Recently, I was watching the movie "Bride and Prejudice," the Bollywood version of "Pride and Prejudice" which stars Aishwarya Rai. During the movie, my mom came downstairs to check her email and she glanced at the TV. She noticed Aishwarya Rai's hair, which was dyed a reddish brown color. My mom said, 'Why do they do that? They've [Indian women] got that gorgeous dark hair." I responded to this, "We dye our hair." She then said, "Yeah but...It's like losing your culture." I responded to this, "We've lost our culture, I mean, we don't celebrate our cultural heritage or anything," or something to that effect. Then she told me we don't have a culture, we're mutts.
I am white and I do not celebrate any part of my German or English heritage. I have no traditions that are distinctly English or German in my life. So what makes other women, or anyone, any different? I don't see hair dying as an abandonment of culture. I see it as a change in self expression. When I do it, as a white person, it's a change in style. But if someone who isn't white dyes their hair, or does anything "white," it's seen as an abandonment of culture by a lot of people.
Furthermore, later in the movie, Aishwarya Rai dons a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. In fact, in a lot of that movie she is wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Is that losing your culture? Or is that wearing what you want?
Where is boundary? And how do we define "losing your culture"?
I have dark blonde/light brown hair that I want to make darker, just because I think it's time for a change. No one will look at me upon dying my hair and say, "you're not recognizing your roots." No one.
It's as though white people expect those who aren't white to recognize and celebrate everything about their backgrounds, when most white people I know totally don't. How can those who are white expect that of so many people when we don't do it ourselves? It's a ridiculous expectation if we're not going to practice what we preach.
Am I totally ridiculous in thinking this? Any thoughts?
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It depends. When white women dye their hair, it's not likely to be because they're ashamed of their racial appearance. With nonwhites, there's a tradition of trying to look whiter by straightening and lightening hair. This self-alternation to conform to white supremacist standards of beauty may have nothing to do with Aish's appearance choices in the movie, or any given nonwhite person's hair choices in real life, but it's inescapable background.
This is a good point. We have a Pakistani family and an Indian family in our neighborhood, and they rave about how my 13 m/o daughter's hair is so, so blond. They also compliment us on how light and clear both our girls' complexions are. I'm not really sure how to respond.
In fact, ever since she was born, everyone seems to comment on how blond Quinn is and how intensely blue her eyes are, to the point that it kind of makes me uncomfortable. I mean, of course I think she's the most adorable baby in the world, but there are some brown haired, dark-skinned babies out there that are strikingly beautiful as well, and I get the sense that Quinn's look is often valued over theirs. But I'm not sure how to communicate this to the complete strangers that rave about her appearance without offending them. We do try to counterbalance all their comments about how our girls' look by saying things like "and they're smart and strong too" so that they won't get the sense that the most important thing about them is their looks. But how do you tactfully point out that being blond and blue-eyed is not the end all be all?
In Korea one of the other American teachers was very sick for a week, and deathly pale. This led to numerous compliments on his improved appearance.
yes and no
sometimes changing your hair really is just playing with your hair-
just like the "white" girls do.
Gads, lets not get into the argument about natural versus processed and product managed hair-
please please no
Not AGAIN.
"This self-alternation to conform to white supremacist standards of beauty may have nothing to do with Aish's appearance choices in the movie, or any given nonwhite person's hair choices in real life, but it's inescapable background."
I think this is a very interesting and very tough question. I've been thinking about this recently, and I'm not sure I have my thoughts sorted out just yet. But my thinking, thus far, is this:
Saying that minorities should celebrate their culture by way of not changing their appearance holds them to a completely different standard than white people are held to. Furthermore, while I definitely appreciate the value of celebrating one's culture, my problem with the "don't change your hair color" theory is that it furthers the idea of minorities as something besides just plain old PEOPLE, who, like white people, want to change their appearance sometimes. It also assumes that a minority person's actions are always directly related to being a minority. Again, this places them in a category besides "just people." When a white person changes their hair-- or does anything, for that matter-- no one assumes that it had anything to do with being white.
