Twilight and Cultural Appropriation

The Twilight Saga, written by Stephanie Meyer and turned into films by Catherine Hardwicke, has unfortunately been the centre of cultural appropriation controversies, which are not without grounds. The Twilight Saga follows the fantasy romance between Bella and Edward who is a vampire; Bella’s best friend Jacob is a Native American from the Quileute tribe in the neighbouring town/reserve of La Push who happens to be a werewolf (however not in the traditional sense). The drama that unfolds over four books and soon-to be five films, involves fights between the natural enemies of vampires and werewolves over territory, and between Edward and Jacob personally, over Bella’s heart.

While the series has been praised for presenting Native Americans in a contemporary setting as opposed to the romanticised ‘mythic-past’, it still falls short in excluding present inequalities and realities (Wilson: 2010). The saga has also been criticised for once again representing Native Americans as animalistic (Wilson: 2010). Wilson has also noted that the narrative can be read as a racial allegory: white, working class woman (Bella) must choose between a white, wealthy man/vampire (Edward) and a far less privileged Native American man/werewolf (Jacob). Meyer’s text continues the literary tradition of framing Native Americans as uncivilised and savage while misrepresenting Native culture and legends (Wilson: 2010).

Meyer uses literary liberty in her explanation of the creation of the werewolves (Wilson: 2010); she morphed the Quileute’s creation story of tribal members transformed from wolves into humans into quasi-shape shifters who are able to change from human to wolf and back at their disposal (Riley: 2010). Some argue that this stereotypical representation of the noble savage with a new twist of literally becoming animals can be ignored under the guise of the fantasy genre that the saga was created under (Wilson: 2010). However you cannot ignore the fact that such depictions contribute to the dominant discourses surrounding Native American culture (Wilson: 2010).

Shanley likens cultural appropriation with theft of cultural property (Shanley: 1997, 676). This certainly applies to the Quileute situation; the revenue generated by the Twilight saga through books, films, and merchandise, has been conservatively estimated in the billion-dollar range, while the tribe has received no compensation or payment for this use of their cultural property, half of the tribe still lives in poverty (Riley: 2010). Unfortunately this misappropriation is most likely legal, American intellectual property laws do not protect collective indigenous cultural property and a good number of corporations have used tribal names in the past, for example, Jeep Cherokee SUVs (Riley: 2010). Riley and Keene have both found that the Quileute’s are eager to share their tribal culture, however they want to exercise their right to be participants in how their cultural property is treated and represented rather than have outside forces come in and pick and choose what they want (Riley: 2010, Keene: 2011).

Riley concludes that the choice for all indigenous peoples is not only whether others are allowed to appropriate tribal cultural property but their own role in decisions regarding representations of themselves and their culture (2010).

Sources:

Keene, Adrian. ‘Don’t Trend on My Culture’, in The Stream. 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPyPLmmtcig. Accessed 26.10.11

Riley, Angela R. ‘Sucking the Quileute Dry’. New York Times. February 7 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opinion/08riley.html. Accessed 26.10.11

Shanley, Kathryn W. ‘The Indians America Loves to Love and Read: American Indian Identity and Cultural Appropriation’. American Indian Quarterly. Vol. 21, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997). University of Nebraska Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1185719. Accessed 26.10.11

Wilson, Natalie. ‘Twilight Profits and the Quileute People’. Seduced by Twilight. February 11 2010. http://seducedbytwilight.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/twilight-profits-and-the-quileute-people/. Accessed 26.10.11

Wilson, Natalie. ‘Difficult Dialogues at the NWSA: The Colonial Gaze of Stephanie Meyer and the Resulting Representation of Indigenous Peoples as Monstrous’. Seduced by Twilight. http://seducedbytwilight.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/difficult-dialogues-at-the-nwsa-the-colonial-gaze-of-stephanie-meyer-and-the-resulting-representation-of-indigenous-peoples-as-monstrous/, Accessed 26.10.11

King Kong. A representation of Black male

Flash back to stage one film studies, when we looked at the film of King Kong 1933.

