Capitalist Tactics at Expense of Culture: Appropriation, Assimilation, and Fetishization

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Benjamin Vaughn, Jr.Prof. Mark LaverMus-202: Pop Music23 November 2014

Capitalist Tactics at Expense of Culture: Appropriation,

Assimilation, and Fetishization

The music industry today is full of many different

types and styles of music. Multiple examples of mainstream

country, rock, and hip hop artists are rising on the charts,

gaining listenership, and being delivered through multiple

mediums of music distribution. One factor that historically

attributed to popularity in music was originality and

authenticity. Take a look at artists like Beatles, Prince,

Aerosmith, and Mary J. Blige, who maintained their own music

style and feel throughout their careers and still enjoyed

the same gratification from their fans. Identifiably, a

cultural shift has taken place in the music industry. This

shift includes cultural appropriations which, in my opinion,

originated from the advances in technology, increasing speed

of information sharing and creating more connected world.

Cultural appropriation by definition is the adoption of

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elements of one culture by members of a different cultural

group, generally referring to the use by cultural outsiders

of a minority, otherwise known as the majority or white

people. Cultural appropriation has been a part of the music

industry for a long time that ultimately benefits white

artists. What about the minority artists? Due to the

definition of appropriation, a minority group cannot

appropriate because that would involve being able to

alternate between a forced identity an a natural identity.

With blacks as a perpetually marginalized group, a forced

identity towards a majority status of regularity is

impossible. What ends up happening for blacks are the more

problematic trends of having to assimilate with the majority

or promote the historically fetishized traits of minority

bodies. Within the music industry, trends of appropriation,

assimilation, and fetishization are taking a different spin,

potentially due to the technology boom. I argue the trends

of white artists appropriating non-white, cultural artifacts

and similar trends of black artist having to assimilate or

perform fetishized stereotypes are creating a culture where

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it appears that this is a mode for success. To do this, I

will look at the history of appropriation and its effects on

assimilation and fetishization, and I will analyze the

careers and choices of Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, and Nicki

Minaj.

In the history of America, appropriation of a culture

can be seen as far back as the minstrel shows of the slavery

and post-slavery days. White men dressed up in garb

divergent from the socially accepted attire of the time, put

on black face paint, and mocked blackness on the stage. Lott

described minstrel shows to have been constructive of a

false sense of validity. He claims that the "minstrel show

obscured relations by pretending that slavery was amusing,

right, and natural" (Lott 23). In the way Lott describes

minstrelsy, the shows aimed to be a fun and entertaining

event in performing the construction of blackness in order

to reaffirm that slavery and racism were appropriate.

Looking at the word “appropriate as a verb, we must

look at its connection to the adjective form, defined as

suitable or proper given the context of a situation. The

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verb form means to take something without the permission of

the owner, which has a root in someone claiming something

that does not belong to oneself. In his posting, Daniel

Torres said in his commentary of the Lott piece that he

“hesitates to call Minstrel shows cultural appropriation

because the black community was not given the opportunity to

create it’s own [culture].” I would agree on one part that

minstrelsy was not appropriating blackness; however, I

disagree with the idea that blacks in America ever had

opportunities to create their own culture. This can be seen

in Johnson’s argument about the constructions of white and

black identity:

Historically whites have essentialized blackness

to maintain whiteness as the master trope of

purity, supremacy, and entitlement, as a

ubiquitous, fixed, unifying signifier that seems

invisible. Alternatively, tropes of blackness that

whites circulated such as, Mammy, Jezebel, Zip

Coon, and more recently, the drug addict, rapist,

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and prostitute, have historically insured second

class citizenry or “otherness.” (Johnson 4).

In deconstructing Johnson’s argument, we have to understand

that the construction of blackness has always been negative,

or seen as a deconstruction of whiteness. Blackness is

always the “other” since whiteness is the standard of

normality; furthermore, whites, through mediums like

minstrelsy, invented blackness. Through the popularity of

minstrel shows, whites produced images of blacks and

performed actions deviant to the norms, which consequently

defined blackness on a larger scale.

When slavery was abolished and blacks had a little more

space to redefine themselves, they still could not within

the context of a white dominated America. The definitions of

blackness were already inscribed into American culture, so

the only thing that black Americans could do was reclaim

some of these definitions made by their white oppressors.

