On a side note, I found the music conference to be really interesting. I thought the "Reality Bites" segment shared some interesting arguments in regards to the kind of media our generation consumes. What were your thoughts? I'm especially curious as to what people thought of the third presentation on Ke$ha and her "native style".
From the music conference, I understood Ms. Meizel's point to be mainly that it could be considered offensive for performers to co-opt symbols from other cultures, like the Indian headdress, without respect for their origins. From what she was saying, this use is offensive mainly because the very act of using these symbols as a form of costume or entertainment robs them of their cultural significance. But then, if these things are to be clearly recognized as merely costume, does it really matter?
ReplyDeleteI watched Frost/Nixon in theatres when it was first released, and I was incredibly impressed by the acting, but also the relative faithfulness to the actual event ("relative" because in Hollywood, well, frankly, you never know what you're going to get with a historical picture). In light of the documentary we viewed this morning, I also appreciate how Howard portrayed Frost as a terrifying threat from Nixon's perspective. It fits in quite nicely with the notion that Nixon was a paranoid manipulator.
ReplyDeleteAs for the music conference, I believe that something I garnered from the Ke$ha presentation was the need for communication between artist and inspirer. I'm sure that Ke$ha did not set out to offend the Native Americans, despite her statements that say something along the lines of her wanting to be a personification of irreverence. Like Julia noted, wearing them casually strips them of their cultural importance. However, I think that the author mentioned something about recognizing them not as "costume," but as clothing. Furthermore, I think it's worth noting the significant fashion trends that her style has inspired, or at least greatly popularized; also, the idea of dressing up as Ke$ha for Halloween amused me greatly.
The specific example from the conference that I remember was that in one of her videos, she wore a headdress. The two major reasons that there was a backlash against it was that 1. She is a woman and only men wear them, and 2. They have to be earned. I think the first reason can be immediately disregarded as sexist. The second is a little more difficult to defend against. However, I doubt in today's cinema that all Native Americans that wear headdresses have earned them, and there hasn't been any backlash against actors that I have heard about. So given these things, I feel that the outrage in this particular instance was unfounded. Granted I had no previous knowledge about the subject so I cannot display this as an informed opinion, but from what I heard, there seems to be little substance to these grievances, at least in this particular case.
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