I remembered I did an essay on analysing this film and one of the aspect that I have mentioned was the aspect of sexuality, and how King Kong has been associated as an Black male.

The notion of “beauty and the beast” portrayed an idea of how the beauty has been attracted by animals. Often the “beauty” has represented by white or European females.  By having a white female it creates a sense of purity and weakness. It made all the rest (males) willing to protect her. In another way, we could interpret this, as white female are attractive and could be seen as a sexual object. This has reinforced us to the notion of been “exotic”. For something to be exotic it has to be strange, foreign and exiting. To anyone born in a so-called exotic culture everything will seem quite normal, far from exotic. Things only seem exotic to the foreign eye.

Been “exotic” has always been associated with the groups, that are majority non-white or non-European. However, in this case the interpretation of “exotic” is quite different. 

To elaborate on this, we need to firstly look at to whom we could argue the white beauty can be seen as “exotic”. In the beginning of the film, apart from the white male (which they are the dominate actors of the film), there was a group of sailors, which they are in a lower class social status comparing the rest. Or, they are the less important group. There was one Chinese sailor who also fascinates about Ann Darrow and wish she could be his. Also, with later on within the film, how King Kong have felt in love with the white beauty because Kong sees Ann Darrow as the exotic object.  

According to Rosen, he descried, “Aside from the sexual aspect implicit in the question of race, there is the more direct and somewhat delirious, sexual imagery in the film. Kong often functions as a most appropriate symbol of “lower,” “animal” instincts. In this case we have a giant ape and his unrestrained, headlong pursuit of a “blond,” that archetypical Hollywood sex-object…” and “ the sexual theme touches potency, and the complementary notion of his insatiable desire for white women”. (Rosen 7)

Therefore, been “exotic” can be interpreted in different contexts. To those who are non-European or non-Westerner, a white beauty can also be seen as an exotic object.

The representation of King Kong has been illustrated as a black male. In the film, Kong’s characteristics are violent, rebellion and aggressive.  According to Rosen again, he argued that, “It doesn’t require too great an exercise of the imagination to perceive the element of race in King Kong. Racist conceptions of blacks often depict them as subhuman, ape or monkey-like. And consider the plot of the film: Kong is forcibly take from his jungle home, brought in chains to the United States, where he is put on stage as a freak entertainment attraction”. (Rosen 8) This, which emphasised the idea of how black people, has also been seen as uncivilised and only the whites could put them under the control. 

We could argue that this has been seen as a stereotype for the Black’s representation. Through the history of the black civil war, black people often been labeled as the lower social class and been part of the slavery revolution for many years. According to Hooks, she argued that, “ They do not know this thing we call “difference.” System of domination, imperialism, colonialism, and racism actively coerce black folks to internalize negative perceptions of blackness, to self-hating…” (Hooks 166)  

In Hollywood’s film, a Black character has often been portrayed in a negative way. Such as been violent, danger, or the one who is always causing troubles. Whereas on the opposite side, the white character are been often portrayed in a positive way. Such as the white savior, the good guy or the heroes.

Therefore, it should be understood that an historical appreciation of the problem of symbolism and meanings could cause an effect upon on how different race group is been perceived. Race are socially constructed, in King Kong, the film has portrayed Kong as the black rebellion male which reinforced the audiences of how Black people, especially black males has been represented at that time.  Also been all race can be represented as exoticised object based on what contexts you are in.

Rosen, N David. (2004) “King Kong Race, sex, and rebellion”. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, no. 6, pp, 7-10.

Hooks, Bell (1992.) Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination.  Black looks: race and representation. pp, 165-178. Boston, MA: South End Press.

White privilege. What about Asian privilege?

During one of the tutorial discussion, there was a student who raised a question of “ can you think of any privilege that you have in your race?” This has got me thinking.

