This week, we talked about the concept of "eating the other," from an article from Bell Hooks titled "Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance." This article was talking about things like how White men like the feeling of 'crossing over' and having a 'primitive experience' with other races by having sexual intercourse with them. It was also talking about how the primitive race is more sensual/emotional, because of their historical struggles.
My question for today is what do people think about the concept of 'eating the other,' but in the context of taking things from other cultures and using it for their own. For example, we talked about in class about the US taking other foods (like sushi for example), and selling it as their own (in a way). One one hand, this is a good thing because of the mixing between cultures that we get, and how we get to experience other cultures without actually having to be 'in' that particular culture (for example, how we get to eat sushi without having to be in a asian country). On the other hand, is this making the culture where the idea came from 'less special'? Thoughts?
I think a large part of American culture has to do with incorporating many other cultures and making it into our own. This can be both good and problematic. Chicago for example has many different neighborhoods with different ethnicities; I can go to China town and have really good authentic Chinese food or Little Italy and have great pasta and interact with people of that ethnicity. I think the fact that we have the access to experience other cultures is part of what makes this country great. On the other hand, when we start taking things and making them our own and insulting the history behind it, this becomes problematic. Like we discussed in class, the Harlem shake is a prime example of this. People are doing the dance completely wrong and don't take into account any of the history behind it or where the dance originally came from. Also recently how Miley Cyrus has been "eating the other" of different cultures is problematic as well.
ReplyDeleteAh, I see where you're going with this. I completely agree with you that it becomes a issue when people are purposely demeaning the history of the culture when they are incorporating it into their own. Would you say that movies that incorporate martial arts within their movies are demeaning the culture by it? I would say that I don't think so, because most movies tha tdo incorporate it into their movie does it in a very respectful and artistic way, however, you could say that they may be turning it into something that it was never meant to be (like how Kung-Fu was a fighting style designed for defending yourself, not for fighting others, but people would not know that by how it's portrayed in movies)
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