We’ve got a new inductee for the Exotica Hall of Shame. This Chicago Sun-Times review of a new Chicago pop opera called Sita Ram is out to set some kind of density record for exotica-spew on Desilandia (thanks, WGIIA):
Adding to the spicy flavor are Scott C. Neale’s brilliantly colored street signs of India, Mara Blumenfeld’s curry-tinted costumes (many imported from India), Chris Binder’s deft lighting, plus shadow puppets and exotic instruments. There are moments when it feels like you are watching a traveling troupe that has set up shop in the center of an Indian village, and you half expect a cow or water buffalo to wander through. [Link]
I see that Jai Uttal is involved in this project. Say no more.
“Sita Ram” is the creation of director-writer David Kersnar and Grammy-nominated composer and co-lyricist Jai Uttal… [Link]
Hedy Weiss, you are dead to me 
“I am-so-angelina-united-nations-jolie”
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woohhooo! cheers, smiles! lower Beriatic World
uumm……sure doesn’t sound like it belongs with bliss.
Yes, assimilation and acculturation are almost inevitable at the point of contact between cultures, but I don’t understand who/what you are defending by admitting to the power structures involved in the change and creation of cultures.
Are you the Nina Paley whose website your screen name links to?
I suppose I’m defending myself. I intended to critique the idea that the “natural” way culture spreads is through some egalitarian ideal, as Yeti suggested. But Yeti also bandied about the word “white” in such a way as to raise my hackles:
This could mean a lot of things, but I interpreted it as “if a white person makes art incorporating any Indian art, they’re stealing from and exploiting brown people.” Since I am indeed the Nina Paley I linked to, I take this kind of pointed racism personally. I can’t help the color of my skin any more than anyone else. I don’t think skin color should determine what inspires an artist.
That said, I have to admit Jai Uttal’s album covers (I haven’t heard his music) do seem to trade on a particularly shallow exoticism, catering to an ignorant market without challenging to broaden understanding. But then, plenty of brown artists market themselves to Americans the same way – Deepak Chopra comes to mind (although he’s not an artist), and then there are those S. Asian chick-lit novels Manish regularly criticizes. Sucky art, selling out, trading on and maintaining ignorance – these are worthy of criticism regardless of the perps’ ethnicity.
there are issues of white privledge though. i think that’s where people’s complaints are stemming from, though they often do not articulate those sentiments so well. it certainly never is “a fluffybunny mutual-respect everyone’s-economically-and-socially-equal oppression-does-not-exist thing,” but that doesn’t mean we just ignore those issues of privledge. when artists (or anybody for that matter) ignore, or worse, deny, those issues, it’s just seen as flagrant disrepect.
wah? music interested in divine presence sung for hundreds years is water-thin? dude bhajans are intense, i feel sorry for anybody who hears muzak when they hear a bhajan. its like, yeah, that tupac….he was so sedate wasn’t he?
cultural appropriation….complicated topic, made more complicated by the presence of hegemonic dynamics. not either or.
Was Yoda cultural appropriation? jhumpa lahiri? Bhangra?
but when a dude does what 5 million people are already doing, and he gets all the credit….that just seems way too much like the real world don’t it? and who wants that in their music when they can get that at work
which pale in comparison (ha ha, a pun) to issues of class priviledge. I’m aware I’m priveledged to be a US citizen, from a middle-class background, with enough money and social freedom to be able to buy a computer and learn to use it, and live in cities where I can find people receptive to my work. Living in Trivandrum for a while made me acutely aware of how priveledged I am to be middle-class in the US, especially as an artist. My gender, which would have barred me from many opportunities elsewhere (including Trivandrum) is much less an issue here – and it was pure chance that I happened to be born in a less sexist society.
Who is ignoring or denying these issues? Is every artist supposed to apologise for their privledges every time they make art? Or only white artists? Should male artists constantly acknowledge their gender privledge? Some of them have even been influenced and inspired by women! Maybe I should feel more disrespected and victimized.
to say color and class priviledge are seperate issues is probably something you’d have to back up with evidence. color and class are often inter-twinned in american history
Color and class are often intertwined in world history, including Asian history, but in the US and elsewhere they’re getting less inter-twined all the time. I assumed we were discussing right now, not 200 years ago, or even 20 years ago.
To say they’re the same issue, in 2006, in the US, in the arts, is probably something you’d have to back up with evidence.
i’m not the one maing the original claim. you’ve put out a lot of assertions to back up your position, and i’m asking you if you have proof. they’re your claims in the first place, no?
we have to have a scope of discussion, if you want to talk about the inter-section of color and class in worls history, i agree, there’s quite a lot of places we can go. personally i’d be interested in looking at brasil.
you briefly reference that color and class are less inter-twinned now than 200 years ago. How do you think has taken place? does it happen as an inexorable process that just continues as time goes on? For that matter, how un-twinned is it at a time when young black men are not being educated, or employed, but jailed.
i wouldn’t say, and am not saying you don’t have a point, but right now it seems like you’re throwing out any old commentin order to defend what seem to be hurt feelings when people legitatemly point out their experience regarding being on the other side of priviledge
what’s up with the arts and priviledge, i’d be up for that discussion.