Through assimilation and rejection tactics, blacks found

their own ways to traverse through society. One of the main

ways they were able to do this was through music; however,

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even the presence of difference and blackness within the

popular music realm left space for white artists to

appropriate this newly, redefined blackness. Johnson

continues further to talk about how white’s treatment of

this blackness further complicates racial tensions in

America:

“Whites exoticize and/or fetishize blackness, [in]

what bell hooks calls ‘eating the other.’ Thus

when white-identified subjects perform ‘black’

signifiers–normative or otherwise–the effect is

always already entangled in the discourse of

otherness; the historical weight of white

privilege necessarily engenders a tense

relationship with its others” (Johnson 4).

We can see in this analysis, that Johnson identifies the

issues with white privilege that create the racial tensions

surrounding appropriation. Since the context of the

performances are bringing an “other” into a mainstream or

privilege-based identity, it consequently turns into a

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mockery of the subject it is appropriating, whether or not

the intent is to make light of the subject itself.

In an analysis of the definition described earlier,

blacks cannot culturally appropriate. Regardless of class

lines, blacks and blackness ultimately remain as the “other”

something to be critiqued or exoticized. Any status

privileges that blacks receive are nullified by the color of

their skin. Due to this, blacks can only reclaim their

identities and aspects of a culture; however, whites can,

and do, appropriate said cultures as described in Lipsitz’s

look into the trends of appropriation in respect to the

emergence of the blues and rock and roll:

“White popular songwriters in the United States

had long envied and copied the idioms and styles

of black and Hispanic musicians. But their

tendency had been to absorb these ‘primitive’

forms into the musical vocabulary of respectable

or refined culture” (Lipsitz 272).

This trend in popular music maintains the claim of my

hypothesis that through cultural appropriation, white

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artists take an aspect of minority cultures and use it to

their benefit. By taking an aspect or reclaimed trait, that

may not be highly regarded or talked about from minority

culture, exploiting and blowing it out of proportion, white

artists ultimately normalize the subject of appropriation

within the given time and receive increased financial and/or

fame benefits from it.

Musically, this can be seen in Elvis Presley’s rise to

fame. Elvis, as a performer, was as an embodiment of

appropriation. Elvis made many movements during his

performances that had been thought of or used by black

artists, but this had a negative impact on black musicians.

Bertrand mentions that:

“[W]hen record producers found out they had a

white boy who could wiggle and stuff, they shoved

black artists in the corner” and ultimately, Elvis

devalued the appeal and contribution black

musicians had to offer the genre (192).

Whether intentional or not, the continuation of this persona

Elvis created for himself devalues multiple contributions

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from other artist. Some of the things he appropriated were

actual songs, like “Hound Dog,” and some of the dancing he

performed on stage. Elvis’s appropriation and voluntary lack

of giving credit to the black artists devalued them of these

contributions. It was this deliberate lack of credit and

usage of black culture that attributed to the cultural

appropriation he committed. Elvis’ career is comparable to

minstrel blackface; the prominent difference is that he was

white, performing in “whiteface,” singing, dancing, and

speaking like a black person, almost creating a new category

of white-blackface.

Assumedly, if he had been performing in blackface, the

act would have been less acceptable given the historical

climate of that time, but reactions to his performance style

from many whites could have been different, as he would not

be performing a new whiteness. Bertrand describes Elvis’

stage presence as “lewd, vulgar, and ‘tinged with the kind

of animalism that should be confined to dives and

bordellos’” (194). The two locations dives and bordellos

contextually indicated locations of late night entertainment

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that was based off what was interpreted to be inner city,

night life, and was generally associated with blackness.

As seen with Elvis, this description was appropriated

into his popular culture scheme of fame and capitalistic

interest. Consequently, it was accepted into white culture;

however, it was not accepted from the black culture which it

was appropriated from, as this was the bastardized

derivative, but within the context of Elvis and his

whiteness, making it culturally acceptable. As seen in

history of pop music, we see this trend of appropriations

from white culture; however, we still can find instances

within the context of more recent pop culture to see how

this strategy has been employed and contextualized within

the music industry. When white artists appropriate a

cultural entity, people generally react by finding the

closest possible popular derivative and creating negativity

stemming from western cultural thought and values, instead

of educating themselves on the cultural aspects of what they

are deeming inappropriate. We can look into how the rapid

image switch of Miley Cyrus and her performance of “We Can’t

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Stop” have induced discussion about appropriation and

fetishization of black bodies and cultural artifacts.

Miley Cyrus was born into a big-name country family.

