Fetishizing of Ethnic Cultures for a Western Audience

[gius]

i am an Anthropology student and strong advocate of transnationalism!
"fetishization" is definetely the wrong word...

mm what would be a better word..

i think fetish is about a belief on a mystical power surrounding a particular object...
am inclining to spark fascination ..could be that power

^kudos fontenr~* post edited.

 

[John_M.]

I agree (Post #59). It's one of those words used in pop-culture whereas a foul word or something suggesting something bad is used. It's like when putting someone in your Favorite friends on Myspace and constantly visiting their profile is called "stalking." Replacing "cute" with "sexy." Or like saying that being in love with something makes you a... (begins with "W," rhymes with "chore"). Just a lot of pop-culture terms I dislike hearing, let alone use. Fetish suggests some sexual fantasy, NOT a deep love of or regurgitation of a certain style. Maybe "inspiration," "derivation," or something like that in the general context of what's being discussed. I don't know what word I'd use besides fetish, but perhaps transnationalism (albeit long) is better to use here.

My two cents. Thank you, drive through.

 

[Fontenrose]

Fetishism is not necessarily sexual. Some clothing/jewelry/motifs have a huge burden of cultural meaning. When a fashion designer pulls out some piece from another culture for his own purposes, sometimes the original significance is respected, sometimes it is trivialized, sometimes totally transformed.

 

[dizzytacks]

well fetish is described as
1 a: an object (as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical power to protect or aid its owner; broadly : a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence b: an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion : prepossession c: an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression
on merriam webster

i just find that this discussion is so archaic, almost as if the the people arguing this point that cultural imagery and symbols are sanctified still believe that the world is still flat.
"reappropriation of cultural symbols/imagery for fashion"
that could potentially be a new title for this thread imo...


transnationalism! Any argument i make comes back to that...

 

[dizzytacks]

the idea of "ethnic(ity)" is so dated

 

[softgrey]

I agree (Post #59). It's one of those words used in pop-culture whereas a foul word or something suggesting something bad is used. It's like when putting someone in your Favorite friends on Myspace and constantly visiting their profile is called "stalking." Replacing "cute" with "sexy." Or like saying that being in love with something makes you a... (begins with "W," rhymes with "chore"). Just a lot of pop-culture terms I dislike hearing, let alone use. Fetish suggests some sexual fantasy, NOT a deep love of or regurgitation of a certain style. Maybe "inspiration," "derivation," or something like that in the general context of what's being discussed. I don't know what word I'd use besides fetish, but perhaps transnationalism (albeit long) is better to use here.

My two cents. Thank you, drive through.

i think that your post suggests your lack of understanding of what the word fetish means...

clearly a number of people do not understand the meaning so i am glad it has been clarified...

but generally speaking...

it's too bad when some people are not educated enough to understand the meaning of the word fetish in any other context other than a sexual one...
gives you a clue as to what their reading material must be......


...

 

[softgrey]

this is another definition which correlates more directly to how it is used here...

fetish2 [ˈfetiʃ] noun
something which is regarded with too much reverence or given too much attention
Example: It is good to dress well, but there is no need to make a fetish of it.

and i do believe it is used appropriately in terms of the original premise that the person who started the thread was going for...

of course one could argue that western cultures do NOT fetishize ethnic garb...
but it still does not make the original statement inherently wrong in terms of phrasing or use of language if that is the argument that the person is trying to make...

 

[dizzytacks]

well the person that created this thread was arguing that when designers use certain cultural motifs/ ideas/ themes, they do it without respect to the history or without context to the original idea.

i don't see how this constitutes fetishization...

it seems there is no room for function in fashion apparently

this whole argument is actually funny to me.

 

[softgrey]

dear dizzy...
it's the disagreement that keeps it all interesting...
if everyone agreed on everything there wouldn't be anything to discuss now would there...?

 

[Spike413]

To elaborate further on the definition that softgrey provided, and to kind of go back to the sexual definition of fetish, a fetish is a sexual fascination or attraction to an inanimate object. To fetishize a person or culture implies that you're viewing them as an object, which would be extremely offensive.