However, I think your "where is the boundary?" question is a good one. You could say you cross a line when you do something to overtly make your appearance more similar to that of the party in power, but that's still a really hard line to draw. And does that mean that an African-American woman should never dye her hair blonde? I would say that's unfair. However, I'm sure I would take issue with other forms of appearance modification. I doubt I would encourage an African-American woman who wanted to bleach all of her skin white. But why? I realize it's silly to say that dying hair is okay but dying skin is not. Maybe because dying one's hair is common practice in our society, while dying one's skin is not? I realize it's pretty arbitrary.
I guess I'd just say we should be very careful in attaching political meaning to a personal choice that, I'd argue, everyone has a right to, like dying their hair. Politicizing these actions has a place sometimes, of course, but it's not fair to assume that because a person is part of a minority, their minority background is the motivation behind every single thing they do.
People in India and in Indian movies are not minorities in India.
I bet that people with eyes and skin as light as Aish's are indeed a minority in India.
Why do people think every non-white person who straightens their hair or dyes it is 'trying to look white'? Black girls who straighten their hair are doing it for the same reason white girls with curly hair do - to make it more manageable and feel better about themselves. I dye my hair, not because I'm ashamed of my hair colour, but because I want a different look.
People seem to think that since there's more haircolours among white people, only white people have the right to go modifying their hair within these boundaries. It's insane anyway, because there ARE, believe it or not, asians and black people with something other than jet black hair, and black girls with naturally wavy or straight hair.
Yeah, I don't think you can make that assumption in every case, but there is a lot of pressure to "look lighter" within Indian culture. My friend Samina (who's actually from Pakistan) used to send me the ads for skin and hair lightening products that filled the magazines and websites aimed at Indian and Pakistani women. And Indian families openly celebrate when a child with "fair" skin is born.
It also assumes that a minority person's actions are always directly related to being a minority.
Excellent point.
In class the other day we were talking about that idea in relation to violence against women. How, for example, when a South Asian man throws acid on a woman or sets her on fire, or a Muslim woman is stoned, we tend to talk about the crime, especially in the newsmedia, as being motivated by culture, it's sensationalized and exoticized. But when a woman is shot dead by her husband, it's in terms of the individual perpetrator's agency or choice. However, in a country where guns aren't readily available, they might see it as being directly related to the American culture of gun violence.
The expectation of white people that non-whites should recognize and celebrate everything about their culture is an expectation that constructs the exotic other in opposition to what we in the West are supposed to be. We are rational individuals with freedom of choice, they are superstitious and emotional, their actions driven by cultural group-think. We are culture-less individuals free to define our own identities, they must define themselves in terms of a cultural ideal, they have to look like how the tourists expect them to look.
It's one of the many divides on which we in the West construct our privilege. The idea that white North Americans have no culture is one of the ways that whiteness is positioned as the norm. So when non-whites break out of the boundaries we've constructed for them, do something which is supposedly not to do with their culture (like dying or straightening their hair), well then they must be trying to be more like whites.* Because whites are the centre of everything.
In fact, culture is like water. We only think it doesn't effect us because we're submersed in it. Culture is what you live every day.
... Although sometimes it is the case that people are trying to look white. Skin lightening, plastic surgery, etc. and probably in less extreme cases too. In those cases, it seems like trying to achieve "whiteness" is part and parcel of the desire to attain privilege. Of course there are poor white people, but there is less diversity as you go up the socio-economic scale, so the culture of privilege is by default the culture of white privilege. In which case, "ethnic" culture is something we say people should value, but it's not something that actually is of value if you're trying for upward mobility. Insisting that people adhere to their "ethnicity" is a way of keeping people in their assigned category. So if it holds people back, why should we criticize them for abandoning it? If we really do value "ethnic" culture, why don't we see more diversity among people in power?
You said it all better than I could, so I'll just add "me too!" :)
"It's one of the many divides on which we in the West construct our privilege. The idea that white North Americans have no culture is one of the ways that whiteness is positioned as the norm. So when non-whites break out of the boundaries we've constructed for them, do something which is supposedly not to do with their culture (like dying or straightening their hair), well then they must be trying to be more like whites.* Because whites are the centre of everything," by Marissa AO
great point. some feministing posts have mentioned this before, but american white people have a culture too. and when minorities do something different about their appearance, it's usually to look more "white," whether consciously or unconsciously. they're not necessarily losing their culture, but they're aspiring to a culture of privilege, nit because looking like that would get them all the privilege, but what privileged people do is usually in fashion, usually "beautiful."