As in the reading of Peggy McIntosh’s article of “White privilege”, whereas she has listed 26 things which she thinks of the some daily effects of white privilege in her life. I cannot make a judgment based on agree or disagree with the things that Peggy has listed out, because I guess you will need to be a white person to be able to make that judgment.

However, for me been a Chinese, the only privilege that I could think of is that as an Asian, we might be more smarter? In saying of been smarter, I specifically referrer it to school subjects such as mathematics or sciences. As I remember, when I first came to New Zealand 9 years ago. During my first math class at intermediate school, everyone had a calculator on their desk. I was also surprised that not only you can use calculators during class, but also you allowed using calculators during tests and examinations!

I remember one of my classmate asked me, why I am not using the calculator to do the questions. I told him that because in China we are not allowed using calculators and instead, we were all been taught to calculating through our head. He was surprised and amazed how you can calculate a math question without using a calculator.  This was 9 years ago, but recently, one day during my work, my manager asked me a simple math question of something like 16 plus 8 equals what. After I told him the answer. He immediately reacted with “Thanks, ah that’s right.  All you Asians are good at math!”   It is interesting how when people referred you to something, they all seem like to use the word “all”. It gives you a sense of each individual are been included within the norms of “Asian are smart” no matter which part of the Asia you are coming from.

Now, through these two examples that I had experienced before, we could argue that all race has been privileged in different ways. According to McIntosh, she described that:” Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realised that since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege”. In this case, we could argue that people can be privileged not only by which race group they belong to, but also by gender. 

McIntosh, Peggy (1988). White Privileged: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

"White people problems"

As I was browsing through Facebook when I suppose to study. Fail. This image, or more like the texts on the image has caught my attention. 

“Laying in bed texting. Drop phone on your face”. Soon after finished reading the texts, I immediately reacted with “Oh my god, this is so true!” Soon after that, I saw the link at the bottom; the image was retrieved from “whitepeopleproblems.com”.

Out of curiosity, I went into this website and realised there was a large amount of images which have similar texts written on them. Interesting enough, each of the texts is illustrating a common problem that the majority of people have.

What it interests me was the title of this website was called the “white people problems”. It firstly brought to me the idea which was opposite to Peggy McIntosh’s article of “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. Because “white people” has been “privileged” in so many ways, maybe they shouldn’t be having any problems? But as I read it flipping through more of the images, I realised rather than it is a “white people’s” problem, it was more towards an “everyone’s” problem.  Which this has brought us into an idea of “white” been the dominate of the society.

Begin with the idea of “Eurocentrism”.  According to Robert, he argued. Eurocentrism is an approach that takes European values, judgments, beliefs and cultures as normal, natural and ideal. In other words, it makes European values central, and dismisses others to the periphery. Therefore, eurocentrism could be seen as the dominant perspective in the Western society. Or maybe even border.

In this case, we could relate this “the white people’s” problem with eurocentrism. Eurocentrism can be seen as a very powerful approach in terms of setting the dominant norm to the society. The “problems” which has portrayed in these images were some of the common ordinary problems or mistake that people make. Not only necessary targeted to the white people.

For me, not been a white person. I find that I have associations with these “problems” in each image. And I think it is true because I have been personally experienced them before. I have also showed this to my other non-white friends, they have all agreed with the “problems” on each image. Therefore, rather than seen these common mistakes as been a “white” people’s problem, it also relating to many other race.

The point that I wanted to make was that, the idea of eurocentrism has the power of manipulating people’s idea into a more Eurocentric way, whereas in this case, the “problems” has been illustrated through each of these images, are rather only “white” people’s problem. But it also represents a wider group. Therefore, by using the title of “white people problem”, it has illustrated those common problems through the lens of “white” society.  But it also sets a norms for the public that these problems are also targeted to other different race group.

Ferguson, Robert (1998). Otherness, Eurocentrism and the representation of ‘race’. In Representing ‘Race’: Ideology Identity and the Media. (pp, 65-82). London: BFI.