Stop the presses! White people don't find cultural appropriation offensive

[cimorene]

While Avatar: The Last Airbender is busy filming on Greenland with white actors in actual native villages, Danish designer Peter Jensen's last collection using the traditional dress of Greenland for decoration sparks protest in the streets in Greenland.

The reporter for UK paper The Independent, like the designer, doesn't get what the problem is. The article's opening line is "Peter Jensen is probably the last designer on earth one would expect to trigger protests. It would be like campaigning against fluffy kittens or baby rabbits... Stop the bunnies, they are too cute!", and she moves on to quote the designer being "shocked" that his "loving tribute" could piss people off right after the extremely simple explanation:

Jensen thinks the protesters may be particularly sensitive because he is Danish, and Greenland was a colony of Denmark until 1979[...].

O RLY?

British women fashion bloggers are consumed with sympathy for the poor designer's victimisation by the 30-person POC hordes. Catwalk Queen thinks "Jensen's show was nothing like [genuinely offensive fashion appropriation of native dress]" because it "came across as a warm-hearted celebration of Greenlandic culture". And Style Bubble's headline is "Protect Peter!"; she goes on to invoke the whole Bingo card against those brown Greenlander women who, according to her unsubstantiated claim, are sending him death threats. Besides, Jensen totally went on vacation to Greenland to "research" the collection, and he looked cute doing it (which she bafflingly says straight-up is the most important concern for her)! She "for one [is] glad Jensen has returned to what he does best; unabashedly cute and immersed into a theme that is personal to him" because his aunt was an exchange student in Greenland in the 70s.

Wait. Seriously?

He thinks that Greenland's national dress is cute, and his aunt went there as an exchange student in the 70s when the country was still a colony owned by her homeland, so it's supposed to be okay for him to make an eroticised high fashion version of it to sell to white people outside Greenland, and that's supposed to earn him a Boy Scout badge? And all white right-thinking people are supposed to shake our heads at the POCs who failed to show the appropriate gratitude for being "lovingly" appropriated by him?

I particularly like the intimation that it's only cultural appropriation if a tribute wasn't intended: it's not stealing unless you don't like it, apparently. In what circumstance would these concerned slim blonde ladies consider a high fashion version UN-loving? Considering fashion is supposed to sell, it can't come with a "THIS IS UGLY" label. Maybe if the item being appropriated was being made fun of - like if it was made into a parody of itself? Like for example, if a traditional snowboot was resculpted into a stiletto-heeled hooker boot?



OH WAIT, HE DID THAT.

Comments

Natives Need Hooker Go-Go Boots Too...

[hollsh.livejournal.com]

Maybe the heel helps grip on ice or...

I have nothing. I'm glad I have no interest in this movie.

Re: Natives Need Hooker Go-Go Boots Too...

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Strangely, Russian women DO walk on ice in stiletto boots a lot. He should go appropriate Russian traditional dress! Maybe they would appreciate it.

Too early - read "Greenland" as "Finland" at first and was hopelessly confused

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

*headdesk* There was a hideous example of this mentioned over at Jezebel last month. Count the fails: it was a Vogue(?) spread showing off "primitive" African "tribal inspired" jewelry, modeled by a topless black woman with an afro >.<

I'm genuinely curious - do you think Americans, in general, are more aware of the implications of this type of thing than Scandinavians are? I've run into a couple of instances of total race fail from my otherwise liberal and politically inclined Swedish friend Karl, and I really wonder if it's because there's so much less open dialog about, say, the ramifications of slavery in Northern Europe. On the other hand, I've met some damn clueless Yankees. Thoughts?

Re: Too early - read "Greenland" as "Finland" at first and was hopelessly confused

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Sadly it seems like everyone not from America is prone to failing because they think the fact that they don't have slavery means they don't have race in their country.

But yeah, I do think that most northern Europeans are more full of racefail because of unexamined thoughts and lack of exposure to other cultures and races. Sweden has a lot more immigrants than Finland but their culture is still highly homogenous and they're very monoracial - there aren't, like, different cultural groups *within* the country much to speak of, just the few Sami in the north and the immigrants concentrated in Stockholm. And most of Europe is made of nation-states, which I'm starting to think contributes. I mean, America HAS American culture, but it also has other cultures in it, and an awareness of at least the existence of other cultures, if only historically.

Re: Too early - read "Greenland" as "Finland" at first and was hopelessly confused

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

I think there's also an issue of what's talked about in the education system.

I know several times well-educated people from the UK have been taken by surprise by race issues in fandom simply because the race issue stems from an element of race relations and history that they never learned about in school. (Or if they did, it was a brief mention - like a teacher mentioning the American Civil Rights Movement in passing.) And it's easy to say 'well, they should just educate themselves' - but you need to know you don't know something in order to realize you need to seek out information about it. If you live in a very homogeneous culture then there's not going to be a lot happening in your daily life to send up little red flags to say 'hey! You should learn more about this over here!'

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

I kind of feel like that hooker boot is extra insulting.

Like, I can understand an artist being inspired by the shapes or colors used in a culture, and using that to inform their own style - for example if you looked at a culture which valued heavily embroidered work in rich colors, and developed something heavily embroidered, but with your own design and color scheme, just being inspired by the texture and craft of the original work.

That hooker boot, though, appears to be basically a complete copy of the basic design elements - just painted onto a hooker boot instead of the traditional functional footwear. That's not being inspired by something, that's just, well, STEALING it. It totally makes sense why people might be offended by that, particularly given the cultural origin of the designer.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's basically just making a porn version - the porn version is *always* whatever the original was adapted to a miniskirt and stilettos. You don't need to be a designer to do that. And somehow "I visited your country for vacay and thought your native culture would make a cool decoration, if adapted into porn versions" is not very flattering.

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

If it was, all those adult clothing designers are really missing their chance to claim they're all enlightened. "We respect ethnic heritage! We have Native American loin cloths AND traditional Scandinavian Milk Maids!"

[brownbetty]

The article doesn't say so as I noticed, but seriously? It's like, actual lived-in village and they just cleared out the people to use the setting? It's like “Let's say you were trying to come up with the most blatant possible example of appropriation” day.

And yeah, wow. Hooker-boots. How… flattering.