More on appropriation

brainisevolving asked in a fanmail:

your latest response post brought up a very good issue that confuses me on how to handle it properly. How does an artist use the ideas/costumes/culture of another country and be respectful while avoiding cultural appropriation? I’m thinking that it starts by the story borrowing from a specific culture stars a POC protagonist who is born and raised in that culture. Here are some examples of creative works that range on the scale of respectful to racist (Feel free to disagree)

Grim Fandango: Respectful
Avatar the Last Airbender: Respectful
Pocahontas by Disney: Good intentions but problematic
Avatar the Last Airbender movie by M. Night: Racist
AVATAR (blue people movie): Racist

What is your opinion, peacefulfellatiocracy?
Especially if one made porn whose settings and characters were based off another culture?

With permission, I’m sharing this and the response, because I feel like it is a helpful thing to discuss:

I wish I had an easy answer to questions like this, but I don’t.  I don’t think anyone does.

Everything has to be taken within context, for one thing.  Who is the artist, what’s the subject of their art, what is their relationship to that subject, is there a history of oppression and colonialism at play, what themes are being touched on.

I will say, when you’re making something pornographic, you’re treading into much more complicated and dangerous territory. If you’re representing elements from someone else’s culture, you are running the risk of sexualizing those elements and that culture, in ways that aren’t appropriate.  It’s like… like it’s OK to take sexy naked pictures of yourself and share them, but not to take sexy naked pictures of other people without their permission and share them.  Even if those people have no problem with having sexy naked pictures of themselves out there.  You gotta have a conversation with the people you’re taking naked pictures of, and they have to have equal power in determining how people see them. 

When you don’t have some kind of “conversation” with a culture you’re trying to represent, you’re just going to end up taking advantage of it.  You’re not learning or sharing.  You’re presenting your own-probably racist-view of people you don’t really understand.

So if you want to use inspiration from other cultures in your art, you need to create that “dialogue."  What that really means is learning about the culture extensively, being open to negative feedback about how you use that inspiration, having conversations with people who know better than you about that culture (preferably people living in that culture).  Without forcing yourself on people to try to get them to endorse your plundering of their culture for art ideas.

And be prepared to fuck up. Because that’s what we do. Fuck up, let people point it out to you, and then learn from it.

As for the movies you mentioned:
Grim Fandango: haven’t seen it
Avatar the last Airbender: totally agree
Pocahontas: I strongly feel this is one of the worst things ever and needs to die in a fire
Avatar TLA the movie: didn’t see it, but I know it’s racist
AVATAR: Totes racist