Theatre Development Fund – TDF: Last summer I was at a dinner party recounting one of my tried-and-true tales. It's about a home movie I made at age 11 in which I portrayed Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. The story isn't so much about the film but how, as a teen, I sent it to PBS when I heard the channel was airing a documentary about Liliuokalani. Spoiler alert: PBS didn't use my submission. But as I watched that program, I realized that I hadn't quite grasped the nuances around the history of the Queen. In fact, I'd gotten some parts of her story pretty wrong -- hilariously and heartbreakingly so.
6 comments:
I found this author’s brief story very interesting. I would really love to read this play. I think a conversation, difficult to discuss like many others, about cultural appropriation and the tie to white privilege is very important to be had. White people need to understand like Eliza Bent realized that in their every day life they have probably, without realizing or maybe knowing, have taken the identity of another race and claimed it as their own for a brief moment. This needs to stop. We all need to be socially aware and respectful to all kinds of people and I think that one of the best ways to communicate this kind of message is what Eliza Bent is doing, through theater and written story. Putting this kind of thing in people’s faces so upfront, can make people think back on their own experiences and reactions. It is important to have a conversation about cultural appropriation and white privilege.
As evidenced by the anecdote in this article, I think often times when cultural appropriation is committed the perpetrators are so blind to other cultures and the implications of their privilege that they don’t even realize they are doing so. I can think of times when I was a kid, playing dress-up or putting on halloween costumes of other cultures that would make me cringe now and want to erase that era of my life. But it’s critically important not to shy away from the discomfort in making mistakes about cultural appropriation and instead look them in the face and learn from them, and as Eliza Bent did open up a discussion with others about it. I like the fact that she mentioned not wanting her plays to be tied in a perfect little bow and presented to her audience-- that real life is messy, and worth discussing the mistakes as much as celebrating the successes.
This article shines a light on the more subtle, covert instances of racism in everyday life, from the perspective of a privileged person. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I had a moment similar to her Queen Liliuokalani moment when I was a kid, too. I had chosen to be Coretta Scott King for my class’s Biography Night, where each child was to choose a historical figure to portray. When me and my mom were putting my costume together, I asked about darker makeup for my face. She told me no, and that doing makeup like that would be offensive, but I did not understand why. Obviously, I did not end up in blackface in front of an audience as Coretta Scott King, and obviously now I understand why that would have been a horrific happening, but children do not understand the complexities of race. In my young mind, I was dressing up to look like her, and dark skin was part of how she looked. I do not blame myself for thinking this way, I was probably in first grade, but maybe there is a way to clue children in to the fact that race is extremely complicated and its issues expand beyond what kids learn about the Civil Rights Movement.
This article is very interesting because it talks about personal experiences with cultural appropriation. Generally as a rule people don’t talk about times that they were racist, or sexist, or heteronormative, but it is something that happens at least once in everyone’s life whether they intend it or not. In this scenario it is clear that the cultural appropriation wasn’t intentionally done as that. However it still happened and it should be acknowledged as such. There are absolutely times when I have done, said, or dressed up as something that I shouldn’t have. However, I do my best to acknowledge those things for what they were and learn not to do things like that again. One thing that I think we can all learn from these experiences is how to children race is not something that comes to mind. To a child playing dress up, a person is just a person, and there is no border on what they believe they can dress up as.
This was an interesting article to read because of the different perspective that it gives to cultural appropriation. I think that when I have had conversations about cultural appropriations with friends and family, I come from a place of of course cultural appropriation is bad, and then the discussion often does not go further. While this is not a wrong opinion to have, I think that talking about our personal experiences with cultural appropriation enables the conversation about racism and micro aggressions in particular to go a little deeper. Looking back at my own childhood, I am sure that I dressed up in costumes playing pretend in costumes that I would not tell a kid was okay today. Even in elementary school, having lessons taught about Thanksgiving in which stereotypical Native American headdresses always were used are hopefully being moved away from in elementary schools today. I hope that white people in particular are able to read this article and use it as a thinking piece about the way they act in their everyday lives.
This article was really interesting. As the comment above said, often cultural appropriation doesn't come from malice, but simply from a lack of education and knowledge. I'm glad the author was able to recognize what she did was problematic, and is using it to spread awareness. Seeing cultural appropriation makes me really sad and gives me a icky feeling inside. Lots of people make jokes that “culture is not a costume”, but it really isn't. When someone can put on your race and culture and take it off whenever they want, but you have to wear it all the time and you can't take it off. That is the core issue I believe, in cultural appropriation some people do not understand. POC can’t take off thier history and their skin color, and have to deal with all the potential racism connected to that, and the history of discrimination, but a white girl can put on a Pocahontas costume and flaunt it as a Halloween costume. I hope others will be able to acknowledge problematic actions in the past and learn from it, such as this author.
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