Billy Ray Cyrus was a big name in country music, and because

of her father, Miley was already prescribed to a particular

lifestyle. Miley Cyrus really came to fame with her hit,

Disney show Hannah Montana, that showed an introspective

look into this double life that Miley, the character, had

being a “normal” student in a school, hiding her identity as

a globally known country crossover pop star. Miley’s career

blew up, including national tours, movies, and other events

using the country girl archetype. Miley then went on to

continue the Disney channel show until it was cancelled in

2011. Then, after a brief loss of momentum, leaks of images

with Miley smoking marijuana and drinking got out into the

media. This image of derivation affected the image that many

parents respected of her, and what started out as

objectively negative choices made by Miley, then led to the

recreation of her persona in an effort to get away from the

Hannah Montana image and start new (Chester).

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With this new beginning for Cyrus began a whirlwind of

accusations and criticism stemming from the methods of

appropriation used to cross identities and cultures. Cyrus

began singing about party culture and drinking and drug use,

which was the biggest plot twist to fans of Cyrus’ past.

Generally, party culture could be attributed to a whiteness,

flooded with images of white frat houses and large suburban

“parent’s aren’t home” parties; however, Miley’s approach

seems like a minstrel act similar to Elvis’s. The music

video and 2013 MTV VMA performance of “We Can’t Stop” was

essentially the first look into the changes, artistically,

Cyrus was making. The major issues in both mediums, but more

so the VMA performance, was how she used black bodies and

appropriated black culture as a medium of liberation. We can

see some congruency in Cyrus’ actions in Bertrand’s analysis

of Elvis from Race, Rock, and Elvis:

“Minstrel [or appropriated] interpretations of

American popular music stress that African

Americans served solely as the Other for whites,

thereby allowing the latter to escape periodically

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into an exotic world of pleasure, sensuality, and

emotional freedom traditionally denied or

suppressed within western European culture (196).

This passage emulates this feeling of a desire to escape the

old life that Cyrus lived and experienced with the Hannah

Montana craze. Cyrus moved her hips in the ways African

women do, smacked the rear of her African American dancers a

la Venus Hottentot, and performed in a very bastardized way.

This brought a lot of controversy around Cyrus’ cultural

appropriation of twerking and use of black bodies.

Twerking originated way before black culture because of

its African roots. Similar to singing, storytelling,

clapping, and playing the drums, this form of dance is a

form of expression that united African tribes and

communities and was often used to celebrate rites of passage

and to communicate during war and strife (Gary). With the

African diaspora, this dance form spread to many locations

including South America, the Caribbean, and East and

Southeast coastal North America. Gary goes on to discuss how

the spread to non-African countries is a way for blacks to

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“continue our African traditions in a non-African world—a

way of expressing ourselves amidst oppression and remaining

connected to our cultural heritage” (Gary). This spread was

meant for those that have African roots in order to resist

the system, and it was a way to be celebratory. However,

Cyrus was undermined the cultural importance by

appropriating twerking, sexualizing it by slapping the

buttocks one of her black background dancers (in the way

white men objectified black women like Sarah Baartman) as

well as twerking on Robin Thicke, and popularizing the

sexualization of twerking to white spectators who had

limited to no cultural knowledge at the time of reception.

Some would make the argument that Cyrus brought light

to twerking and making it less of a problem, destabilizing

the dominant order of racial scripts. I disagree simply

because due to theory of the colonizer. Cyrus being a member

of the majority race should not be the messenger of

something outside of her actual identity, as opposed to the

perceived identity she strives for with her “usage” of

blackness. Continuing this argument, bell hooks adds a

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perspective that I believe aligns more with the intent of

the action, “[T]he contemporary commodification of black

culture by whites does not challenge white supremacy when it

takes the form of making blackness the ‘spice that can liven

up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture’” (hooks

14). This publicizing of her newfound twerking “abilities”

and her identification around a black culture brought the

“spice” to her career. Cyrus appropriates cultural artifacts

and images with the intent to change her identity; although,

unlike the black individuals she aims to assimilate with,

she will always benefit from a white privilege and will be

able to cross lines that non-whites do not have the ability

to do. The commodification of black culture is very

prevalent in many areas of white popular art forms and other

artists such as Macklemore and Iggy Azalea; however, in

terms of artists of color, the methods the industry and

artists use is different.

Taking a look at Beyoncé Knowles’s rise to fame, she

began as a child in rap group Girls Tyme, but after a few

failed contracts and family shifts, she began her real

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career in Destiny’s Child. This gained the group a lot of

notoriety, but particularly Knowles, who then after the

group’s everlasting hiatus went on the most successful solo

career of the group. Throughout her solo career, many

criticized Knowles for what essentially can be seen as

assimilation tactics. Mullen discusses assimilation in terms

of being black and performing more white as the ability of

“passing” (Mullen 73). This act of passing is what allows a

black individual with feature such as lighter skin or

straighter hair to navigate the world more easily, or with a

higher sense of privilege, due to their proximity to the

ideal or normal race, standard of beauty, and social

structure status that privileges whites or lighter colored

individuals.