“Who is ignoring or denying these issues? Is every artist supposed to apologise for their privledges every time they make art? Or only white artists?”
well, the fact that you’re getting so defensive when people do bring up race issues seems to suggest some denial on your part. your sarcastic remark also suggests that. no one has to apologize for anything, but the fact is that we do live a world with obvious racial heiarchies. i understand that you’re influenced by indian culture, i don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. however, some people will get upset by your work because sometimes it just seems like white people can just pick and choose what they like from other cultures, while everyone else has to hide who they are until it’s accepted by western society (i.e. white people). people are troubled by that. you don’t have to apologize for your work, but i think people just want you to acknowledge that you have white privledge. because we don’t all get to live in a colorblind world.
personally i don’t want anyone to apologize for anything. if someone wants to, go ahead, but wanting someone to apologize is a losing proposition, as its not likely to be genuine. personally i’m not upset by priviledge, or try not to be. if you think about it, many of us have priviledge in some way or another. if you’re a dude, yeah you know we can walk around every day being consumed by the need to apologize for our priviledge. especially if we’re desi. to me its got to be a genuine thing you try to rectify as you can. i’ve never seen your work Nina and part of me feels based on your comments here, you’re taking offense when none might be meant toward you. i can’t see that based on your comments you would be insensitive or trample over desis in order to get your art out there. it doesn’t seem to be you.
The abolition of slavery in the US followed by the civil rights movement, combined with many years of relative economic prosperity.
No, not at all. In fact as times get tougher, I expect racism to increase. Fewer resources to go around = more fighting, and more looking for easy scapegoats.
You bring up an excellent example. Many young black men are born to very low-class, poor families, which is their greatest disadvantage. Indeed, this co-incidence of black-ness and poverty is because of the US history of slavery. But young black men born to class priviledge are not denied education or employment. Many very successful black Americans are descended from slaves. For whatever reason, they obtained class privledge, and their skin color does not bar them from enjoying it. Racism still exists in the US, but it pales in comparison to class issues.
Anyway, I’ve gotten all argumentative based on the comments of one racialist (Yeti), and I do I agree with this:
Nah, it’s because I was recently shut out of an arts event I was invited to speak at, because one person objected to my being white. Chip on my shoulder. Sorry, I’ll calm down now.
This isn’t limited to Desi news. Here’s the Chinese version: http://www.thatsbj.com/blog/index.php/2004/12/28/fill_in_the_blanks
It is not the place of white people to appropriate the struggles of people of color. Racism pales in comparison to class issues? I disagree… but whether it does or doesn’t is besides the point I want to make. The point is, how would you know? That is, after admitting to the power structures involved in changing and creating cultures (in which whitness affords you a significant amount of class privelege by default), how would you know about the ways in which living in brown skin affects our ability to cross class and gender barriers? I’m not saying that you have not experienced racism. But you should not assume, from your experience with racism as a white person, that you can understand the racism that people of color face as part of various colonial/imperial legacies. I’m not telling a brown person’s sob story here, I’m just saying our experiences with racism are different based on our races. Please understand that.
You are right, they are all worthy of criticism. But even when South Asians use Orientalism, who is it that suffers? It’s still not white people. So before you tar everyone with the same brush, remember the power structures you admitted to.
For instance, I don’t like Madhur Jaffrey. Her success (the class difference you’re talking about) is based on how well she is able to accommodate the desires of her audience–and her audience is not South Asian people, it is white Western cosmopolitan people. So it is not the majority of South Asia that is allowed to judge the translatioin of their own cultures becauese their voice has little value in the global market. Rather, it is the few wealthy Indians, such as Jaffrey, that are allowed this privilege. These Indians, in turn, are wealthy precisely because they are able to feed the Orientalist appetite. But where did this appetite come from? The Orient didn’t create Orientalism, which then created the Western imagination of the Orient. It is a racist legacy that South Asians like Jaffrey are simply using for profit. South Asians still suffer, and white people still don’t. Sorry if I’m being redundant at this point, but I’m just a bit irked.
I hope that in my comments here I have not implied I somehow know what it’s like to be not-white. Have I? I’m extremely aware I don’t know what it’s like to be anything other than who I am.
I don’t understand this sentence. Appropriate the struggles? Please explain. Did white civil rights activits marching in the South “appropriate the struggles” of black people?
I still stand by my assertion that race takes a backseat to class as an obstacle in the US. Everyone commenting on this board has access to a computer and is literate – we all enjoy some class priveledge. What does it mean to the disenfranchised when a priveledged middle-class non-white person insists race is a bigger issue than class? We won’t find out here, since those without our class priveledge don’t have access to this discussion. People of all races can chime in, but the very poor and illiterate can’t.
On a more personal note, please take my arguments with a grain of salt – this is one of those threads where I’m partial to both sides, even as I argue one. People are making very good points here. Respek. And thanks for letting me argue here.
