Cultural Appropriation
“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.”
Fashion has always crossed boundaries, in the case of cultural appropriation has it gone too far? Although cultural appropriation can sound like a simple concept at first such as Chinese food adapting into American culture, it’s not that simple. Cultural appropriation can make people stereotype one another and stigmatise their culture, which often leads to cause people of the original culture or religion to find it disrespectful and offensive.
Cultural appropriation normally occurs without any understanding of a particular culture and why they take part in certain …show more content…
If you were to think about the real story of Pocahontas and then see a little girl dressed as the famous Disney character, that should be disturbing in some way but how can so many people be unfazed by this victim’s story that it is okay to turn it into a costume? What if the girl wanted to dress up as Anne Frank for example, both Anne Frank and Pocahontas have true, distressing stories but more of us tend to believe that to trivialize Anne Frank’s life would be looked down upon. Imagine if Disney tried to make a movie out of Anne frank’s diary and if it was marketed to Germans, who have been told that the historical figures who oppressed the Jewish people were actually their country’s heroes. Now, I’m not saying that because it seems to be acceptable to dress up as Pocahontas that everyone should go out and dress up as Anne Frank for Halloween this year, but in reality it should be deemed as wrong to dress up as either of these girls, not just one. One of the biggest problems with Cultural Appropriation is that it makes things ‘cool’ for white people but ‘too ethnic’ for people of colour. In todays society the standards of professionalism can hold back almost everyone who aren’t white men. It is deemed as unprofessional to have dreadlocks or an afro, which can be some of the most natural ways for black people to style their hair. But comparing this to magazines that praise Kylie Jenner’s ‘cool cornrows’ if black women have to work for acceptance to wear the same styles as white women, is this sending a clear message to black women and
Fashion has always crossed boundaries, in the case of cultural appropriation has it gone too far? Although cultural appropriation can sound like a simple concept at first such as Chinese food adapting into American culture, it’s not that simple. Cultural appropriation can make people stereotype one another and stigmatise their culture, which often leads to cause people of the original culture or religion to find it disrespectful and offensive.
Cultural appropriation normally occurs without any understanding of a particular culture and why they take part in certain …show more content…
If you were to think about the real story of Pocahontas and then see a little girl dressed as the famous Disney character, that should be disturbing in some way but how can so many people be unfazed by this victim’s story that it is okay to turn it into a costume? What if the girl wanted to dress up as Anne Frank for example, both Anne Frank and Pocahontas have true, distressing stories but more of us tend to believe that to trivialize Anne Frank’s life would be looked down upon. Imagine if Disney tried to make a movie out of Anne frank’s diary and if it was marketed to Germans, who have been told that the historical figures who oppressed the Jewish people were actually their country’s heroes. Now, I’m not saying that because it seems to be acceptable to dress up as Pocahontas that everyone should go out and dress up as Anne Frank for Halloween this year, but in reality it should be deemed as wrong to dress up as either of these girls, not just one. One of the biggest problems with Cultural Appropriation is that it makes things ‘cool’ for white people but ‘too ethnic’ for people of colour. In todays society the standards of professionalism can hold back almost everyone who aren’t white men. It is deemed as unprofessional to have dreadlocks or an afro, which can be some of the most natural ways for black people to style their hair. But comparing this to magazines that praise Kylie Jenner’s ‘cool cornrows’ if black women have to work for acceptance to wear the same styles as white women, is this sending a clear message to black women and