Looking at Beyoncé, one would notice that she does have

fairer skin and wavier hair, as opposed to tight curly, or

nappy, hair. This is due to her Creole ancestry that stems

from her mother’s side. However, as Farah Jasmine Griffin

explains in “At Last...?: Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Race &

History,” Beyoncé claims her creole identity as a way to

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market herself (137). As an artist, she “has opened doors

for many other artists, but by reinforcing certain notions –

sometimes destructive – of what is desirable or beautiful”

(139). The problematic part is that she operates on her

Creole heritage and has to capitalize on her blonde,

straighter hair (though she usually uses weave) and lighter

skin tone as to make way for herself in this hegemonic,

white music industry. In addition, it was a tactic that

gained her notoriety from many whites, adults and children.

Beyoncé had a class to her performances, and even though

hyper sexualized, Knowles was accepted and “allowed” into

white culture. Many believe this mobility was largely due to

the “whiteness” she was able to externalize from her

identity and physical traits.

This look at how Beyoncé has traversed the music

industry and became successful enough is argued to stem from

the privileges she came from, largely the privilege of being

“lighter than black.” Arguments have been posed that her

being the lightest one of Destiny’s Child allowed her the

mobility, where Kelly Rowland did not gain the same

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successes as she, or any other darker artist, would not get

the same attention. All of this was pretty homogenous in

Beyoncé’s work until she rejected the system of the music

industry and came out with a surprise release of her self-

titled album, Beyoncé, in December 2013.

Knowles, when discussing the album, mentions that she

had been frustrated with the ways that her music, and most

music had been released (Knowles). Generally it starts with

a few singles, and then the album. However, with the release

of Beyoncé, the artist and company decided to release it

with a single tweet from Beyoncé herself, only on the iTunes

Music Store, and only allow it to be sold in full, including

the monumental “video album” concept where each song has a

music video. In many of the music videos, you see Beyoncé

flirting with a new sense of self and blackness. Her weave

was out, her hair not straightened, and in some shots she

did not appear as “white” as she had in previous videos,

pictures, or performances. Given the way in which the album

was recorded and released, without a team as large as most

commercial albums, it is interesting seeing the correlation

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between Beyoncé and her general perception versus the

blackness coming out of a blatant rejection to the way music

industry produces and releases music. This move challenges

her usual assimilation tactics by “coming back to her black

roots;” however, Beyoncé already benefitted from a power

structure that she created through assimilation. Due to her

embodied whiteness, many could argue that Knowles is also

appropriating cultures due to her pseudo-privilege she had

previously utilized. I agree with critic Janell Hobson in

her articulation that Beyoncé is not appropriating cultures

when she uses Ngozi’s monologue in “Flawless,” Afro-

Caribbean moves in her dancing, or signing styles; however,

she is trying to participate in a transnational reclamation

of cultural values that spread through the African diaspora.

Consequently, through this artists with a different

sociocultural and economic status as Beyoncé may not be able

to appropriate in ways that Cyrus as described before;

however, assimilationist tactics remain in use by Knowles in

ways that artists like Nicki Minaj cannot utilize.

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In contextualizing Minaj’s role in the fetishization of

black bodies, looking at the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, one could

ask which character gets the most attention and has the most

sex appeal? It isn’t Carleton, even though the “Carleton

Dance” still prevails in today’s culture, even making made a

comeback in the 2014 season of Dancing With the Stars. It is the

character of Will, that provides a representation of a

“primitive” black boy from the streets of Philadelphia,

learning to traverse an upper class, Bel-Air environment.

The success of his character relies on the eroticization of

Will’s character, playing on stereotypes of what “true

blackness” is and the comparison of the “less black” family.

This fetishization of eroticized “blackeness” can be

interpreted in popular culture as a vehicle for shock effect

and capitalistic fame, and this parallels themes in black

pop music. Similarly, we can look at the rise of Nicki Minaj

and how a fetishization of her personas led to her

widespread popularity.

It can be argued that Minaj used body modifications as

an assimilationist tactic in order to create her rise of

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fame. Although these actions created much of the press

surrounding her first album release, I would differ this

from artists like Beyoncé due to the origins of Nicki’s

music and transition into Lil Wayne’s record company and

performing group, Young Money. Minaj started out as a

typical rapper would by producing multiple mixtapes on

various labels. She was invited into Lil Waynes record

label, Young Money, predominantly black label operated by

black artists. But her success and fame blew up with her

first major album under Young Money, Pink Friday.

