Pitch 3 -- Lolita and Cultural Appropriation

Hello Scott,

When you hear the term "Lolita," what's the first thing you think of? It's ok, we can admit that we're all thinking of the same thing -- The Japanese Street Fashion. I think of the fashion first because that was where I first heard the term used as a teenager interested in alternative fashion. Of course most of these clothes are pricey enough to bankrupt a third world country. My youthful dreams were not meant to be. As Lolita means something entirely different in western culture. Different ideas of nymphets and pedophiles may have crossed your mind along with Nabokov. The sexually exploitative Humbert Humbert and the innocent Lolita are part of common culture wither one has read the book or not. The street fashion has a different focus. Many who wear the fashion regularly state that they are living with the modesty and purity of a princess. Some also wear the clothes because they are cute. The closest Lolita gets to sexualizing innocent fashion is within it's subculture of Ero-Lolita, which is modest in comparison to many Western styles. Lolita fashion is an interesting phenomena in itself as it's influenced by European styles of the past such as Victorian and Rococo. That itself was an example of cultural appropriation, but then the style took off in other parts of the world including the United States.

The old ideas of Western culture were cycled back in to interested through another culture. However, the idea seemed to change within the context of Western culture and our idea of the Lolita. Our Halloween costumes of the style are much more sexualized than the original style such as: the Sweeter Than Candy Lolita Costume and the Lolita Lollipop Girl Costume. An obvious connection can be made to the Novel and it's movie adaptation. However, the sexualization of this style could also apply to our racist ideas that Asians are more submissive than other peoples; particularly women. Our interest in their culture increased with our colonization and our interest with their culture has increased once again when we have started to have more fears about America losing some of it's power and status in the eyes of the world. As a way to deal with this lost status. Is it possible that we are reawakening stereotypes that were never properly dealt with culturally? We have taken our idea of Asian sexual submission and applied it to a subculture that idealized childlike innocence. Is our misinterpretation an example of our racial anxieties or just another misunderstanding?

Does this idea interest you? Let me know.

Regards,
Emily Williams

http://hellolace.net/about/the-fashion I intend to use this website to help me navigate certain complexities of Lolita culture on a basic scale. I have been intersted in the past. I haven't kept up with the culture and there were some subcultures within the subculture I didn't know about. I also feel this would help me at least with siting sources of contention about things like Ero-Lolita

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libdb.ppcc.edu/ehost/detail/detail?sid=09117196-5658-4d42-b496-0083b01a0bc1%40sessionmgr4003&vid=0&hid=4106&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ufh&AN=99140306 This is a scholarly article that discussces cultural appropriation surroudning Lolita culture. It helped to achieve a firmer understanding of the place Lolita fashion takes in Japanese culture beyond "those clothes look cool."

Jack Sparrow -- Modern Trickster

A modern trickster can be a difficult thing to define. Tricksters push the current accepted boundaries of our society. The idea of a trickster is to push society push it's current boundaries either for good or ill. Culturally, I think it's safe to say that our culture no longer values mythology as we once did. This figure no longer makes it into our conscious thought through our sacred beliefs, so the trickster is often found through those who emanate hip as well as fictional characters from pop culture. In Leland's discussion of tricksters in relation to hip he uses Richard Pryor, comedian through the '60s and '90s, as an example of the connection between the two. "Pryor was insider and outsider at the same time, passing knowledge from one realm to the other. He did so with both bravado and humility, and with the trickster wisdom that lay between the two."

In the first installment, The Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow seems to fit this one understanding of a trickster perfectly as he straddles this line well. He presents himself with the bravado of a captain of the world's most infamous pirate ship. However, he has been the victim of mutiny. As a wanted man without the support of a fast sea vessel or the loyal support of his crew he should be one of the most vulnerable characters in the story but continues to wiggle his way out of the dangers that come from being an infamous pirate without his ship, at least in the fictional world. His continued overconfidence happens to be a source of success for him as it also displays and image. As he projects an image of overconfidence, others around him believe in his displayed cocky attitude and underestimate him.

