The lights dimmed and the projector whirred, splashing images of colorful pop stars on the screen behind me. However, the seemingly most inevitable colors appeared: white and black. The words “Cultural Appropriation in the Music Industry” appeared before the audience’s eyes.
With such a self-explanatory title, I announced my first--and decidedly most relatable--example: Beyonce. Yes, “Queen Bey,” arguably the most prominent woman of color in the entertainment business today, finds herself serving as a role model for a multitude of people. To women, she represents beauty, strength, sexiness. For men, she serves as a marker of sorts for whatever may occur on the feminine side of the fence. Women of color, however, receive most of Beyonce’s cultural influence. …show more content…
In 2008, L’oreal featured Beyonce as the face of their newest hair dye line. Much to the chagrin of her diverse audience, the images displayed a lighter-skinned, nearly blonde Beyonce. The ideal that most upset the “Bey Hive”: a beauty company, which inevitably sets beauty standards, pictured a Beyonce that took away her ethnic features, replacing them with the natural coloring of a caucasian woman.
Beyonce does not stand alone as a racial-cultural perpetrator, however. Katy Perry, a white pop singer, featured several ethnic beauty features in her “This Is How We Do” music video. Besides combing her baby hairs and perming her tresses to look like African American hair, Perry also featured what she described in her lyrics as “Japanese-y” nails. Furthermore, she proved her affinity for stealing foreign cultural design when she performed at the 2013 AMAs in full geisha garb, even performing a pseudo-traditional
With such a self-explanatory title, I announced my first--and decidedly most relatable--example: Beyonce. Yes, “Queen Bey,” arguably the most prominent woman of color in the entertainment business today, finds herself serving as a role model for a multitude of people. To women, she represents beauty, strength, sexiness. For men, she serves as a marker of sorts for whatever may occur on the feminine side of the fence. Women of color, however, receive most of Beyonce’s cultural influence. …show more content…
In 2008, L’oreal featured Beyonce as the face of their newest hair dye line. Much to the chagrin of her diverse audience, the images displayed a lighter-skinned, nearly blonde Beyonce. The ideal that most upset the “Bey Hive”: a beauty company, which inevitably sets beauty standards, pictured a Beyonce that took away her ethnic features, replacing them with the natural coloring of a caucasian woman.
Beyonce does not stand alone as a racial-cultural perpetrator, however. Katy Perry, a white pop singer, featured several ethnic beauty features in her “This Is How We Do” music video. Besides combing her baby hairs and perming her tresses to look like African American hair, Perry also featured what she described in her lyrics as “Japanese-y” nails. Furthermore, she proved her affinity for stealing foreign cultural design when she performed at the 2013 AMAs in full geisha garb, even performing a pseudo-traditional