In this album, it is heard and explained that Minaj has

multiple personas within the music. You have Onika, Minaj’s

actual name and most authentic personality, Roman, an angry,

gay boy, Barbie, a plastic version that is portrayed with a

“cute” dolled up presentation, among others. I find that the

multiplicity of Minaj’s characters serves as a

representation of the multiple consciousnesses black women

intrinsically have to navigate. This type of consciousness

is something that is inescapable as described by Lani

Guinier in her amendment to W.E.B. Dubois’ theory on double

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consciousness. DuBois discusses that black individuals must

navigate their public performance, a facade that satisfies

the white majority, and the private individual, or the

identities that the individual actually lives. Guinier goes

on to further add to this theory and discusses the idea of

multiple consciousness, that it is not only about public and

private, but the nonconsensual necessity to view how

individual identities concerning sexuality, gender, race,

and class affect both personas (Guinier 108). I interpret

Nicki’s characters as fetishization of multiple

consciousness. Black women have to be like Barbies ready to

please a majority to navigate American society, and they

cannot be angry, otherwise they will reinforce stereotypes

of the “angry black Madea.” Even when authentic, it may not

be socially acceptable as a norm. However, two examples in

which Minaj is seen to use fetishization for capitalist

gains are in the music videos for “Stupid Hoe” and

“Anaconda.”

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In her posting on Bryn Mawr’s Critical Feminisms blog,

M. Beale writes about the usage of animal image in “Stupid

Hoe”:

Minaj presents herself as a caged sexualized

figure in a cat suit. She literally transforms

into a leopard— an animal thought biblically to

represent lustfulness and sin—soon after finding

herself in the cage. This is to suggest that the

overwhelming voyeurism, in this case the viewer

watching Nicki through glaring yellow bars, is

such to reduce her presence that of an exoticized,

lustful animal that is voiceless and must be

consumed visually solely (Beale).

This comparison to a leopard that Minaj changes into

dehumanizes the female black body and creates a negative

discourse surrounding the black female body. Deriving from

the biblical connotations and the overly sexual, voyeuristic

portrayal of the character behind bars it make the black

identity one of sin. It is something that should be resisted

by dominant culture as the animal is behind bars and should

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only be looked at for its shock effect or for its sexually

fetishized excitement.

The animalization is “Stupid Hoe” was early in Minaj’s

new fame; however, she continues to use a fetishization of

black bodies that can even come off as more objectifying in

her most recent music video for “Anaconda.” Some may argue

that a person from a culture should be able to take agency

of an aspect of a culture that has been appropriated by

whites; however, her use of blackness and the neglect of the

narrative of twerking leads to a larger discussion of how

she objectifies and allows viewers to fetishize black

bodies. The overt sexualization that she includes in this

song and other has actually affected where she was allowed

to perform. For example, she was the only judge on the 2013

American Idol season that was not allowed to perform during

the Finale of the show. Her single “High School” was to be

performed at the Billboard awards, and she was not allowed

to show her music video for “High School” because producers

claimed it to be “too risqué” for American Idol viewers

(Waldholz). This aspect of sexualization is shown to also

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stand in the way of promoting her work, but simultaneously,

it leads to other various successes for her.

Some would hope that Minaj uses the platform that she

has made to destabilize sexual connotations of twerking; but

even in “Anaconda” she ends twerking Drake and sexualizing

it. Minaj uses this sexualization in a way that shoves her

into a single pattern of performance that further reinforces

stereotypes and fetishizes black bodies for the benefit of

the record label. It is interesting dynamic because Young

Money is black owned and operated, yet it still uses

fetishization tactics that typically a white establishment

would use to boost monetary gain from minority artists. This

is just another way of how the music industry itself has two

choices for artists if they want to reach a level of success

that reaches a world wide status.

These patterns of pop music had been in place for

decades. I theorize that Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, and Nicki

Minaj are no more perpetrators of these tactics than they

are tools for capitalist engagement. By placing monetary

wealth over the cultural implications and deficits they

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create, these tactics disturb culture. The pop music

industry needs a cultural reformation. By maintaining

patterns of cultural appropriation, assimilation, and

fetishization tactics as primary methods of mobility through

the music industry, the same motifs will repeat itself, and

the destabilization of stereotypes and education of culture

will not occur due to the financial impact that has been key

to the music industry.

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