Throughout the movie, he continues to display other trickster qualities. In his introduction I linked to above. at the end of the clip he steals the small sack of coins from the dock watchmen after he went through the effort of bribing him, which may cause some questioning of the details in the movie by some viewers like that of youtube user Steve Harvey, "Was it deliberate that they made it so Jack paid him extra, regardless of the fact that he could've just given them a false name and paid the usual amount? Or was that something they overlooked?" What he happened to miss was that while he could have just gave him the correct amount and given him a fake name, it would have meant a missed opportunity for monetary gain. The most straight forward way would have been for Jack to give the watchmen a fake name. That isn't really the way of a trickster. In Leland's text he quotes Ishmael Reed as, "The trickster goes on anybody's side, As long as he can get sex and gain, that's where he'll go. But [he] gets away with it because he's very vulnerable." Throughout the different movies, Jack continues to remain vulnerable, despite some regained power, because ultimately that is how he continues to cross boundaries and remain a successfully sneaky character. If he always had power, different characters would have less of a reason to trust him as he wouldn't need their help in the first place.When he does manage to get the Black Pearl, his ship, back from the mutinous hands of his previous crew, it has several flaws. There are holes in the side of the ship, some made during the course of the movie. The black sails also have massive holes in them, which wouldn't be very effective at picking up the wind necessary to haul that bulk across the ocean. The Black Pearl acts as a further reflection of his character and helps to cement his projected identity as a vulnerable figure. Perhaps the idea behind these flaw is to project a ghost ship to go along with the curse his previous crew picked up when they "happened" upon some cursed gold. If were honest, that ship wouldn't be very effective, which takes away much of the power they would realistically have to frighten large amounts of people. The idea of a ghost ship is terrifying. A holey ship with unhygienic pirates just sounds like a sinking deathtrap. As Jack's beloved ship is presented as a deathtrap I supposed it could be taken two ways. It could either be underestimated as an old junk ship, or it could terrify sailors with it's reputation as the haunt of the seven seas. Either way, it sets an illusion that is meant to throw those who would fight against Jack off track. When he has hold of his ship, it helps him act just a wee bit sneaky.

Social Upheaval and Cultural Mixing

When I first thought of hip, I did not really see those two characteristics defined by Leland as two characteristics that seemed to be at war with one another. In some ways, the two work together. You can't have cultural mixing without social upheaval. The excepted over for the longest time in Western Culture was for the different groups we have created to remain divided, to give little attention to each other. There has always been an understanding that all should submit to those in a social class above one's own. This is the opposite of cultural mixing. Those who are part of the higher classes, or have a more privileged racial identity in society, are always pouring their ideas into the lower status peoples while the same is not true of those who are of less advantaged circles. That leads to rebellion. If the working class is lucky, social upheaval is fully achieved, all groups are pulled closer to the ideal of equality. For awhile, both can last within this cocoon of their idea swapping. It is not perfect, but there is safety in during this development. The privileged often break out early, with the dread that something has been stolen from them. Possibly that someone else take that place if they do not reclaim it. Society reemerges as a half-formed moth. It changes from what it was before, but not what it could have been. The privileged create their own sort of social upheaval, or at least attempt to, by rekindling forgotten flames of the past. Less privileged carry the torches of the future, for the most part. Both exist in the world's largest game of tug o' war. The ropes of upper, lower, upheaval, and mixing create the boiling pot of hip. We aren't very good at perfection. Perhaps that is why the patterns of hip continue to stir up society.

Women in "Red Wind"

To read Red Wind: click here

In Red Wind the two female characters seem to have very limited roles and appear to be the only female characters in this story. For the most part, their roles seem to mostly be defined by their beauty, their relation to male characters, and their need for protection.

Mrs. Barsalay is a critical character in the story. Part of why this started is because of her false pearls, which were a symbol of her past relationship with the dead Mr. Phillips. They are stolen from her, and she intends to buy them back from Waldo which sets the entire chain of events in the story. While she does save Marlow's life there is also this sort of understanding that she is someone who needs protecting. When she is holding a gun to Marlow in his apartment, she does not take the safety off or stand a proper distance from him. It is discussed later in the story that it seemed she mostly meant this as a bluff, though there is a suggestion that she would not be able to properly defend herself and that as a woman must be protected. Much of her life with her current life with her husband is filled with lies about her necklace and the past relationship she had with her dead fiance. She also is running around secretly to try to get this object back without him knowing. It also reveals her as deceptive, despite also coming off as an innocent doe staring in the headlights. At the end of the tale when it is revealed that her necklace was never real, Marlow has another fake made to help cement the falsehood that her necklace was sold and replaced with a fake. In a way, this does save her from knowing that the symbol of her relationship was based on a lie, it also is protecting her from the truth and suggesting that she is too fragile to handle this truth. Perhaps this was just part of Marlow's character as he lies several times throughout his investigation, though he still told the hard truth to the male characters within the tale. There seems to be an understanding that she cannot handle the harsh world.

