A thread to discuss My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the tie-in media.
All of the usual forum rules
apply. In addition, please remember that the thread is discussing a kids' show, and it's primarily focused on the work itself, not the fanfic — in particular, we don't want to see lewdness creeping in.
Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 26th 2024 at 10:24:26 AM
Now that... is not a very common opinion. That's neat. May I ask why?
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.Eeyup. Premiered in Germany in like 1999. They're finally bringing it to the States.
Also, updated my liveblog, but with something different - I'm reviewing Atlas Shrugged: Part I
!
Okay, so. Mom and dad will be back home this afternoon. And want me to help move all the stuff they bought. That's expected.
But mom just texted me saying she bought a piece of a bowling alley floor.
Okay. Fine, you guys were right. Fuck what I said about mom being the responsible one.
http://h0useb0und.tumblr.com/So I've been hearing this "Cultural Appropriation" term. I kinda don't get it. I looked it up and urban dictionary gave me this.
Strikes me as pretty asinine, given what I know about things like music and art history. Also, the dipshit can't capitalize.
I think the "real" issue with it is that it's taking things without considering their original context or meaning.
But then, the first post I saw on it was from an Indian girl pointing out that she didn't know what a Bindi was for either. And being offended by it all kind of runs under the assumption that the person appropriating it doesn't understand it's meaning, which they may well do... myeh.
Is today politics day or something? I just got out of a conversation with a co-worker where I had to find a way to get it through to him that just because he doesn't have a problem with the lack of women in and around video games doesn't mean that it isn't a problem. Including his belief that there's no reason for women to be intimidated about getting into the video game industry despite, you know... the way video games treat women...
Still, to his credit, he was at least willing to listen and give consideration to the importance of representation. Puts him leagues ahead of some other people I've talked to. yeah, I'm basically just venting because he started the conversation with a 4Chan(great source of political rhetoric, there) post that can basically be surmised as: "Hah hah, some other country has issues with the treatment of women in real life so complaining about good representation of women in video games is stupid". Goddamit, I wish I could make more progress about turning this kind of opinion around, but it feels like I'm theo nly one around me who cares, and it's a helluvan uphill battle here...
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.^^ I think the idea is that the white person is wearing the clothes as a sort of costume or doing the activity as a novelty, rather than adopting it as an actual part of their life, and by doing so, they're treating the culture those things come from to a novelty rather than a real culture the equal of their own.
Like, think of a music video where some wildly popular Hollywood-beautiful singer is cast as a nerdy loser getting picked on in high school. The singer is appropriating the nerd image as a costume for the video. They aren't actually a lonely nerd, they don't actually care about the lifestyle they're portraying, it's just a costume they're putting on to be cute, or fetishistic, or for some other cheap visual effect, and doing so reduces being a nerd to a cute or fetishy or novel look rather than an actual identity.
The other kind of appropriation that I don't think that definition was touch on as much is when white artists take an art form or style that grew from a specific ethnic group and take it over, stripping it of its cultural roots and turning it into part of the white artist's culture, which is especially upsetting when those cultural roots were themselves rooted in cultural oppression, such as white musicians taking over the faces of rock, jazz, and hip hop from the black artists those art forms originated from, and which often had white oppression of blacks as a major cornerstone of the movement.
And that's the other big part of it: it's pretty specifically when white people do this, because white people have a long history of conquering and exploiting other ethnicities and their cultures. It's just that now we're doing it by stealing and cheapening their cultures under the guise of appreciating them now that colonialism has gone out of style.
That is of course not to say that white people can't genuinely appreciate other cultures, or that we can't use those artforms or elements of their cultures respectfully and without cheapening them; it's just that a lot of the time, it is just being done as a costume.
While a lot of that is true, it's also a bit overreaching to say that people aren't allowed to utilize aspects of other cultures in any context outside of adapting the culture itself. I mean, I can see where some ways of doing so are blatantly offensive and inappropriate (i.e. dressing up like a stereotypical "gangsta" for halloween), but on the flipside, some people go so far as to say that, for example, a white guy shouldn't use hip hop elements in his music because he didn't actually grow up in that environment. On one hand, I can kinda see where it comes from, but on the other, I think that someone can appreciate the artistic output of a culture without being part of it.
I think the best way of doing it would be to go for a middle ground; people can borrow elements from other cultures, but in a way that respects and pays tribute to the original culture rather than simply grabbing it without bothering to understand how it developed. To do the research on the culture you're borrowing from, basically. A good example of it would be the aesthetics of Avatar The Last Airbender; it's obviously very heavily based on various types of Asian cultures, but it's clear that the writers took the time to understand what the different aspects of culture represent rather than just going "Hey, that symbol looks cool; let's throw that on there".
TL;DR Borrowing from other cultures is fine as long as you do it in a way that respects the culture you're borrowing from.
@Pannic: The part of that post I find most incongruous is that anybody would complain about Twerking being stolen. If Twerking was part of my culture I'd be begging for some other group to take it.
edited 27th Jun '14 5:13:19 PM by JapaneseTeeth
Reaction Image Repository^^ Right, which is why I said, "That is of course not to say that white people can't genuinely appreciate other cultures, or that we can't use those artforms or elements of their cultures respectfully and without cheapening them; it's just that a lot of the time, it is just being done as a costume."
:P
Also, fully agree on the twerking thing. I mean, I like big butts and I cannot lie as much as the next guy, but I just don't get the appeal of rapid-fire jiggling.
Keg: Apathy is humanity's nature when it comes to stuff that doesn't benefit #1. I wish you luck all the same, though.
FE: New Mystery Only Feet 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Umamusume Haru Arima 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshiYep. I let her use it, since I made it and such.
So, who watched Korra tonight!?
It might be a bad comparison, since, well, high school is kinda shit all around. I mean, some people get outraged by nerd appropriation(See: "Fake" nerd girls), but those people are dumb.
It's another thing entirely, I should think, when people are copying something from a culture that was actually oppressed in some way.
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.The last two hours here have been major Mood Whiplash. It's gone from "we have to go move furniture" to "holy shit we got a puppy!" To "dammit, everyone is fighting, again." Sigh.
http://h0useb0und.tumblr.com/I don't know much about guitars, but I do konw that you want a guitar that can shoot lightning or be used as an axe. Ideally both.
Wait is it starting again? I hope I get internet soon
The worst part about this crap wifi is that I can't watch videos.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Excuse me one second...
-runs into manner closet-
Ahem. Now, where were we?