"Why do people think every non-white person who straightens their hair or dyes it is 'trying to look white'? Black girls who straighten their hair are doing it for the same reason white girls with curly hair do - to make it more manageable and feel better about themselves," by Nettle Syrup
i think to say either that non-whites are always trying to look white, or that they're not trying to look white but just doing it for convenience are both over-simplifications. i'm not quoting any extensive research on this, but does it not seem to you that black women in many african countries do their hair differently that american black women? so there are many ways other that straightening your hair to manage it, right? and my black classmates in college actually had to go through either a lot of time or money to keep their hair straight and styled, so i definitely don't think it gets more manageable. the ones who just left their hair as they are, spent a lot less time on it. my relatives in bangladesh manage their hair by braiding it, and that's how i was used to doing it. it's only after a few years in america that i straighten my hair and leave it out more - to do something different, yes, but also because that's considered sexy here.
as for the hair dyeing, the asian women i know who do it, do sometimes do it just to be different. but it says something when mostly upper class women or women who've come to america start dyeing their hair in lighter colors. for one, they have to spend money doing it, so it does require privilege, and two, thick black hair is actually the ideal for traditional south asians, so the ones dyeing their hair are thinking about a different beauty ideal.
so minorities in america, or upper class women of other countries aren't always consciously losing their culture and imitating whites (though sometimes i've seen/heard of that, and felt like that myself), but they're following standards that are set by what's common in white culture, like straight, light colored hair, skinny, less curves etc. otherwise, why are the most light colored minorities represented in the media, in america, and in bollywood, india? most indian women are darker than the bollywood actresses, and many black women are darker than beyonce, who also happens to have light colored hair extentions.
just my 2 cents for the day.
"great point. some feministing posts have mentioned this before, but american white people have a culture too."
More than one culture instead of a culture, right?
"so there are many ways other that straightening your hair to manage it, right? and my black classmates in college actually had to go through either a lot of time or money to keep their hair straight and styled, so i definitely don't think it gets more manageable."
More great points.
Indians in India also have more than one culture.
...and multiple cultures within each state, more cultures that overlap states, etc. too, right?
Right. So I don't understand the "instead of" in the American case.
"i'm not quoting any extensive research on this, but does it not seem to you that black women in many african countries do their hair differently that american black women?"
Yes, but a lot of these traditional braided styles, while easy to maintain take a lot of time and work to get done. Plus finding the a stylist in America who can do the real deal is gong to cost you. Most of those techniques (coils, braids, etc) that used to get passed along by female relatives have been lost in America.
The easiest style for kinky black hair, would likely be a short natural. But thanks to decades of white beauty on a pedestal, this style of hair is seen as unfeminine (internalized racism); and therefore, for many women it is simply unacceptable.
For most women some kind of relaxer or texturizer (mild relaxer that maintains a wavy or curly pattern) is a reasonable compromise. And it's relatively accessible and inexpensive--a lot of women do their own hair for example.
If you get the chance to look through some black hair magazines (yes, there are separate hair magazines because most self-proclaimed hair magazines generally cater to European hair) you can see that while the black hair is straightened the actual styles are quite different from what white women are sporting.
And it's not to say that black women don't spend a lot of money and time on the straightening process, because many do.
But you don't have to. It's more the styling to the latest look that kills you. If you texturize your hair and just do a "wash and go" style it's pretty damned convenient.
i think to say either that non-whites are always trying to look white, or that they're not trying to look white but just doing it for convenience are both over-simplifications.
Nicely put.
'thick black hair is actually the ideal for traditional south asians, so the ones dyeing their hair are thinking about a different beauty ideal'
That's kind of the point - people frowning on them when they don't stick to 'their' beauty ideal just proves what another poster said about minorities being seen in a different way. If I want thick black hair and have it cut in an 'asian' style, that does not mean I'm trying to be anything else. I wear asian clothes, too, sometimes, yet I'm not asian. Again, I just do things because I like the look, just like everyone else.
