Topic 3, Cultural Appropriation in Music.

After writing about Cultural Appropriation in Beauty and Fashion, now finally comes to Cultural Appropriation in Music. Cultural Appropriation often happened in the Music industry and there is a lot of examples in modern pop culture. 

One of the very obvious example is Selena Gomez's "Come and Get It". In the music video, Selena Gomez hyper-sexualized the traditional dance of Indian and wearing Indian clothing with bindi. Also most importantly, she uses Indian traditional music as her background music. During interview, she called the music video "tribal". When the music video release, it shocked the South Asian Culture.

On the MTV Music Awards 2013, Selena Gomez wears bindi on her forehead and do Bollywood-style choreography during her performance. The president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, Rajan Zed comment:  

“The bindi on the forehead is an ancient tradition in Hinduism and has religious significance…[it] was not meant to be thrown around loosely for seductive effects as a fashion accessory aiming at mercantile greed.” 

Except for Selena Gomez, another pop singer, Lady Gaga's "Burqa" is also appropriating Muslim religious culture without understanding the history. In the Music Video, Gaga wearing Muslim clothing as a Fashion statement and using Arabic words in the beginning of the music video. 

With the song, alongside her recent acts that wants to start a trend she called 'burqa swag' of wearing non-traditional type of the traditionally Muslim piece of clothing everywhere, this proved that her general misconception of practice as a whole. Due to the lack of research and understanding, Gaga also hyper-sexualized the burqa with her lyrics like "Do you wanna see me naked, lover? Do you wanna peak underneath the cover?" As a pop singer who can influences almost the whole world, sending the wrong message to her audience will cause a lot of misunderstood to other people.

Reference:

Caffrey, S. (2014) CULTURE, SOCIETY AND POPULAR MUSIC; CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IN MUSIC.
 [online] Available on: https://stephaniecaffrey.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/culture-society-and-popular-music-cultural-appropriation-in-music/ (Accessed on 24th June 2017)

Sanchez, E. (2013) Top 10 Instances of Open and Unapologetic Celebrity Cultural Appropriation in 2013!
 [online] Available on: https://www.autostraddle.com/top-ten-instances-of-open-and-unapologetic-celebrity-cultural-appropriation-in-2013-210371/ (Accessed on 25th June 2017)