Miss Kolchenko, or the "White Russian," is a less important character in this tale. She is the mistress of Mr. Barsalay, and seems to have very little respect from him. Her appearance serves as a deception because she looks threatening when in actuality she is not. She is made to serve drinks to Mr. Basalay and Marlow in her scene. She is also completely ignored by Baraslay when she objects to him describing how she looks like a threat but is not. She may also serve as a comparison between Marlow and Barsalay as Marlow is much more respectful of Mrs. Baraslay than Mr. Barasalay is towards Kolchenko. She is also completely shooed away from the situation which could be a form of said protection but mostly seems to work in a way to keep her out of the understanding of what is going on. Of course, that may be a reflection that it is not believed that she could handle what is going on and must be kept away from scary situations in the same way a child is most often shuttled away from family drama and harsh realities.

While Mrs. Barsalay does save Marlow's life, women in this story are not shown in a particularly positive light. They are seen as deceptive, and too weak to look out for themselves. Though this seems to be true of much of the media from this period. This is a part of our cultural history of hip. Despite some of my qualms, it was still an entertaining read. A piece of media can still be entertaining as well as make us think about the depictions we commonly use for different groups of people in our culture.

Westerns, Pulp, and Noir

I know Los Angeles as a city defined by it's consistent patterns, paparazzi mowed down by celebrities out for revenge, the dull grunt of cars grinding down the interstate, trends that will inevitable dry into husks to make room for the new. All sit atop the cracked plates of the earth, waiting for the moment to slip and rattle beneath the city's base. The city waits to be rumbled by the San Andreas Fault. It marks the end of hope through the crumbling of failed Hollywood dreams, the end of westward expansion, a broken pattern. Los Angeles is a collection of crumbled promises. Both sides of Los Angeles run together as the boundary of a fault. Their motion both defining and breaking the city. Western travelers came with a promise of gold, paid with broken backs. The last great expansion ended the promise of man conquering frontier. The dreamers lost and had to settle like everyone else. Chaos erupted within male minds at the lost of definition. If a woman is loving, nurturing, and open. Then what is a man? Polar opposites make for the easiest definition, everything a woman is not. Through the end of the fronteir, America created the pulp hero. He could no longer be defined through taming the land. He is made through separating himself further from his opposite. He becomes the loner, no connections, no family, alone, no ties to hold him down. He is the frontiersman without hope or heart. He became the voice of America when dreams of exploration died with our genocidal tendencies towards American Indians. He expanded into film with Noir to scream through a thousand minds, the death toll of dreams. Dreams act as a Phoenix and move cycles of rebirth to death.  Men recreate their ideal identity. Los Angeles is the city of recreation and death. There is no better place to be reborn. It is also the best place to watch yourself die.

Hip Vs. Popular

While we have been focusing on what hip is this semester, I think it is also important to think about what hip isn't. A deeper understanding can be reached by knowing what it is not.

For the most part, we have decided that hip is the result of separate cultures mixing together, including social change, within the United States that has spread to other parts of globe. Some obvious example stick out to me that have a large market, pull in large chunks of dough, but don't fit into Leland's definition of hip. As there are different members of society that do not, will not admit that they do not want, or will not acknowledge that they benefit from cultural mixing and social change.

One example that comes to mind immediately is Steve McFarland's Family Guy. While the show is very popular, it also makes an effort to alienate any viewer that doesn't happen to be a White man. The writer's seem to have a fondness for "edgy" humor, which usually just means using humor that could possibly be interpreted as racist, sexist (ex clip 1, ex clip 2,),  homophobic (clip), or ableist (clip). He seems to hold an interesting place in culture as most people I have heard from either despise him or completely adore him. This could also be a question of whither or not shows such as South Park and Family Guy could have a category of hip and if hip must always be inclusive. It could also be a situation of the differences between the current and previous generation's understanding of hip as each generation has a different understanding of what exactly each of that entails. However, I think that while edgy humor shows have created a wider allowance of what is and isn't allowed on television, I think they tend to push more towards the popular end of the spectrum as minorities for the most part are often pushed away from humor that directly attacks them. They also seem to make the point that only certain groups of people are allowed to make edgy jokes (clip).

Another example of popularity rather than hip, is the Big Bang Theory. If the laugh tracks are taken out of the show, it's unentertainment value is made obvious (clip). While this show does attempt to try to get at something that could possibly be interpreted as hip through nerds in the tech and science field it does not particularly capture the experience of nerdy individuals very well. At least in my opinion, as someone who has always been kind of nerdy, it more or less creates an impression of what individuals who are not nerdy think nerds are. While I have met younger individuals who watch the Big Bang Theory before, most of the individuals I have met who watch the show loyally tend to be of the previous generation. The impression I come away with is that in part it is an attempt of the older generation to catch a voyeuristic glimpse of the younger generation, particularly those viewers who happen to have nerd children. As hip things are meant to bring about this cultural blending, it's difficult to imagine this show as hip as it seems to draw an audience that has already become more resistant to change.

Mutations of Hip

In chapter 3 of Leland's Hip: the History, he discusses hip has it's origins in the 1910s and 20s as the Great Migration from the Southern U.S. to the Northern U.S. which allowed for the cultural mixing often associated with hip. Personally, I feel that this could not have happened within the confines of a rural setting. While the styles of the time that contributed to jazz originated in the rural South among Black Americans, hazz would not have achieved such a widespread popularity if they did not have access to the record companies and recording technology of the time that was located in New York.
Since most Americans are now born and live in the cities, most hip people, bands, music, and movements originate in the city.

An obvious example is in hip-hop culture, with the origin of rap in the inner city slums. It came from impoverished Black Americans as jazz had, but came from the culture directly within the city. In Bryon Hurt's documentary, which I recently watch in my Women's Studies course, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, he discusses the problematic aspects of hip-hop culture. He goes on to say that while hip-hop has it's origins in the Black community, that 70% of it's consumers are of White descent. As Leland also discussed, the mixing of the two cultures often results in White consumers trying to find out more about Black Americans during their exchange; thus, the artists which discuss songs with stereotypes often surrounding Black Americans is what is what is only allowed to be marketed to consumers on a large scale. As White Americans stole the blues, Eminem and Iggy Azalea stole rap. As there were rap songs that did not glorify gang violence before it became a large part of main culture, it is obvious this has occurred. For the most part, this was driven by money as once an audience reaches a certain point, it has to start catering to White folks if they want to increase their monetary gain. In this case at least, hip was driven by the economy and the interests of the larger money pool.

In our reading from week 2, hipsters were discussed. One article in particular, "What Was the Hipster" discussed the hipsters of the 2000s. In the beginning, they seemed to draw largely from sytles associated with '70s suburbia. While they were drawing inspiration from a culture that was not within the city, they still spread had the ability to spread those influences within the structure of the city. Theoretically, those ideas would not have spread with the same ferocity if the group happened to be located in Pueblo, CO. They most likely would have been labeled the weirdos in that particular community. Particularly since the internet did not have the same reach or influence in hip as it does now. Their ideology mostly likely would have not made it past the confines of Pueblo to become the next big thing. To a certain extent, it was probably easier to market this for a larger profit as many of it's styles involved simple styles like plaid flannel shirts and neon-yellow framed, plastic sunglasses.

In one of my previous posts, I discussed difference between the hip and the nerdy. For the most part, nerd culture seems to be becoming part of hip and the mainstream as super hero movies are smashing the box office. This opposes the traditional idea of the lonely nerd that feels misunderstood and alienated by society. If I was taking this class ten years ago, I most likely would not be doing most of my assignments on a blog. Part of why I believe this is changing is caused by the rise in importance of computers in our culture. It has become a key way in our communications and the way we do business. It is hard to deny a subcultures power when their skill set becomes necessary to power the economy. In this case, nerds were able to become integrated into hip culture as the typical idea of the nerd is one who's known for computer programming. As such, it may be possible that other things typically associated with nerd culture are becoming increasingly popular as each is lumped in with the culture. While it was not true in the past, it may be the nerds are part of the current hip group. This is where hip seems to have taken a turn as the nerd community is not limited by location. It mostly takes place on the internet away from the rest of the world. It has grown and has become ever more common for people to admit to having an interest in things stereo typically unacceptable by society (i.e. Bronies). While I'm not entirely sure if it is completely true, nerd culture for the most part seems to have become part of hip with the rise of technology, despite a long period of the two being complete opposites of each other.
As Leland quoted Tower of power (and perhaps stolen from Tim's paper):

" Hipness is -- What it is!

And sometimes hipness is

what it ain't!" 

Since culture is constantly  changing. Something that wasn't hip 20 years ago could easily gain steam in current our current culture.