Gwen Stefani defends Harajuku era: 'My God, I'm Japanese and I didn't know it'

Arguments over cultural appropriation never resonated with people. People don't give a shit if the chef who created a dish comes from that culture. Or if the author of a book is a descendant of that culture. Or if the director of a movie has a lineage from that culture or country.

Its important that people understand cultural appropriation, its just not an unforgivable sin in most cases.

Okay, so *she's* gone bonkers now. Got it.

Hm.

In her song “Rich Girl”… she sings that if she were a rich girl, she would get herself “four Harajuku girls” and would “dress them wicked” and “give them names.”

She sounds ridiculous.

^^^she is

¿Cuál es el problema?

Good for her, cultural appropriation is 100% bullshit (especially when, for example, every famous black actress relaxes her hair and Indians and Pakistanis play cricket, which originated in England).

You know you’re talking to racist idiot when some jackass thinks straightening your hair is cultural appropriation. Whose culture, R7?

You fucking racist piece of shit.

Oh please. She just dressed up like an outdated stereotype, nothing about that stage was cultured and she's uneducated as they come. She is a phony with no pride in her own culture which is Italian American. And Japanese people don't take Westerners like her seriously. She looked like another ignorant American white girl to them for them to laugh at. Japanese people have their own country and make it clear to people like Stefani to know their place there. Native Americans and African Americans don't have their own country and have to deal with white Americans copying them and still being racist. Why would people in other countries who are the majority population give a shit?

It's entirely possible to be a fan of Japanese culture without writing a song as patronising as "Harajuku Girls".

[quote] especially when, for example, every famous black actress relaxes her hair and Indians and Pakistanis play cricket, which originated in England)

How is that cultural appropriation when the ruling class is white and enforced their culture and appearance as superior and encouraged this? It's better defined as when those who hold a higher social position mimic and try to profit off a marginalized group that has little power to fight back.

[quote]cultural appropriation is 100% bullshit (especially when, for example, every famous black actress relaxes her hair and Indians and Pakistanis play cricket, which originated in England)

If we could go ONE FUCKING DAY on Datalounge without some white supremacist vomiting up "black women relax their hair!" in what they think is some kind of intelligent response to a complicated issue, that would be fan-fucking-tastic. But we can't go one fucking day without someone saying this, and my guess is we never WILL go one fucking day without this happening.

Generally speaking, Japanese people don't care about Gwen Stefani. She is a nonentity to them and they'd find her whole Harajuku phase, amusing at best. They expect foreigners to be ignorant of their culture. They have TV shows where they literally make fun of Western otakus obsessed with anime and Japanese stereotypes. They stereotype Westerners pretty harshly themselves.

There's a few live cams of Shinjuku, the Kabukicho area, and if Japanese culture as a whole makes fun of Americans who love Japanese culture, they'd better also be making fun of themselves for loving some American culture. There are scads of people wearing American style letter jackets, baseball caps with American teams on them, even a few skater boys although they're always just carrying the boards. There are some punk and hip-hop influences, and also a lot of girls who dress like anime characters, the short skirts and ponytails.

I thank Rachel Dolezal every day for bravely opening the door for me and dozens of transracial individuals. Love you Gwen!

[quote]Arguments over cultural appropriation never resonated with people.

Normally, I would say you are right, but in this instance, I remember when she had this album and this clothing line and how she had 3 or 4 women dressed up like, I'm guessing "Harajuku women" (whatever that is). They looked like lifesized Asian dolls. But it came off as pretty disgusting. It was like she was dragging human dolls around. Making them follow her. I just reminded me of a bunch of slaves following her. And doing whatever she said. The women didn't seem like they were enjoying it.

They had to follow her where ever she went, like during an interview. But she completely ignored them. And so did the interviewer. It was like they didn't exist. It was super weird, and very uncomfortable to watch.

She called the girls her "imaginary friends" too, implying they weren't real. It wasn't your normal pop star kind of behavior, it was very odd.

Gwen was getting heat back in the 2000s for her behavior. We didn't have the term "cultural appropriation" used outside of academia but there were definitely people who saw her as a racist white woman fetishizing Japanese women as props. People didn't care about her wearing bindis, geisha outfits or chola makeup because that's harmless. But rather the way she had the Harajuku girl posse follow her around and act out some Orientalist fantasy.

Gwen Stefani is ridiculous. Anyone defending her is too.