In fact, this debate makes me think of people who say wearing lipstick or a miniskirt or heels is not feminist. Yes, it's patriarchal that EVERY bloody woman you see on a TV show is a classic cisgendered thin and patriarchy-standard of beauty. But if I want to look like that, I'm not 'selling out', even if it could be said to be participating in my own oppression on some level. It's just how I like to look. I think it's the same with minorities: it's how they like to look. Not to say that all this isn't connected to cultural biases or anything, undoubtedly it is. But it's the biases that should be stigmatised, not people's free choices for how they like to look.
The idea that white Americans have no culture is a really strange idea to me. In one of the freshman classes I used to teach, we did this exercise where each person brings an item that has cultural significance for them, and then explains it to the class. So many of the white students were like "I don't have a culture because I'm white." I really don't get that. Unless you were raised by wolves, you have a culture. Maybe it's not ethnically informed anymore, but it's a culture. When did culture come to mean ethnicity?
Not only were my parents descendants of radically different cultures, their parents were descendants of radically different cultures. This is true of most white Americans I know. For most of us, the cultural signifiers of our ancestors are hopelessly lost, because what got passed on was only what the parents held in common. Which is to say, American culture, a construct so relentlessly commercialized in the past century that nobody really feels like they own it anymore. What would I bring in to a cultural significance show and tell? An electric Christmas tree from Walmart? A superman action figure? A tiny American flag? I'm honestly stumped.
Everyone does have a culture, in other words, but not everyone has the same relationship to their culture. If you're alienated enough, it can certainly feel like you don't have a culture, and that's a real problem that reciting the definition of culture can't fix.
And the reason I think this is relevant to the post at hand: I think for a certain type of white liberal, lack of cultural attachment is the source of the kind of sentiment the OP is talking about. If white America is defined by cultural blandness, everyone else must be defined by cultural flavor. Hence, exoticism, and the feeling that minorities are "wasting it" if they allow their personal feelings rather than their culture to dictate their actions.
Whites tend to covet what they feel they do not have, as well. I was raised white and I always coveted Native Americans living with their tribes because I did not have that despite my ancestry. When I finally saw how they lived on reservations, I could not want that anymore. Even growing up poor and white, I did not want to be poor and Indian as much as I DID want it. This hurt me inside for so long that just a few months ago, I was finally able to let it go and I cut most of my hair off. I finally accepted that I was not culturally anything but white.
For people of mixed ancestry who grew up with only white culture because their parents did not know anything different, this is a very hard thing to cope with. As an anthropologist, this has fascinated and haunted me for a long time. Individual decisions like this cannot be summed up in small chunks of words. It is a very personal thing to change a signifier of culture, like your hair and it can often mean that the person feels the need to change how people see them.
Once I "gave up the ghost" of Native identity and made a new one for myself inside, I could let go of the external signifiers that I had held on to for so long. If someone who has a solid identity in a culture changes anything about themselves, who is to call that wrong or disloyal to themselves? Culture is fluid, as I am sure I have said before, so change is standard.
And...American culture values above all else, the individual, despite what some people believe. We are granted rights to act individually in terms of expression. That is why American culture is so varied and multifaceted. It is why so long ago, my ancestors denied their roots and embraced a new ideal. It is also why they(we) tried to assimilate Native Americans. The exoticism that a good deal of our mothers and fathers idealize is fast becoming commonplace and as much a part of American culture as *denying* or changing your exoticism.
I understand what you're saying about your experience with Native Americans, in terms of how white people tend to admire "exotic" cultures. I'm now at a music conservatory which, while it has a lot of East-Asian students, is predominantly Christian, but I went to elementary, middle, and high schools that were full of South-Asian, East-Asian and Middle-Eastern students and where Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists sometimes outnumbered Christians and Jews. It's interesting to see how intriguing the white people at my school who didn't grow up around Asians find Eastern religion and culture, when to me, Hinduism is no more "exotic" than Catholicism and anime is just another popular thing like Harry Potter. It's also irksome how many stereotypes they have of Asians and just how off-the-mark some of them are.
