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

[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!"