I still can't believe she married Blake Shelton and turned into...[italic]this[/italic].

[quote]Arguments over cultural appropriation never resonated with people.

Except for the people making the arguments in the first place, aka non-white people. But you don't really think of them as "people," I guess.

The problem with Gwen’s Harajuku fetish era wasn’t “cultural appropriation” per se. It’s that she looked and behaved like a total fuckwit.

Who the fuck cares. It's not like those women were kidnapped and forced into servitude. They were dancers who I imagine didn't have a problem with it as it was a job they took of their own free will.

There’s real meaningful discussion about cultural appropriation and the way it steals money and power from people of color and then there’s a dollar store Facebook-type knock off that sounds more like “keep to your own kind, stick to your own kind” repackaged racist stereotypes about what individual people are allowed to like and do.

R18 is spot on imho.

Sounds like you care, R22. Why so touchy about a celebrity being criticized?

Cultural appropriation needs to be better defined. The issue is people love using these buzzwords and defining things too liberally for faux outrage and clout. We can't have discussions if people stop trying to call everything problematic.

To me cultural appropriation represents an attitude of arrogance and entitlement. Like taking things from a marginalized group and using it as a self-promotion and getting rewarded for being "exotic." Usually these people rarely give credit or act like they improved upon something. Making rap music as a white person or wearing Asian clothing or make-up and appreciation of other cultures isn't the same thing to me because cultural exchange occurs and it's a good thing. I know many white people who love R&B, rap and jazz and are very knowledgeable about it. To me that's not exploitation because they know the roots and give credit.

But when you have people who just wear a culture for a costume just to discard it once they make their money. Then there's also taking things that are sacred and religious like Native American chief headdresses and Maori tattoos or Star of Davids and treating it like a fashion statement. Many fashion companies still have an issue with this.

Unfortunately people have exploited the term cultural appropriation for every little thing. It really needs to be used in regards to intentions. Gwen to me is a culture vulture because she's arrogant and ignorant and used all these "exotic" cultures to sell her basic ass. I'm not in the camp of cancelling her because it's not the biggest deal. But people like her just rub me the wrong way.

What she did wasn’t cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation is when something is stolen from another culture and whitewashed.

The biggest example of cultural appropriation and Gwen Stefani is when she wore bindi’s on her face and shopping malls sold “forehead jewelry”. They took something from the Indian culture, renamed it and marketed it to be whitewashed.

“Bo Derek Braids” is another example of cultural appropriation. Taking a black hairstyle and renaming it after a white woman and acting like white people invented it.

Gwen’s Harajuku thing was more like racial fetishism if we’re being technical.

[QUOTE] Good for her, cultural appropriation is 100% bullshit (especially when, for example, every famous black actress relaxes her hair

What racist bullshit.

She neglects to mention her Chola phase.

A few years ago some girl wore a Chinese Cheongsam dress to prom and got all kinds of shit on social media for wearing it, but the response from mainland Chinese people was puzzlement that anyone would get upset about it.

In Boston there was a group of Japanese Americans who has a club that spoke to various schools about their culture and traditions. One of the things they did was encourage kids to touch and try on kimonos. They worked with a museum to do an exhibit similar to this where people could learn about Japanese culture and had a set of kimonos that they could look at and try on. The exhibit was taken down after complaints of cultural appropriation despite it being put on by Japanese people and I think the chief complainers weren’t even Japanese.

R14 What's interesting is Japanese people have a stereotypical view of the West themselves. White people especially Americans can be stereotyped as loud, rude, aggressive and sexually promiscuous. Mixed Japanese people who have European ancestry are even stereotyped despite being raised in Japan. There are also subcultures that admire Victorian England, Italy, France and Germany (there's some dark Nazi fetishism in some circles). Then many street fashions like the delinquent Yankii and bosozoku look which is a tribute to Elvis and biker greaser fashion of the 1950s. There's ganguro and B Style which incorporate blackface, the latter is more explicitly Black American inspired as hip-hop and R&B are popular in Japan. Yakuza dress very similar to mafioso. But I don't think Japanese perceive this as appropriation, just open-mindedness and Japanese culture is very conformist. The people who partake in non-Japanese culture are in fact seen as rebellious and countercultural. There's a lot of controversy between Japan, China and Korea, mainly conservatives, over who copied who.

Ridiculous and exhausting.