For me, these strange and, for lack of a better word, exotic cultures are a source of beauty; the people, the traditions, the clothes they wear, those things are all interesting to me as an outsider. I don't think I'd be all that offended if someone found something inherently American to be beautiful. I'm having a hard time thinking of something tbh because most "American" things are cliches rather than traditions and would, imo anyway, fall into the kitsch or parody category (cowboys come to mind).

Whether or not it's wrong I can't really say. It's made especially hard by the fact that "America" doesn't have that deeply ingrained shared culture like, say Buddhists or Maori tribespeople, so I really can't know what it would feel like to have a part of my culture that's sacred or respected become something fashionable.

 

[Fontenrose]

A fetish is not necessarily sexual.

Americans have a fetish for slapping the stars and stripes on everything. It appears to have great tribal significance. I choked on my rice crispies when a runway show had models with an ankle purse for an electronic monitor -- that has great cultural significance for Americans. The gangsta rap is also full of American fetishes. Really there is tons of stuff without going into the past.

 

[Spike413]

Even though I'm not sure whether you're being facetious or completely serious in your second two references, the stars and stripes thing is actually a brilliant example of something that other cultures use as an aesthetic device and that fashion designers both American and Non-American have used as a design element many, many times. So like I said before, it's not just Western societies that appropriate things that are significant to a culture for the sake of aesthetics.

 

[Fontenrose]

How to amuse your chinese-speaking friends

Even though I'm not sure whether you're being facetious

facetious 80% about the ankle purse; Americans have tons of shared culture. It is a bit more apparent from the outside.

Oh, what about Chinese character body tattoos as a fetish for western audiences?

hanzismatter.com

she thinks it means "courage", actually means:
(n) serious error; gross mistake; big mistake or shortcoming; (punishment in school, etc.) a major demerit.

 

[kahlilg]

^

 

[London-TWN]

^^^ it is very easy to say fashion is not to be taken seriously , but the fact of the matter is...It is, then we would not have joined tfs, the fetishizing of such trends as african and tribal fashion, to be honest is fairly insulting,i do not mind people wearing the prints etc.. but it gets insulting when you see extremely cheap imitations of the cloth being worn.The part of africa i am from the patterns symbolize or tell a form of a story some patterns are used as a way of protection , the amount of time some cloths take to be made and the amount of detail incooperated compared to the poorly made imataitions i have seen, is fairly annoying i think the only way you can really understand is if it happens to you, it hits home, what happens when it is not fashionable? just like everything else at some point it will stop being fashionable , a cultures tradtion long standing for generations... Yeah i really am not fan of (as i dubb it ) the modernist fashionista

 

[princessaud]

lols at that tattoo. honestly, i see quite a number of people showing off their chinese character tattoo and saying "oh, this tattoo actually means ..." when in fact it's not. i don't know whether to laugh in their faces telling them girl, it's so far removed from the true meaning or feel just a little bit embarrassed for them. -shrugs-

 

[Fabulyss]

What about the fetishizing of Western Cultures for Ethnic Audiences?

It happens, but you don't see me complaining.

 

[kahlilg]

What about the fetishizing of Western Cultures for Ethnic Audiences?

It happens, but you don't see me complaining.

can you explain please?

 

[lesypersound]

What about the fetishizing of Western Cultures for Ethnic Audiences?

It happens, but you don't see me complaining.

I'm also curious what you mean by that--there's a power dynamic that's pretty obvious when brown people bleach their skin, wear blue colored contact lenses, and bleach their hair blond...just saying in case that's what you meant. (Edit: but i'm suspecting that isn't what you meant...)

also, i'm still up in arms about this distinction that Western Culture is only white or distinct from local ethnic cultures in the West--it's not, especially in America. I honestly don't even know what it means outside of the context of westerners (including people of color) going elsewhere and having interactions w/ non-westerners.

 

[Fontenrose]

What about the fetishizing of Western Cultures for Ethnic Audiences?

It happens, but you don't see me complaining.

This reminds me of a French prof (male) who said he wasn't offended but flattered by being thought of as a sex object (meaning, why should women be offended). Of course he actually couldn't imagine his self-important self being objectified.

I think English text is often used as a fetish in foreign lands. English words are thrown on to clothing and products, with no reference to their actual meaning.