Cho’s minstrel analogy is spot on. And right, barely anyone blinked an eye at the time. Question: Is Gwen the first commercial K-Pop girl group manager/A&R rep? Record labels sure take advantage of assembling a group of young, beautiful, Asian clickbait singers, dress them up, and sell them and their culture to the masses. Or am I reading a politically-correct business model wrong b/c it’s okay for men at the labels to assemble the same minstrel show with K-Pop as long as they don’t place an American woman on stage as a visual “appropriation” reminder? Pondering this and more.
hmm well firstly i can't say why Korean pop broke through when J-Pop didn't (the Harajuku girls represent Japanese culture) but i'm well aware of how manufactured that industry is... and, a lot of K-pop was initially modelled after American music industry (SM Entertainment, one of K-pop's biggest record labels and talent development companies, was created after musician Lee Soo-man spent time in America and saw how MTV had impacted the music), so that is more of a back-and-forth, with the influence of K-Pop now on western music. examples in Western music include bands like Katseye (which is heavily modelled off of korean girl groups) and PRETTYMUCH (a band only i seem to remember or care about lmao) but i'd say, with my white girl opinion, that the 'minstrel' show requires more of a performance of race, which these bands don't have. it's like K-pop took the western approach to music, finessed it (for better or worse in some areas), and Western music has now taken inspiration from this new version of manufactured pop. this is a bit of a rambling and messy answer to your comment but i hope it gives some food for thought!
That's a good summary and one other thing with adding is that, obviously there are all sorts of music business managers / promoters who are sketchy in ways other than cultural appropriation (thinking of Malcom McLaren, for example)
One of the better (but not perfect) definitions that I've seen of cultural appropriation is that it occurs when someone takes elements of a culture that is not their own and tries to sell them outside of that culture. So, by that standard, a Western manager putting together a group of Korean women and trying to sell their pop music in Korea isn't cultural appropriation, because the audience presumably can tell what is or isn't kitchen, but selling that group to a US / British audience is likely cultural appropriation.
That makes sense! The question then comes to mind: is everything at some point appropriation? Artists are inspired by something that already exists in their own culture or another. Where do we draw the line between resulting work being a negative “stolen form” or a positive, acceptable influence? In our current small world with extremely effective culture-sharing channels, our cultural influences and languages are now so intertwined.
Yes, I think some cases are clear-cut and there are far more that are ambiguous.
For what it's worth, the example that I was drawing upon for that definition was this video by Todd In The Shadows talking about "Seven Rings" by Ariana Grande. He says https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os8RpkipUz0
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Let's say you're part of your own culture. Nothing wrong with that, it's perfectly fine. Then one day you find a second culture and you decide it's great and love it. Also not a problem, no reason you shouldn't be able to appreciate it. The problem comes when you start repackaging it for your own culture. Why? Because if you're stronger and more dominant than the culture you're borrowing from you might end up disempowering the people who rightly deserve the credit and stealing all the benefits for yourself. Plus if you're not respectful enough or just smart enough to understand the culture you're using without realizing you might have turned it into an insulting parody of itself and ruined everything that made it good.
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From that description you can see where power dynamic make a difference because they affect the amount of accountability that someone has -- essentially how robust is the channel for feedback from people who are familiar with the culture to let someone know that they've messed up.
They're really going to be wondering why this album suddenly is upticking in listeners🤭
hahah I’m gathering everyone together for a nostalgia-fest
The whole piece was a good read but I am particularly happy to be introduced to that Marina cover. Thank you.
Yes! When I listened to the song I just knew it would suit her so much— didn’t realise she’d already covered it!
Haha, this is bananers!
B-A-N-A-N-E-R-S!
omg love this sooo much- haven't listened to this album in so long, but off to do that right now!!
Yes!! When I saw it on the shelf it unlocked something in my brain
Cho’s minstrel analogy is spot on. And right, barely anyone blinked an eye at the time. Question: Is Gwen the first commercial K-Pop girl group manager/A&R rep? Record labels sure take advantage of assembling a group of young, beautiful, Asian clickbait singers, dress them up, and sell them and their culture to the masses. Or am I reading a politically-correct business model wrong b/c it’s okay for men at the labels to assemble the same minstrel show with K-Pop as long as they don’t place an American woman on stage as a visual “appropriation” reminder? Pondering this and more.
I loved this album. Still do.
hmm well firstly i can't say why Korean pop broke through when J-Pop didn't (the Harajuku girls represent Japanese culture) but i'm well aware of how manufactured that industry is... and, a lot of K-pop was initially modelled after American music industry (SM Entertainment, one of K-pop's biggest record labels and talent development companies, was created after musician Lee Soo-man spent time in America and saw how MTV had impacted the music), so that is more of a back-and-forth, with the influence of K-Pop now on western music. examples in Western music include bands like Katseye (which is heavily modelled off of korean girl groups) and PRETTYMUCH (a band only i seem to remember or care about lmao) but i'd say, with my white girl opinion, that the 'minstrel' show requires more of a performance of race, which these bands don't have. it's like K-pop took the western approach to music, finessed it (for better or worse in some areas), and Western music has now taken inspiration from this new version of manufactured pop. this is a bit of a rambling and messy answer to your comment but i hope it gives some food for thought!
That's a good summary and one other thing with adding is that, obviously there are all sorts of music business managers / promoters who are sketchy in ways other than cultural appropriation (thinking of Malcom McLaren, for example)
I totally get your answer and think that story/analysis of k-pop and j-pop history alone would be a great article topic!
One of the better (but not perfect) definitions that I've seen of cultural appropriation is that it occurs when someone takes elements of a culture that is not their own and tries to sell them outside of that culture. So, by that standard, a Western manager putting together a group of Korean women and trying to sell their pop music in Korea isn't cultural appropriation, because the audience presumably can tell what is or isn't kitchen, but selling that group to a US / British audience is likely cultural appropriation.
That makes sense! The question then comes to mind: is everything at some point appropriation? Artists are inspired by something that already exists in their own culture or another. Where do we draw the line between resulting work being a negative “stolen form” or a positive, acceptable influence? In our current small world with extremely effective culture-sharing channels, our cultural influences and languages are now so intertwined.
Yes, I think some cases are clear-cut and there are far more that are ambiguous.
For what it's worth, the example that I was drawing upon for that definition was this video by Todd In The Shadows talking about "Seven Rings" by Ariana Grande. He says https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os8RpkipUz0
----
Let's say you're part of your own culture. Nothing wrong with that, it's perfectly fine. Then one day you find a second culture and you decide it's great and love it. Also not a problem, no reason you shouldn't be able to appreciate it. The problem comes when you start repackaging it for your own culture. Why? Because if you're stronger and more dominant than the culture you're borrowing from you might end up disempowering the people who rightly deserve the credit and stealing all the benefits for yourself. Plus if you're not respectful enough or just smart enough to understand the culture you're using without realizing you might have turned it into an insulting parody of itself and ruined everything that made it good.
----
From that description you can see where power dynamic make a difference because they affect the amount of accountability that someone has -- essentially how robust is the channel for feedback from people who are familiar with the culture to let someone know that they've messed up.