate elements of other cultures in their artwork and receive backlash as a result. Weather it be a tribute, historically accurate or a harmless work of art it seems that artists are being accused of cultural appropriation as soon as they step out of their own cultural experience and immerse themselves into someone else's. Most artist then apologize and take down

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The article “Cultural Baggage” by Barbara Ehrenreich’s was difficult to understand. But, in the beginning it talks about a friend asking the writer what her ethnic background was and Ehrenreich says “none”. This puts her to think since the friend mentions that she knows everything about her ancestors. Then she goes on saying that she was Scottish,English and Irish. She begins to feel some guilt for saying none and for not knowing much about her background which even makes her but later on in the article she begins to remember how her mother never said things such as “ your grandmother did it this way” and thing of that sort. At the end of the article she shares that she asked her children who where mostly grown “if they felt any stirrings of ethnic or religious identity which might have been, ahem, insufficiently nourished at home”. The children’s response was that they felt none, she felt relieved and proud and she knew her mother would feel the…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In this project, you will create and deliver a presentation to demonstrate an understanding of how works of art reflect the culture, politics, religion, and artistic movements of the times in which the artists created them.…

    • 1484 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her Ted Talk titled “Art in Exile”, Shirin Neshat targets Western artists and warns them about appropriating cultures as a form of entertainment. Women of any geographical region who could understand the gender and cultural conflicts that were going on in Iran, Neshat targeted as an…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    This article deals specifically with Dana Schutz’s controversial painting, “Open Casket”, that is being displayed at the Whitney Biennial. This abstract piece of art depicts the disfigured face of Emmett Till during his open-casket funeral. Several African American artists primarily Hannah Black have criticized the piece for being the ill-intentioned and the insincere work of a Caucasian man. She goes so far as to call for it to be either simply removed or destroyed in its entirety. Author Coco Fusco argues that her logic is flawed but he insists that instead of “unadulterated rage” people should have an informed discussion. He discusses how art is a medium that can and should be used to challenge the status quo, how this is beneficial, as…

    • 1291 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Attempting to change social and political conditions, activist art has recently been a popular subject among artists and art critics alike. Those most active within the art market have much criticism for activist and political art. Activists however, don’t seem to be too concerned as their main priority is the activism rather than the physical, which is where most criticism is based. Critics believe activist art cannot be considered true art because it is leaning on a notion of morality. They also believe it is lacking a certain quality of art and because it serves a function, it cannot fit in with traditional fine arts. Activist art also, in a way, distances itself from traditional fine arts by sometimes presenting itself as unappealing as…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Satire In Get Out

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages

    With the closing of the “post-racial” America of the Obama years and the inauguration of the Trump presidency the untreated wounds of American society have attained new levels of visibility. The “dog-whistle” racism which forms the base of the New Jim Crow is rapidly crumbling, exposing a virulent white supremacy no longer able to legitimize itself behind the fiction of racial “colorblindness.” In such periods of social unrest the power of racial representation is critical. Beyond providing a snapshot of the prevailing attitudes and morality of the artistic culture, in their most subversive form such representations challenge dominant sectors of society to interrogate the myths they have constructed to oppress despised populations.…

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Appiah thinks that the evidence does not support the harms of “cultural imperialism” because researchers have gone out to take the reactions of many individuals to a television show called “Dallas.” They have also gotten opinions in Australia, Brazil and other countries, and looked at the artist Sophiatown among other things. In this experiment what these researchers actually found was that the response these people had to the show was actually persuaded by their current cultural perspective.…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Harlem Museum Case Study

    • 2224 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Another case study, Harlem on my mind, was an exhibit that opened in 1969 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City that sought to explore the cultural history of Harlem, NYC, which was predominately black. With seemingly good intentions to celebrate Harlem’s culture and its progress as a community, the exhibition failed and proved racist because of a multitude of problems and issues the Met did not address, such as not including any paintings or prints by black Harlem artists. This is a great article for my paper because it really examines how important it is for the museum to reach out to the culture that their exhibit is about, to help curate for accuracy and proper celebration. As well this collaboration between the culture minority and the institutive will greatly help, if not eliminate, the racist overtones an exhibit should be trying to overcome. Also useful is the information this article provides on what caused social change and a spring of representation of minorities at museums, stating it was not the MET’s “Harlem on my Mind” but instead the people’s reaction to…

    • 2224 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    History of the Swastika

