Spring is in full bloom with many companies releasing
simular lines it’s time for marketing teams to get creative and market their
product in an eye catching way. This week Sportsgirl have given us a quick
lesson in how NOT to market a product; do not try and appropriate a culture.
Their collection ‘Polynesian Girl’ has created a buzz on the internet with
consumers concerned off their blatant disregard for another culture.
Now you may be thinking ‘isn’t it a good thing if you are trying to take influences from the world around us?’ nothing is that simple, unknowingly we can take something of importance and make it into something trivial. According to Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law cultural appropriation is defined as: “Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artefacts from someone else's culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc. It's most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g. sacred objects.”
By naming their collection ‘Polynesian Girl’ Sportsgirl are capitalising on someone else’s culture. The choice of using a white blond-haired, blue-eyed model over an islander girl; using words such as ‘novelty print’ are culturally inappropriate. With a little research they could have easily avoided the backlash of this marketing mistake.
Sportsgirl weren’t the first to go down the cultural appropriation path. Celebrities and brands, looking at you Urban Outfitters (Star of David Shirts, inappropriate comments regarding St Patrick’s Day, the list goes on and on) have been trying to make money of various cultures for years. Victoria’s Secret are another company that struggle with cultural appropriation boundaries. Native American headdresses have featured in their runway shows and in 2012 they marketed an oriental inspired lingerie set as ‘sexy little geisha’. In doing this they have modified and sexualised a culture in order to make sales.
Now you may be thinking ‘isn’t it a good thing if you are trying to take influences from the world around us?’ nothing is that simple, unknowingly we can take something of importance and make it into something trivial. According to Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law cultural appropriation is defined as: “Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artefacts from someone else's culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc. It's most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g. sacred objects.”
By naming their collection ‘Polynesian Girl’ Sportsgirl are capitalising on someone else’s culture. The choice of using a white blond-haired, blue-eyed model over an islander girl; using words such as ‘novelty print’ are culturally inappropriate. With a little research they could have easily avoided the backlash of this marketing mistake.
Sportsgirl weren’t the first to go down the cultural appropriation path. Celebrities and brands, looking at you Urban Outfitters (Star of David Shirts, inappropriate comments regarding St Patrick’s Day, the list goes on and on) have been trying to make money of various cultures for years. Victoria’s Secret are another company that struggle with cultural appropriation boundaries. Native American headdresses have featured in their runway shows and in 2012 they marketed an oriental inspired lingerie set as ‘sexy little geisha’. In doing this they have modified and sexualised a culture in order to make sales.
Ayesha Siddiqi, Ideas Editor at BuzzFeed, Contributing
Editor at The New Inquiry, featured in an article last year on Bullett about
cultural appropriation: ‘Ghetto Fabulous: 13 Voices Speak On Fashion’s Appropriation of Urban Culture’. Her quote was extremely powerful, showing how oppressing and
harmful cultural appropriation can be.
“Rarely do the original communities benefit from an acceptance of ‘ethnic’ styles in the mainstream. White America has always wanted our look, not us. When South Asian bangles, embroidered flats, and paisley print became accepted in the mainstream, it wasn’t South Asians who suddenly became cool. When a Pakistani woman wears a headscarf or an Indian woman wears a bindi, she is subject to everything from scorn to violence; they risk being seen as ‘unassimilated.’ Since the launch of the ‘war on terror,’ Muslim women wearing the hijab have been subject to public beatings, harassment, and workplace discrimination. Our cultural artifacts become identity markers and those markers become targets. I love the hijab, but the last time I wore it a man in a pickup truck followed me screaming slurs. Meanwhile Rihanna poses in one, Madonna models under a niqab, Lady Gaga sings about burqas.
“Rarely do the original communities benefit from an acceptance of ‘ethnic’ styles in the mainstream. White America has always wanted our look, not us. When South Asian bangles, embroidered flats, and paisley print became accepted in the mainstream, it wasn’t South Asians who suddenly became cool. When a Pakistani woman wears a headscarf or an Indian woman wears a bindi, she is subject to everything from scorn to violence; they risk being seen as ‘unassimilated.’ Since the launch of the ‘war on terror,’ Muslim women wearing the hijab have been subject to public beatings, harassment, and workplace discrimination. Our cultural artifacts become identity markers and those markers become targets. I love the hijab, but the last time I wore it a man in a pickup truck followed me screaming slurs. Meanwhile Rihanna poses in one, Madonna models under a niqab, Lady Gaga sings about burqas.
Appropriation occurs
when bodies, typically white, popularize styles that didn’t originate with
them, across a matrix of power: the power of visibility, the power to define
what is ‘ethnic’ in the market. The gains that follow are reserved for the
appropriator, not the appropriated. When the participation of poc in mainstream
culture is relegated to trinkets Urban Outfitters can sell, what are we
supposed to do, be grateful? While our communities are mined for the latest hip
accessories that are lauded on white bodies while suspect on ours, it’s a
valuation of whiteness above us. Above our history, dignity, and humanity. I
want to see dreadlocks be appreciated because of the black people wearing them,
not the corny white dude who doesn’t have to worry about looking ‘too ethnic’
at a job interview. I want to see Bollywood dances appreciated from our current
Indian American Miss America, not Selena Gomez’s mangled approximation in her
VMA performance of “Come and Get It.” Guess which one of them was subsequently
called a terrorist.”
Its 2014, its time for us to make smart decisions about the world around us, to make a change so the world is a better place for everyone not just those in the majority. We can respect and appreciate cultures but we need to remember that they aren’t ours to take and they’re definitely not there for large companies to make money from.
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