How about a movie or a book or a music cd? How about a picture of a car or of a space shuttle? The Statue of Liberty? Most "American food" is gross or tacky or carries lower class connotations here, but it's a fairly distinctive thing (though fusion based) and very popular all over the world. Are there no distinctly American forms of dance?
Modern dance originated in America.
As did JAZZ
But is Jazz part of American culture, or African American culture? Is it co-opting for a white kid to bring their Louis Armstrong CD to class as a representation of American culture?
So are African Americans not part of America? Have I no right to claim Sinatra as part of my American culture because of his Italian origins?
Jazz is now probably more popular among white people than it is among blacks, even if it started with African-Americans and has its roots in African music, so it doesn't make sense now to peg it as just a part of black culture. I played in a jazz band in high school that was entirely white and Asian, and at the music school I attend now I have yet to meet one non-white jazz major.
You named four mass market commodities, a patriotic icon, and the space shuttle. Mass market commodities do not feel like a part of my culture because I do not create them, they are created by others who want to sell them to me, and I have little influence on the process. Patriotic icons are honestly kind of ominous to me more than anything- American flags conjure an American-exceptionalist jingoism typical of people who think I should burn in hell.
The space shuttle is a good example, though. It's a little tainted by the cold war spirit, but it's still definitely a cultural icon.
So American music, literature and art (movies) are not American culture, and neither are centuries old world recognized landmark's proclaiming national ideals. The space program is tainted as a cultural reference because it didn't occur in a political-military vacuum. What hypothetically could America have that would qualify as culture?
You don't have to like something for it to be part of your nation's culture.
My nation's culture? As if it only has one? Multicultural nation, FTW. No one cultural narrative owns America.
That aside, my point was that people have varying relationships to the culture around them, and that alienation from that culture is very common among white American liberals, which creates the effect if not the actuality of cultural vacuum. You can't contradict that point by listing a lot of American things and then getting snippy when I repeat that I feel alienated from them.
You vastly overestimate the importance of your feelings to me. I don't care about your opinion of American culture. I'm just pointing out that to dismiss Twain, Fitzgerald (Ella or F. Scott), Coltrane and Scorsese because their works are "commodities" shows that you have no idea what culture is. Can you name some places with non-multi-cultured cultures that have nothing to do with economics or foreign competition so I'll know what it is America's missing? As for whether America is "your nation" or not, I meant "your" in the impersonal sense, but if America is indeed not your nation than I don't see the point of feeling alienated from America's culture or lack thereof.
As for snippy, are you kidding?: http://community.feministing.com/2008/12/dye-your-hair-ditch-your-cultu.html#comment-202328
Ah, I think I misunderstood what you meant by "My nation's culture?" Obviously American culture includes the cultures of many many different groupings of Americans. FTW, indeed.
No one cultural narrative owns any nation. That's just not how it works, and it's naive to think that other nations have one narrative.
We're a capitalist culture.
Pop culture is still culture...
regardless
The true American Art Form
is JAZZ music.
c'mon folks, do you have to be FROM New Orleans to know that?
Reall, now?
Exactly. I was thinking of jazz (and I believe aleks mentioned a few jazz artists above), but Americans have also developed distinctive variations in other genres that were originally borrowed, and I don't see why these can't be called American too. Most cultures have elements that were originally borrowed from other cultures, but if it happened long enough ago, people attribute it to the borrowing culture.
A friend wants to name her child a traditional Irish name because of her boyfriends ancestry.
I believe that generations from now, there will be American-Europeans living in Europe thinking of American names for their children like:
Rainbow
Summer
Autumn
etc.
...Brooke, Forest... :D
Trig, Bristol, Track, Willow, Piper, Rake, Spaghetti
Of course I'm aware of how cultural signifiers change and/or are lost when different ethnic groups intermingle, etc. But claiming that you don't have a culture still seems really odd to me. And it would be really hard to explain a lot of our practices in a cultural vacuum. I think that for Americans now, even things like cell phones, iPods, laptops, etc are culturally significant. But I don't see a problem with using action figures, or items that are involved in the way your family celebrates a holiday, or whatever, as long as those things are significant to you. When I was a kid Wonder Woman was very important to me, and the idea of her was really tied up with the way my self-conception developed. Isn't she an artifact of my culture? Maybe she doesn't have anything to do with the Scotch-Irish-German people who are my ancestors, but does this mean she has no cultural validity for me? Again, when did ethnicity and culture become synonyms?
