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rocknroll_n_blues_queensShitty Vodou Stereotypes? BLACK FACE??!?!?!??\
FUCKKKKKK YOUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!
So basically you just thought that black people shouldn't watch your music then?
Fine. Assholes.
And just as a preemptive: lol @ anyone who attempts to defend something racist with, ‘it’s art.’
Florence and the Machine
FUCKKKKKK YOUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!
So basically you just thought that black people shouldn't watch your music then?
Fine. Assholes.
And just as a preemptive: lol @ anyone who attempts to defend something racist with, ‘it’s art.’
An incomplete list of why that argument is flawed:
Art can be racist. We wouldn’t have a western canon, or any art canon for that matter, if we hadn’t already acknowledged that years ago. Racism doesn’t negate something from being art and art doesn’t negate something from being racist. This is not a platform worth arguing on.
Art has the power and scope to affect society in a way that nothing else does. Nothing is ever ‘just a book’ or ‘just a music video’ or ‘just a song.’ If it’s not important enough to think about, then it wasn’t important enough to be made.
Art is a decent enough gauge of what some members of society were thinking at any given time. We study art to study culture and history. Visual art in particular is not simply a presentation of one’s inner-most feelings and beliefs but a reproduction of the culture the artist lived in and, often, a reproduction of that culture’s historical viewpoints; shorthand that the artist may not have even realize they internalized.
Also, a bonus tip! This one’s on symbolism but tune in next week for the next dumb racist thing fandom does for the next installment:
Having darkness represent evil is lazy and trite, but generally acceptable. Having a dark person represent evil is lazy and trite but also racist. Having a non-black person dress up in blackface to represent evil is not only lazy, trite, and racist but also a direct continuation of the same destructive shorthand that cost people their lives and livelihood. The time in-between has not allowed for it to be less offensive or more ironic.
In fact, let’s take this opportunity to segue into a preemptive offense of my least favorite literary device: Irony. In order for irony to work, there must be two layers involved: the implied, often traditional, meaning and the literal one. MORE
Florence and the Machine
The problem? Mainstream media reinforce negativity and reinforce that people think racism is a thing of the past and “over.”
Mainstream media misrepresents voudou/voodoo often. This is why most people don’t know much about it.
And now comes the new Florence and the Machine music video. This video has a person in blackface. Seriously, strike one FatM.
Next, it utilizes voudou to get its message of the video across.
Yep, the guy in blackface is practicing voudou. By poking a doll with pins surrounded by candles.
STRIKE TWO, FatM.
What is this oh-so meaningful message which it needs to get across by misrepresenting a legitimate religion?
The “lights went out” of her relationship. And all I can gather is that the man in blackface is sticking pins in a voudou doll of the ex.
YES FLORENCE, PLEASE misrepresent religion because your relationship ended. Because that makes it more deep and meaningful so now I want to take you seriously.MORE
no subject
Date: 2011-11-20 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-21 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-20 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-21 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-20 04:37 pm (UTC)... JFC.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-21 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-24 10:18 pm (UTC)Flossie, dahling, if African-based music is too exotic for you to do aught but make stereotypical fun, how's about going back to something of your own ethnicity, kthxbye, hmmmmmm?