If you were actually ask the people whose culture was supposedly "appropriated," they'd tell you they love seeing their styles and fashions adopted across the world.

Back when there was a huge controversy over the Qipao, American Chinese people were OUTRAGED while the actual Chinese people mostly favored others adopting the dress. Same for the Harajuku fashions - the people actually living in Japan and dressing in that style like when other people adopt the fashion. It's only Americanized people who get OUTRAGED and think it's "appropriation."

Idiots need to get the definition correct on what "appropriation" actually is. Jazz was apprpriated. Rock music was appropriated. Wearing clothes traditionally linked to other cultures is NOT appropriation unless you're claiming to have invented it.

People in countries where they are majority wouldn't care about what Americans do. Why would Chinese in China or Japanese in Japan care about something that doesn't affect them? White people who go to these countries, are made known they will never be accepted as part of these societies and to stay in their place as company tokens or expat teachers. When Asians see white Americans play dress up in Asian gear, they think "that's cute." Unless you speak and write in their language and study their history, they really aren't impressed.

Asian Americans are not the majority (except in Hawaii where you can see don't tolerate white people's ignorance there) and despite the fact many Asian families have been in the States for countless generations and English is the only tongue they have. They are still stereotyped and seen as perpetual foreigners. Many Japanese Americans have little ties to Japan. As many Chinese Americans have little ties to China. Yet people act shocked they can't speak any Asian language and they describe themselves from New York or California. Not from Asia. Gwen Stefani's behavior would annoy Asian Americans because it contributes to their image being seen as exotic foreigners and servile to white people.

She's about as Japanese as I am a woman?

R31 They aren't "Americanized." They are Americans yet Asian Americans are not perceived as that. I know Asian Americans with Southern and New York accents who don't know a single language besides English. But the concept of being a regular American of East Asian descent is lost on people.

How does she explain the “this shit is bananas” era?

This woman and her perpetual midlife identity crisis needs to go. She was never the talent people claimed her to be. Her mind is warped.

She now embraces the culture she was raised around. Plastic white conservative Orange County housewife

I’m black but I discovered the queer blues sub genre through a white Jewish guy on a YouTube podcast. I don’t think Gwen was being disrespectful when she did the Harajuku thing. It’s not like she was doing yellowface…

In the 2000s it did seem like East Asian culture was huge in pop culture. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Lucy Liu, anime, manga, Godzilla, video games like Final Fantasy, dubbed Japanese game shows, all those American and European cartoons done in anime style like Teen Titans, Avatar and Totally Spies and all those "Weird Japan" news specials, etc. A few Japanese bands and singers were touring like Puffy AmiYumi, Gackt and Hikaru Utada. The "East Meets West" aesthetic was popular. Gwen hopped on that movement but didn't start it.

The Kpop obsession is not the same to me. Kpop is very Americanized, sounds Western and is designed for the global market. China and Japan really don't focus on international audiences as much, that's why their media is more niche and specific to their culture.

[R39] K-Pop got its start through Japanese pop mixed with American hip hop. It developed its own sound of East Meets West around the early 00s-10s, but it's lost its luster and is just a carbon copy of Western pop/hip hop and rejected demos from western artists now.

Stefani actually makes sense. It's the the headline that is sensationalizing it.

She's just saying she's always been informed of Japanese culture because her dad traveled there for work. When she finally visited, she felt totally at home: I'm Japanese and I didn't know it.

[quote] Cultural appropriation needs to be better defined. The issue is people love using these buzzwords and defining things too liberally for faux outrage and clout.

Which is *exactly* what this interview was about, to create outrage in the people who read it, because hysterical cries of ‘cultural appropriation!’ Is very in vogue right now. It’s just an accusation that people are weaponizing and completely abusing which cancels out any sincerity in talking about the issue.

It’s not that a discussion about this obnoxious and disrespectful period of Gwen’s career isn’t worth having, but it wasn’t akin to a war crime, for God’s sake. Besides this wasn’t about having an honest discussion, this was about setting her up to show her ignorance so, as I said, the reader can get bent out of shape about it.

But on the other hand, Margaret Cho was like the only one who really spoke up about how disrespectful the Hirajuku girls trailing behind Gwen like obedient servants was. Gwen dug her heels in then so, no surprise she would now. So over 10 years later everybody gets to overreact to her stupidity. I guess she had it coming. The whole thing still gets on my nerves though.