Shruti’s point is a good one that South Asian class priviledge is mediated by their race de-priviledge. The many examples pointing out the hackneyed cliche in many desi-american books is a good example. Like Shruti said, using Orientalist ideas to get money will get you class priviledge, but what was the cost? Quite a lot of desi parents spent a lot of time trying to get money, and many did this while specifically with the hope that money would buy them some respect. Respect that was lacking because of their skin color. I think this is still a problem for South Asians. Our respect as South Asians is somewhat tenous. It could easily change with the whims of other influences, as it has in the past. Japanese Americans went from having class priviledge to being locked up. It’s quite easy for the sand to shift below our feet even with a certain (limited) class priviledge. I also disagree that class priviledge pales in comparision to race, but hey, maybe there’s evidence for it.
agreed.
but heaven forfend that a bunch of upper-middle class, top-tier-educated desi kids whose parents are all professionals cop to that. if they did, they’d have to acknowledge that they have very little in common with the struggles of all those pesky 7-11 workers, gas station attendants and cab drivers who aren’t privileged yet are the same race.
i understand what nina’s opponents are attempting to say about colonization and appropriation in this discussion, but i do not admire the ham-handed way in which they are doing so. arguing with nina paley is like screaming at annie besant for british shittiness during the raj. yes, jai uttal and exoticists blow porn star cock, but this isn’t some club where only desis are allowed to make a brilliant cartoon which provides a lushly-drawn, feminist interp of the ramayana. did some desi cartoonist do that? no. and that’s okay, because someone respectful who is down, who just happens to be white did. frankly, i think the world would be a much sadder place without “sita sings the blues”.
i don’t know where you get that people are yelling, ham-handed, yeah. but aruging with Nina? where does that come from?
who wrote anything about not being up to talk about class priviledge of “upper middle class desis”? “pesky” 7-11 workers? you’re totally off.
“because someone respectful who is down, who just happens to be white did. frankly, i think the world would be a much sadder place without “sita sings the blues”.”
i think you mentioned an important word, respect. i think indians/desis need to pick and choose their fights based on this word. yes, there is some exotification and orientalism by both desis and non-desis. this will always happen when translating someone else’s culture or even your own sometimes. but it is important to distinguish between, as someone else pointed out, naive but respectful intentions that result in basically harmless, “good” (for lack of a better word) “exotification” and knowingly disrespectful, harmful exotification with mean intentions and that seeks to make fun of something. for example, indians exotify and occidentalize western culture in their own way, but usually (but not always) in a naive way not driven by disrespect or bad intentions.
i went to a yoga retreat once that was full of basically white people. they sang bhajans and we few indians felt a bit out of place (and that bugged me, to be honest, because i felt “this is my culture.”) but their intent was good and it would have been ungracious to point out that their bhajans were not as up to par. however, i have heard stories of other places where white yoga practioners basically treat indians like outsiders. this is the sort of appropriation that is more worrisome. a buddhist friend from Korea experienced the same at a buddhist prayer group in the united states. she was the only non-white buddhist and they made her feel very unwelcome. she felt they had appropriated her tradition and were altering it from its roots and making it very exclusivist.
this is what i wrote, which is similiar to what you wrote
also, when you talk about race and class in the US and what kind of factor it is, its always going to raise questions in my mind when a person choose one over the other. its just such a knee jerk thing to take on side over the other because of someone’s position. can you ignore that black men are not only black but poor. Have you looked at the enrollment rate of Latinos at the University of Texas-Austin? Its ridiculous how few Latinos go there, or Berkeley for that matter.
i took pains to make this less about Nina and more about the contention that somehow we’re living in world in which race and class are not more combined than Nina was making it out to be. The part “upper middle class desis” play in this scenario? Its like blasting the Korean grocery store owner for being in LA. Its such a salon discussion statement to excoriate upper middle class desis and all the class priviledge they have as if we’re actually relevent to the most prominent discussions going on in this debate. its like being yelling at Apu for the fact the only Latino in Springfield is a costumed bumble bee. Yeah, cos its Apu’s fault
the parrallels between the scape-goating of relevtively affluent Sikhs in India is striking. As a minority population in India, the economic advantage of prosperity helps to secure them a modicum of safety in calm times. But if you look at who perpetrated the Dehli riots, it was a lot of poor people who were angry that the Sikh middle man had some prosperity
and by the way, a lot of Sikh american families have people in them who work at convience stores and those with “degrees” at top schools, so its not so cut and dried
f-ing internet
Nina was certainly not exotifying the Ramayana. I’d say Amar Chithra Katha’s Ramayana would seem more exotic to most people.
But I think this discussion would do very well without reference to Nina’s race or even her work, which, while great, is irrelevant to this post.
Nina, you too, didn’t need to state that you are Jewish. Your view about the Hitler Cross incident would be equally welcome/important, no matter what your religion.
In fact, this is one of the best things about the ‘net. Arguments can be weighed for the their inherent worth, not for who’s making them.
Gdansk!
Sorry, got threads mixed up. This is what happens, Larry, when you several SM threads simultaneously with tabbed browsing.
Apologies for my multiple comments in this thread and the tone of some of them. It was a lesson (hopefully) learned!
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