The connection between culture and ethnicity has a lot to do with how anthropologists have worked in the past and the way anthropological work has been presented to people. It also has to do with the fact that in America, many immigrants completely abandoned and adopted (or changed the culture they knew) into something completely new. It became more of a personal act to do something culturally significant, like celebrating Hanukkah, observing Lent, or celebrating a Quinceanera. Among small communities, these things existed, but they existed alongside cultural practices that were contrary. They became tradition instead of culture. This entire notion of American culture is, indeed, new. So forgive people their ignorance, most of us were never taught to value much more than Christmas and family. :/
Again, I don't question the fact that there is often a connection between culture and ethnicity. But there often isn't, so I'm not sure why they're synonyms now.
And beyond that, I think that the things that you're explicitly taught to value by your family are only a small portion of your culture. American culture extends well beyond Christmas and Easter. What about music, books, movies, political movements, shared values and ideals, art forms that have developed differently here or were created here? I guess using culture as a synonym for ethnicity seems to really limit it in some ways, and dramatically change the meaning of it in other ways.
To answer the above comment as well...these art forms are often exported or fused from other art forms originating in other places. Yes, there are uniquely American things in our popular culture. But often times they are commercial and often detached from deeply felt ideas. There is no general consensus in America about what is valuable in our culture, like you would see in other cultures with shared values.
It does not mean that these things are *not* cultural artifacts, they are, but there is a detachment among Americans with these things because they often times do not speak to a universality of values. That is where you get subculture, counterculture, and "minority" culture. Me being an athiest, for example, is minority and, in some minds, countercultural.
So, there is no consensus on what is *right* and *normal* to value, which are some of the things that culture tends to be defined with. Culture is often defined as a system of *shared beliefs, attitudes, values, goals, conventions, etc*. It is much more accurate to say that cultures in America are legion. Popular culture (which I believe is what you are referencing) is a separate thing, I think it is more of a pervasive culture created by commercialism and consumerism, yet not artificial. There is no consensus among Americans regarding art forms as representative of their beliefs, so I think this is where American uniqueness shines. The Christmas, Easter, holiday and tradition things fall into the legion cultural differences that are so numerous, they are fairly individual.
"Yes, there are uniquely American things in our popular culture."
Like the American dialects of English...
"There is no general consensus in America about what is valuable in our culture, like you would see in other cultures with shared values."
I got the impression that people outside the U.S. disagree with each other about what's valuable in their cultures too (for example, feminists and patriarchs in Iran not completely agreeing with each other about what to value in Iranian culture, what to value in Kurdish culture if they're Kurdish too, etc.).
"It is much more accurate to say that cultures in America are legion."
Yep. :)
An intelligent reference to the NT's demonic possession story! Well done.
In my experience no culture is monolithic. I think it's easy for us to portray other cultures as being monolithic, but that ignores the dissenting voices and the minorities that are almost inevitable in any culture. I agree that American culture is far more diverse than most, but I still don't think that we should conclude based on this that white people don't have a culture.
Jazz is valuable in this culture.
I certainly don't think culture and ethnicity are the same, and you're right to point that out. It's too often confused in this thread and elsewhere.
What I mean, I guess, is this: in most of the ethnicity bound cultures we can think of, the people who carry the culture forward are the same ones that practice it. It's collaboratively created by individual families adapting what their parents taught them. Culture has traditionally been something that you and people you know make, based on templates you got from people you knew in the previous generation.
Most aspects of modern American culture are not like that. They come from standardized, remote sources like television. Wonder Woman is part of your culture, but you remain only a consumer of Wonder Woman. The flow of culture goes only one direction and you are at the OUT end. To many people this is unsatisfying, and this may be why they report having no culture. What would be more accurate is to say that the culture is there, but that they feel alienated from it.
Yeah, I do think that the commercialization of everything, and consumerism, are deeply problematic aspects of our culture. However, I also think that this is something that's spreading to many other cultures, and that the homogenization that comes with mass communications is an inevitable result of the information age. In every major historical shift (the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, etc) there have been profound cultural changes that came with it, and whether we like them or not, they're here to stay. And anyway, not everything that results from mass communication is bad - the kind of online community we belong to couldn't have existed a few years ago.
But I think there's a lot of nostalgia for time periods (and other, more "traditional" cultures) that are so over-idealized in our minds that they never really existed. And along with a rich ethnically-informed cultural heritage comes a lot of baggage (like FGM and dowries) that most of us are very uncomfortable with. But in this limited view that many Americans have of other cultures, there's this kind of Orientalism that Others traditional cultures even further by imposing this glossy, overly-idealized interpretation of their culture on them, which prevents us from really being able to see and understand these cultures and people. Even just viewing a culture as monolithic is othering. So I feel very cautious when I hear glowing reports about some traditional culture and how wonderful it is. It seems more likely to me that all cultures have their share of good and bad, of dissent and shared values, of fairness and deep injustices. Maybe that's just because I'm old and cynical, or because I've read too much. That's my take on it anyway. :D
I'm confused as to why Wonder Woman is less a part of culture than the mythological Goddess Athena is in Greek Culture.
Because of currency? Of how it is shared-
thru a box versus a book or a storyteller?
I ask, so what if a lot of cultural innovation and creation comes from our market system? In this time and age it's the most prevalent force in our society.
For example religion used to be the main force driving a lot of creation in Europe, i.e., causing the church to spend exorbitant sums of money paying artists, architects, etc, while the rest of the citizenry wallowed in disease and poverty.
Americans seem to have a chip on our shoulder also because a lot of our cultural innovations have non-American influences. But is there such a thing is cultural originality? Borrowing is the the spark of creativity.
In fact borrowing is a two way thing. For example, the cuisines of many cultures have also borrowed from Central and South Americans, i.e, the potato, the tomato and corn. So does that make ragu or gnoccchi or polenta any less Italian or European?
Hey, I totally agree with most of the comments here, so I have little to add.
The only comment I have is that a lot of white women here also dye their hair lighter. I'm in University, and there are endless swarms of falsely blond women. I don't understand it, myself.
My dying my hair is almost an encouragement of my heritage. I have naturally auburn hair that I dye redder. I'm about half Irish.
But at the same time, does this mean I'm denying my Italian side? I like to think my ass-kicking pasta sauce makes up for it, but you never know.
It sounds like you are either a U.S. or Canadian citizen. Th eidea that you have to go into your ancestry to find culture is a new world myth.
You have culture where you live now.
As for your mother's othering or exoticizing it's pretty typical of a North American "white" woman.
Aren't American Super Heroes, from American Comics to American culture what Mythological Heroes are to Greek Culture?
And I've always thought that athletes and military heroes do too. I started watching wrestling for a few months because I was interested in how the writers intentionally use the epic conventions to drive and frame the story lines of the various wrestlers. It's interesting that something that's thought to be a "white trash" sport/entertainment genre is so deeply Homeric. Aristotle would say that this is because the epic conventions tap into certain emotional needs and responses that are universally human...
I totally agree. JOseph Campbell would have something to say about it too...
Our Diaspora's are unique and they influence the culture.
Native American culture has influenced modern American culture.
The African American diaspora is unique here, has a unique culture within the population and influences it. As is the Italian American, Greek-American...
Greek Americans are not like Greek Greeks and Italians Americans differ from Italians, they are uniquely American diaspora.
In Brasil and Argentina the Italian diaspora is unique and also influences the rest of the population.
The level of diversity, in the U.S. is unique to our culture, although, that is slowly changing.
Our culture is as rich as any other. It's just young and it's rich in a different, albeit new, way.
True. And, oddly, the majority people in Indian films, particularly the stars, have eyes and skin like Ms. Rai.
I'm not taking anything from her. Aishwayra Rai is stunningly beautiful. However, she looks very different from the wide range of skin colors I see on my Indian friends in my everyday life. Many of them are stunningly beautiful too but would probably never get second look from a Bollywood casting agent.
I encourage you to look at www.santabanta.com, an Indian film fansite. Click on "Indian Celebs" and look at the photos and you will see the lack of diversity.