Although there is no cut-and-dry formula for what kind of media is acceptable to reproduce and what is not, the media’s context is always essential to how that media is interpreted. With David Novak’s example of the song “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” from his article “Cosmopolitanism, Remediation, and the Ghost World of Bollywood,” the film Ghost World only takes the song out of context to an extent, wherein the original film clip can be seen within the film. The song and dance are not remade, because even though the film’s protagonist, Enid, dances along with the clip, it is the original material that is showcased. In this case, the song, while viewed out of its original context in Gumnaam (1965), is still technically in its original form. Additionally, because the song is “both a tribute to and a mockery of the early rock-and-roll styles that its mirrors” (Novak 2010:43), the video is in a sense being recontextualized into the very same environment it was inspired by.
Contrarily, the performance by Heavenly Ten Stems was interrupted by a group of protesters who rejected their appropriation of Asian popular music. The difference between this instance of remediation and the featuring of “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” in Ghost World is in that the band is a group of mostly Caucasian musicians who know little about the significance of the content they’re performing, despite their involvement with the Asian-American community in San Francisco and their defense that it was a tribute to the artists and culture, not a parody (Novak 2010:60). In one protester’s view, the various costumes donned onstage (including dress from Indian and Korean tradition) took the concept too far and claimed that the band “did not just perform foreign music, but appropriated foreign identities” (Novak 2010:61). She took issue with power differences and contradicted the band’s claim that a Chinese person performing a cover of an Elvis song is the same thing.
A prominent example of an instance wherein cultural appropriation is acceptable and even celebrated is in the works of Picasso’s “periode nègre”, the paintings that were primarily influenced by African masks, including his early Cubist Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (1907), which features figures whose faces are clearly reminiscent of the masks. In a 2006 article from The Guardian, the positive effect of Picasso’s work on contemporary African artists is discussed, one source claiming that Picasso’s works being exhibited in South Africa, alongside native art, make it so “unknown artists who made the masks and sculptures are validated” (Meldrum 2006). The exhibit’s presence allows the inspiration to come full-circle, in that the Picasso is now inspiring young African artists, just as they inspired him.
(image from http://lsnfashion.blogspot.com/2010/06/trends-per-continent-japan-harajuku.html)
Just as Picasso was inspired by traditional African art, Gwen Stefani was inspired by urban Japanese culture, which was made obvious with her solo debut, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004), and her posse of “Harajuku Girls”, four women with Japanese heritage who acted both as her backup dancers during live performances and also as her entourage. Unlike Picasso, however, several Asian-American women took issue with her disregard for Asian culture, the comedian Margaret Cho turning to her blog to comment, “I mean, racial stereotypes are really cute sometimes, and I don’t want to bum everyone out by pointing out the minstrel show. I think it is totally acceptable to enjoy the Harajuku girls, because there are not that many other Asian people out there in the media really, so we have to take whatever we can get,” (Cho 2005). In comparing Stefani’s posse to a “minstrel show”, a 19th century stage performance that would feature white actors in blackface, Cho demonstrates how the appropriation of Japanese culture in this circumstance is overtly ridiculous and offensive. Another writer spoke out against Stefani’s treatment of the women as if they were her pets: “Stefani has taken the idea of Japanese street fashion and turned these women into modern-day geisha, contractually obligated to speak only Japanese in public, even though it's rumored they're just plain old Americans and their English is just fine,” (Ahn 2005).
The difference between these two examples lies in a grey area, leaving consumers to figure out what exactly makes Picasso’s art worth celebrating and Gwen Stefani’s infusion of Japanese culture into her solo career condemnable. It begs the question, does intent matter? Clearly, Stefani intends to showcase her admiration for Japanese urban street style, but that did not make her Harajuku Girls acceptable in the eyes of Cho, Anh, and others. There is definite tension between tribute and mockery (Novak 2010:64) and it is acknowledged that recognizing oneself as an artist in the modification of or homage to a work requires the removal of the emphasis initially placed on its origin.
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