Who Owns Cultures?

 

 

 

This is a Chinese propaganda poster during the Korean war of 1951. It depicts the Chinese soldier and the North Korean soldier as righteous and powerful; however, it represents the US soldier as greedy, evil and almost goblin-like. The representation of the US soldier is very stereotypical as he has a big nose and brown hair while wearing an American flag badge on his left arm.  These physical features reflect the stereotypes the Chinese have of Americans and is a form of cultural misrepresentation as they reduce all Americans to look like evil goblin-like creatures with green skin, which is highly unnatural. Within the poster, the Chinese and Koreans are deliberately drawn to be physically larger and stronger, while the American soldier looks malnourished, which is definitely a misrepresentation as the truth is inversed. This creates the erroneous impression that Americans and their culture are inferior and weaker as compared to the Chinese.

In this screengrab taken from Jackie Chan’s movie Kungfu Yoga, we can see how Chan is dressed up in the Indian national dress and seems to be in the middle of an Indian dance with many other Indian dancers. On the surface, it seems like Chan is showing cultural appropriation by dancing Bollywood dances, which is a common feature in Bollywood movies. However, upon closer inspection, we realise that he is actually guilty of cultural misappropriation as he is misrepresenting Indian culture. As we can see from the screengrab, the female dancers are very fair-skinned and most seem to be northern Indian and even Caucasian women. This misrepresents India as it suggests that women there are all fair-skinned when there is actually a great diversity of skin tones in different regions. The choice of casting fair-skinned women reveals the stereotype that fair-skinned actors/actresses are more favoured in Indian media. Furthermore, Chan is wearing a traditional Indian costume comprising an Achkan jacket and Churidar trousers while dancing. This outfit is traditionally worn by an Indian groom on his wedding day, and there is no wedding in the movie scene, hence it’s a form of cultural misappropriation.

So who owns culture? I would say it ultimately falls into the hands of people who have the power to present it and in this case, it is the Chinese government and Jackie Chan. Media and state propaganda systems often have so much influence and control over a culture that some times even when their presentation is wrong or inappropriate, they are not judged and can be accepted by the majority of the population. Having the power to own culture, come with great responsibility too. I hope, in the future, mass media and state propaganda systems are able to present cultures accurately as to how it is and to show the people the unbiased part of culture.

 

 

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