    • 1262 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Most people associate the swastika with Hitler, the Nazis, and the Holocaust. Because of this, it has become a symbol of hatred and violence. However, the symbol known as the swastika has been in existence for three thousand years, and a variety of cultures have used it in a variety of ways. The initial meaning of the symbol was a positive one, and some cultures looked at the symbol as a religious emblem, similar to a cross, but it also symbolized good luck and power. The symbol has been used throughout history to decorate everything from buildings and temples to pottery vessels and even military uniforms. Cultural appropriation is the adoption of elements of one culture by members of a different cultural group who may eventually become the new face of said cultural practices, passing the illusion that certain cultural practices are authentic to them. Cultural appropriation is the act of copying another people's culture to the extent that it may eventually seem authentic to the mimicker. For decades fashion magazines, Television advertisements and music videos have been exploiting the traditions of various cultures in order to make money. In turn, these singular representations perpetuate stereotypes and minimize vast cultures as singular monolithic ideas. The lines between personal property and public domain are becoming increasingly blurred as more people become connected by the Internet. In her article, the main point Rachel Kadish makes is that, "If your face isn't private property, what is?" (Kadish 262). She is referring to the self-portrait of her cousin, Noam Galai. After he uploaded the picture to his Flickr account, it was then downloaded by tons of people, who represented the work in ways he had not intended. Some even sold T shirts and prints of the picture for their own personal profit. Theft of digital property is nothing new on the Internet, and for some reason, stealing data…

    • 1262 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    What defines a work as “pop culture?” And conversely, what defines a work as “art?” What magical quality distinguishes the seemingly unremarkable projects of Bay, Warhol, and Collins from the prestigious masterpieces of Welles, Rembrandt, and Tolstoy? Popular culture is the ocean in which the arts swim, and when one contemplates and examines “the arts” it is done in a world defined by popular culture. (Or, in cultural theory terms, popular culture is the Other, for the arts — the thing the arts supposedly are not.) In this definition, it is stated, implicitly or explicitly, that the arts are something different. This difference between art and pop culture is its ability to overcome social divisions and inspire true emotion and change in the…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “These are different times…we’re trying to break stereotypes, break what people have assumed for so long about a culture, about an individual, about the world…this is for discussion…a time for not assuming things.” (Genara Banzon, November 28, 1996). Immigration has created a diverse society today that often includes culturally rich environments that contain more than one culture. Artist Genara Banzon shared that quote during an interview, in which he expressed his thoughts about society needing to move forward, and leaving stereotypes behind. Stereotypes are an ongoing dilemma in the world because people are still believing the over generalizations that are being implied to all in a certain group, and classifying them the same. Asian Pacific Americans have fallen victim to the stereotypes, which reflects on the visual culture of the depiction of Asian Pacific Americans. Stereotypes, history and other issues such as immigration and biculturalism have raised the question of what are the audience perspective and visual cultural representations of Asian Americans, and the important impression that the ideas post 1965 era raised was how Asian Americans represented themselves in American culture. Modern and contemporary Asian Pacific American artists have used the ideas and questions brought up post 1965, which include immigration and…

    • 1806 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cultural appropriation is often described as when somebody takes something of significance from a culture that is not their own without showing respect for what they have taken. While some people do this on purpose for personal gain, that being profit or just popularity, many may not even know what cultural appropriation is. Miley Cyrus has shown evidence that she either does not know about or does not care about cultural appropriation at her 2013 Video Music Awards performance on live television where she used black women’s bodies as sexual props, performed a song that she explicitly wanted to feel black, and degraded a vast population of black women in the process.…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    race and ethnicity

    • 1226 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Does race and ethnicity play a role in how art is made? What is considered to be Asian American art? These are the questions one would ask in order to better understand the relationship between race and ethnicity and how it ties in with Asian American art. Every piece of artwork has a story, a message expressed to the audiences. These messages may portray more than one influence, but the main influence that inspires the creation of the art is through the artist’s race and ethnicity. Through race and ethnicity, the artist can express their experiences, history, and concerns of Asian American. It may be expressed through music, literature, and even in humor.…

    • 1226 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cultural Appropriation

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “Cultural appropriation is a sociological concept which views the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture as a largely negative phenomenon.”…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cultural Appropriation in America is a valid reason as to why there is a prejudice and racism problem. Throughout the United States social issues considering racism and prejudice occur within the “borrowing” of varying cultures (Nittle). While affecting millions of minorities, this cultural thievery is not to be confused with cultural groups rubbing off on Americans which grew up in diverse communities. In example, diverse communities could potentially pick up the dialect and traditions of the cultural groups surrounding them. Cultural appropriation as defined by Susan Scafidi, “Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions…most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group.” The irony in this form of racism is socially, dominant groups are deemed as state-of-the-art and edgy, while minorities receive backlash and continuous systems of damaging varieties of stereotypes of lacking in creativity.…

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays