WEEK 9
This chapter really outlined a handful of ideas and stereotypes that I was aware of, but never placed within the context of a sociopolitical level. The section on the banana contextualized pieces like the first chapter of Gravity's Rainbow, or the 1960s movie Bananas, which I saw at a young age.
The section re: Disney and The Three Caballeros reminded me of this one video essay about Disney and Pocahontas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ARX0-AylFI). The essay discusses cultural appropriation in Disney movies, primarily using Pocahontas and Moana as the primary pieces of critique, which I'll be kind of citing as contributing to my thoughts here. The first thought that I had reading about The Three Caballeros is whether or not the depiction of these stereotypes are harmful to the perception of Latin American people, as that is for me, the line where we explore the effects of a piece's cultural appropriation. I ended up watching the movie over the weekend, out of curiosity. I found the movie to quite endearing, surprisingly. Though I will say the stereotyping is indeed prevalent, and that the piece kind of decided to shoehorn all of the various aspects of different parts of Latin American culture into one catch all idea of Latin America; I didn't seem to find that the film play with the cultural aspects of Latin America in a negative way like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's or Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles (Those are examples of Asian culture, but you get what I mean) The intention of The Three Caballeros was to strengthen the relationship between the US and Latin America, and given the success the film had with the parties involved, the film wasn't perceived as a "harmful" piece to the culture.
Have you seen any of the Disney films mentioned in the text? Do you think it displays a negative form of cultural appropriation?
The section re: Disney and The Three Caballeros reminded me of this one video essay about Disney and Pocahontas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ARX0-AylFI). The essay discusses cultural appropriation in Disney movies, primarily using Pocahontas and Moana as the primary pieces of critique, which I'll be kind of citing as contributing to my thoughts here. The first thought that I had reading about The Three Caballeros is whether or not the depiction of these stereotypes are harmful to the perception of Latin American people, as that is for me, the line where we explore the effects of a piece's cultural appropriation. I ended up watching the movie over the weekend, out of curiosity. I found the movie to quite endearing, surprisingly. Though I will say the stereotyping is indeed prevalent, and that the piece kind of decided to shoehorn all of the various aspects of different parts of Latin American culture into one catch all idea of Latin America; I didn't seem to find that the film play with the cultural aspects of Latin America in a negative way like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's or Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles (Those are examples of Asian culture, but you get what I mean) The intention of The Three Caballeros was to strengthen the relationship between the US and Latin America, and given the success the film had with the parties involved, the film wasn't perceived as a "harmful" piece to the culture.
Have you seen any of the Disney films mentioned in the text? Do you think it displays a negative form of cultural appropriation?
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI was born in Argentina and I have watched El Gaucho Goofy which is basicallyabout goofy going to the interior of Argentina and becoming an argentine cowboy, a gaucho. Yes, there is definitely an image of the 'dumb redneck' that is portrayed by BOTH goofy and the gauchos. To keep in mind though, the people from urban Argentina, much like in the united states view rural people as 'lesser' in the grand social scale whether it be for their accents or aesthetics. So, I'm not sure if it can be considered cultural appropriation when the same ideology is carried out between urban and rural USA..but I really enjoyed your post