Reading through this thread made me wonder even more in what exact context does cultural appropriation actually happens. Is this term just used too loosely nowadays or what I see as normal might not in actually be in other cultures? Not so much related to the case in question (which by the way I find that it could be much better executed, giving less room for criticism, although I can understand the story behind it), but for example, here there's a National Indigneous Day, it isn't that much celebrated and as far I know it isn't a holiday, but children usually
dress as this at school, making
their own headress and so on while receiving lectures about indigneous culture and its contribution to the country. I probably also did but I can't recall. It's a celebratory day,
it has no derogratory connotation. Remembering that the indigenous population here actually responds for less that 1 million; while the country has 200 million people (!) Although, a lot might have some far genetic relation to it due to miscegenation. Even so the huge majority doesn't identify with the specific cultures in the indigenous communities. What I find interesting is that here there's also a
"Black Awareness Day" that is a holiday in 5 states including mine, although people don't dress as such, which ironically would be considered very offensive here I think (except the hair because people don't care much for it. If you have an african related hairstyle and is white for example people just assume you just really like african culture and the end). People at this day usually do events to raise awareness on the topic and etc; it's more political, or basically just treat it as any other holiday. There are also others such as the
"Mixed Race Day" that is a holiday in 3 states.
which i just learned about in wikipedia lmao, there's just too much "day of something" here to keep track
Hence why I was throughly confused by people calling the use of native headresses as cultural appropriation at the internet, especially in countries like the US that actually have a history background with it just like mine, incuding the decimation of several indigneous communities through the years.
So one might think that the problem might be the actual commercialization of it. Well,
Carnival isn't a model for anything, but here it's also common sometimes
for adults to wear indigenous costumes for no particular reason other than to celebrate carnival, which
shock is actually in its origins a Christian holiday period. It's such a standard carnival costume that I think people are just bored with it and don't even use much anymore, however you can see a
ton of children in all races with it again.
So what is it that makes something like this completely normal and acceptable in some cultures and completely outrageous in others? Is this just normal and expected or actually an issue?
And returning to the program in question, in what extent can a program like this be considered cultural apropriation? In my opinion I can understand how some might find it uncomfortable when they don't know the backstory, most people while jumping at it by parachute would get the wrong idea, hence why I find it could be made in a better way. Is it really necessary to consider the likehood or something like this criticism hapenning when choreographing history related programs because figure skating is, after all, an international sport? Even if the creator himself is Jew?
In conclusion, the claim of "Cultural appropriation", still leaves a huge question mark in my mind.
Can anyone confirm or deny? I came across some comment about it somewhere else.