[quote] But on the other hand, Margaret Cho was like the only one who really spoke up about how disrespectful the Harajuku girls trailing behind Gwen like obedient servants was.

This is the part that takes it over the line from "I have a deep appreciation of Japanese culture" to...whatever the fuck Gwen's interpretation and appropriation of that culture ended up being on stage/in song/in videos.

Her "appreciation" was Orientalist stereotypes. I doubt she went to a kabuki theatre, read the Tale of Genji or the works of Yukio Mishima or learned how to perform a tea ceremony. She just made a fool of herself and is too much of an airhead to see it. She and Blake are well-matched in looks and IQ level.

I think she's just dumb and uneducated honestly. No different than Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears. I don't think she's malicious but willfully ignorant and came from a conservative environment. The vapid O.C. Barbie doll is what she always was. Even her No Doubt days, her persona was created by others. She's a vessel who used other exotic cultures to be rebellious. Then settled down and became closer to her roots.

Well now she's gone for Harajuku to Kardashian.

Her plastic surgery is bad. She’s totally unrecognizable.

Can we just admit that Gwen Stefani is a deplorable?

[quote] I think she's just dumb and uneducated honestly

That’s pretty much how I see her as well. Grew up in a bubble and privileged yes, but kind of low hanging fruit too.

She should have just let this die. She was 35 years old, and there was plenty of second-hand embarrassment for her at the time.

I think she's in arrested development.

She's an artist. Cultural appropriation is what they all do

At least she didn’t adopt a blaccent or wear cornrows. Or wear a cheomsang dress and put chopsticks in her hair.

R52- Is she, though?

Christina Aguilera's blaccent is so embarrassing. I remember when Nick Carter and Justin Timberlake were doing that too. It was hilarious because of how fake it was.

Xtina when she was pretending to be from the hood.

She's such a moron.

R25, black people culturally appropriated rap from white Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady! But they made it worse by adding Ebonics to it.

The Japanese don’t care about this stuff.

It looks so ridiculous now, but young people do that. They talk in an affected style based on whatever is trendy. Back then you signaled you were cool and badass by using a faux “hood” accent.

I just think it’s interesting how every decade there is a noticeable trendy way of talking for young people. It’s not just the slang words used but I don’t know, the rhythm and tone of voice/attitude too.

Sorry that was for r55.

[quote] But on the other hand, Margaret Cho was like the only one who really spoke up about how disrespectful the Hirajuku girls trailing behind Gwen like obedient servants was.

Cho is a borderline whack job that pulled a Roseanne with her parents. She went after Ab Fab for yellow face when it didn’t exist.

R8, try to step from the Fountain of Grievance and admit that there is a thin line between "appropriation," which is people making money or collecting cachet from another culture's or society's (Try to perceive the differences there.) and copying, imitating, rethinking, using, developing or otherwise integrating it for personal use.

Of course black people "appropriate" culturally. People of no value in talent, achievement or basic good sense use the spoils of creole, complex African American cultures to make money off of the work of others. They take from everyone, just like everyone else does, and it's "appropriation" because they have the shallowest connection to the values of the cultures and use it for magpie bling, a sense of importance and a chance to avoid personal responsibility.

Back off, cunt. We're all feeding from the living and the dead, and we all are living on appropriated American Indian land.

a known dumbo, why is this news....she sux

Eh. I get what she means. If her father's job elevated Japan to some ideal during her youth? That can be powerful. She's just wording it incorrectly.

I go back and forth on cultural appropriation as a construct. Sometimes it just feels like another reason to bitch about something incredibly meaningless and trite. Other times it feels like, "yeah that sucks".

She seems like an idiot, to me. She's a Caucasian woman from Anaheim and wanted to stand out, somehow. If another person did what she did, with the bindi and the human accessories, they'd get roasted and cancelled. Somehow, she gets a pass from the press and the public, in general.

[quote] Her "appreciation" was Orientalist stereotypes.

You're undoubtely right.

My point at R43 (and overall) is that most of us Americans are as deep as a penny and there's always a frau-ish "Oh! I love this!" sort of faux identifying with other cultures. Look at all the fraus who think because they know a few words of French they're bougie queens, or have a thing for British culture.

There's a difference between thinking you identify with something on a very superficial level....as opposed to marketing it and making money from it, making a comment on the culture, and so on.

Oh my God! I'm Japanese and I didn't even know it!

Gwen is a clod.