The Joys of Cultural Appropriation
Why even the phrase is moronic.
I hate the term “Cultural Appropriation” so much.
Why?
Because it’s stupid.
If you’ve not heard the term, it’s the idea that you can’t use something from someone else’s culture unless you’re of that culture. You can’t wear kimonos unless you’re Japanese, you can’t write a black character unless you’re black.
Yes, it’s stupid.
For example, when Iron Fist was in pre-production, the usual idiots complained that “why is a white dude in a martial arts role?” Because they apparently missed the point of the character, caught between two cultures.
But that’s all right, everyone discovered the real problem with Iron Fist’s casting was that he was poorly written, and the actor sucked at martial arts, especially next to Charlie Cox’s Daredevil.
And funny thing is, there are multiple cultural icons that wouldn’t exist without “cultural appropriation” as defined by these idiots today.
For instance?
Blade
As I noted on another blog, “cultural appropriation” includes comic book character Blade. To start with, Blade is “appropriating” two different cultures, with Japanese Katanas and Eastern European vampires.
Fun thing is? Blade was Created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Two white guys.
So, if we’re going to eradicate all “cultural appropriation,” Blade has to go. Sorry. I don’t make the rules.
Shaft
While everyone is familiar with the 1971 film Shaft, I’m not sure everyone is aware that there were four sequels.
… You’re not familiar with it? Suffice it to say that in the first book, Shaft was a black PI, and the film started off like a Raymond Chandler novel, and ended with The Magnificent Seven, gathering a crew to save a mobster’s daughter.
The second film turned Shaft into James Bond, giving him toys and a gun that Larry Correia would have assembled in the 1970s. Then there was Shaft in Africa, and that was a bit more forgettable.
More recent continuations included Samuel L Jackson.
Anyway, whether or not you’ve heard of it, there is a fair bit of chatter around Shaft, the cultural impact, blah blah blah. I just like the first two films as straight mysteries.
Funny thing is? This great, black cultural icon? I’m sure that no one is aware that it was based off of an original novel, written by Ernest Tidyman.
Ernest looks suspiciously not black
I guess if we’re going to eradicate all “cultural appropriation,” Shaft has to go. Pity.
Virgil Tibbs
If you do not know the film (1967), or the book In the Heat of the Night, take a break, find out where you can stream it, and add it to your watch list.
It inspired lesser sequels, and a 7-year TV show.
If you haven’t seen it (and how have you missed it?) the plot focuses on the murder of a wealthy businessman in a small Mississippi town. Within the hour, one of the uniforms finds a black man at the train station in the dead of night. After finding a large of of cash in the man’s wallet, he is arrested. At the police station, the new police Chief discovers his officer arrested a homicide detective.
And we’re off to the races.
The film stars Sydney Poitier as Detective Virgil Tibbs, and Rod Steiger as the police chief. It’s an interesting murder mystery puzzle, with some great character interactions.
The author, John Ball, wrote several Virgil Tibbs novels.
John Ball was not only guilty of the sin of being white, but he was also a former LA County Deputy.
A white cop writing about a black cop? I am certain that under the rules of cultural appropriation, Mister Tibbs has to go.
Zorro
I am going to assume that I don’t need to explain who the f*** Zorro is.
He was created by Johnston McCulley. So he’s worse than white, he’s Irish from Illinois.
Under the rules of cultural appropriation: Adios, Zorro.
The Cisco Kid.
Think of him as the Mexican Lone Ranger. Though not portrayed as such by O. Henry, the original premise has fallen by the wayside, leaving us with the “Mexican Lone Ranger” premise. He’s been a character for 100 years, the most recent film in 1994, with Jimmy Smits.
But most of Cisco’s run was written by Duncan Renaldo. A Romanian.
O. Henry and Renaldo. White dudes. Cisco gotta go.
Mister Moto
I, of course, don’t have to explain Mister Moto to anybody…
What’s that? You never heard of him? It’s only one of Peter Lorre’s longest-running roles. He was basically a Japanese James Bond, only he was painted as an Interpol cop before Interpol was a thing … also, Interpol was never this effective.
The fun thing with the Peter Lorre films was that no one knew for sure what Peter Lorre was doing. He looks like a sinister figure wandering about the plot, kills several people. I’m not sure anyone knows that Moto is the hero until fairly late in the first film.
Mister Moto was also based on a series of serialized novels in the thirties and forties. The series was killed by World War Two (The second to last was written before Pearl Harbor, and came out after). In 1957, the author brought Moto back in a Cold War setting. There were also plenty of short stories.
The author? John P Marquand.
I guess under the rules of cultural appropriation, Say Goodbye, Mister Moto.
Charlie Chan
I’m not going to pretend that you’re ignorant of Charlie Chan, the Hawaiian cop with a family the size of the Swiss Family Robinson (at least in the films).
The original author? Earl Derr Biggers. White guy from Ohio.
Tecumseh Fox
The Native American detective brought to you by the man who gave us Nero Wolf, Rex Stout. White dude.
Judge Dee
Chinese detective, mostly written by a Dutch author.
Miguel Merano
Mexican-American protagonist of Louis Lamour
Do I have to keep up this pretense? Have I made my point yet? Because there’s Chingachgook and Uncas, Nanook of the North, DC’s Victor Stone / AKA Cyborg and I’m sure I will run out of names eventually. I haven’t looked into things like Blackula or Marvel’s Deathlok, or DC’s Jon Stewart. To be blunt, I don’t freaking care.
This blog started off with my random knowledge about Zorro’s author, and it spiraled down a rabbit hole. But my point is that cultures don’t own things. If you really want to play that game, we can play it, but it’s not going to end well.
You can see why I hate the term “Cultural Appropriation” so much. Because the moment you take it seriously? We’re going to have to hit the delete key on so many facets of history and culture, we’re going to go full 1984.
Never go full 1984.
I can think of lots of famous examples. Many of the plays of Shakespeare, from MacBeth to Hamlet to Romeo & Juliet. The Last Mohican. Songs of Hiawatha.
And then there is the author whose works introduced me to Westerns, growing up in Holland. Not well known here but much more in Europe: Karl May. Yes, a German. He wrote Westerns, and stories of that pattern set in Arabia, China, Albania, Africa...
Also of course, many SF writers do this. Consider Larry Niven, appropriating the culture of the Kzinti.
If we never culturally appropriated anything, Italians wouldn't be eating tomatoes or Germans eating potatoes, both brought over from the New World by the conquistadors.