Friday, November 03, 2006
The Problem of Poverty Chic
Asfo_del recently wrote an interesting comment at Living on Less:
If the feminist movement can make it acceptable to be hairy, why doesn't the anti-capitalist movement take a page from their book and work to make it acceptable to be poor? We're poor already -- the median income in the US is $23,000 a year -- we just aren't allowed to walk around looking like we're poor without being made to feel ashamed.
And I was thinking, that is true in a genuine sense, and things would be better for many of us if we weren’t pressured to feel ashamed for obviously lacking certain things or for not meeting certain standards. But in a perverse sense, there’s long been a tendency in our culture that’s made it more than acceptable – in fact, made it hip and chic – to walk around looking like people who are poor. As long as the people walking around with that look aren't really poor, and as long as there’s been some kind of process through which the look of poverty has gotten resold at top dollar, thanks to the sanctioning of the right designers, artists and magazine editors .
The first phenomenon that came to my mind in this area was the hip fashion trends that came out of DIY movements in music. Punk is a perfect example... I recall Johnny Rotten’s amusing comments about how when he first started with the Sex Pistols, he walked around with clothes that had holes in them and clothes that had patches because he had no other choice, because he was poor. But we all know that once this look became fashionable, there were some very expensive lines of clothing sporting the same features. And, of course, there were many kids of affluent suburban parents who did everything they could to emulate these fashion role models, probably for quite a few bucks. (Then, of course, there is the matter of hip-hop fashion and how expensive it might be to look correctly "ghetto." But that’s almost too complicated for this downwardly mobile middle-aged white guy to think about.)
And then, recently, I read a very interesting passage from the current issue of Mute Magazine:
Another mode of expropriation is also occurring at a cultural level - the spectre of what at Mute we've been calling the 'shanty chic' aesthetic. As the bubble of convenience culture and technologised hyper-mediation numbs the cultural class, a vicarious worship of all things bricolaged, improvised and threadbare - read pauperised - has taken hold. The acid bath of poverty is the urbane consumer's psychic chemical peel of choice. This admiration has strayed from the art world into the culture industry in general - a new chain of restaurants in Paris and London shamelessly, almost unconsciously, named Favela Chic now serves up top-dollar cuisine at soup-kitchen style collective tables, overlooked by an artlessly bricolaged DJ booth. Meanwhile the spectacle of the South's slum dwellers is served up to the cinema goers of the North, mixing equal measures of desperation and glamorous dreams of life beyond the law.
But, really, I don’t know what to make of all this. Is it entirely a bad thing, or is it just something that is? Certainly, we can react with moral revulsion to the idea of really bored, affluent people making escapist fashion fantasies out of other people’s poverty. (Once again, I can’t help thinking of the Sex Pistols’ line, “A holiday in other people’s misery.”) But on the practical level, we might hope that some poor cultures will benefit, at least materially, from some more widespread public admiration of their music, their art, their architecture, etc. (Incidentally, when I think of music and Brazil's favelas, I am aware that I, myself, may be one of many people in a northern culture far outside of those favelas who are starting to develop an interest in their special brand of funk, thanks much, of course, to certain stars in the world of rock and hip-hop. And as revealed by one fascinating article that I stumbled upon from a year-old issue of The Oberserver, there are a few people anyway who will be able to get beyond an awful life in an awful ghetto, thanks to this growing international interest in their music.)
Additionally, while corny movies might romanticize the "outlaw" life of Third World slum dwellers without daring to approach any real political or class-conscious analysis, we can always hope that some of these fictions will inspire a few people to delve into the subject and actually pursue some real analysis or even pertinent action further down that road.
Or would it be positively naïve to assume that any real benefits can come out of this perverse "cultural expropriation" from the poor?
Honestly, I can’t decide on an answer to that one; it just leaves me kind of stumped.
If the feminist movement can make it acceptable to be hairy, why doesn't the anti-capitalist movement take a page from their book and work to make it acceptable to be poor? We're poor already -- the median income in the US is $23,000 a year -- we just aren't allowed to walk around looking like we're poor without being made to feel ashamed.
And I was thinking, that is true in a genuine sense, and things would be better for many of us if we weren’t pressured to feel ashamed for obviously lacking certain things or for not meeting certain standards. But in a perverse sense, there’s long been a tendency in our culture that’s made it more than acceptable – in fact, made it hip and chic – to walk around looking like people who are poor. As long as the people walking around with that look aren't really poor, and as long as there’s been some kind of process through which the look of poverty has gotten resold at top dollar, thanks to the sanctioning of the right designers, artists and magazine editors .
The first phenomenon that came to my mind in this area was the hip fashion trends that came out of DIY movements in music. Punk is a perfect example... I recall Johnny Rotten’s amusing comments about how when he first started with the Sex Pistols, he walked around with clothes that had holes in them and clothes that had patches because he had no other choice, because he was poor. But we all know that once this look became fashionable, there were some very expensive lines of clothing sporting the same features. And, of course, there were many kids of affluent suburban parents who did everything they could to emulate these fashion role models, probably for quite a few bucks. (Then, of course, there is the matter of hip-hop fashion and how expensive it might be to look correctly "ghetto." But that’s almost too complicated for this downwardly mobile middle-aged white guy to think about.)
And then, recently, I read a very interesting passage from the current issue of Mute Magazine:
Another mode of expropriation is also occurring at a cultural level - the spectre of what at Mute we've been calling the 'shanty chic' aesthetic. As the bubble of convenience culture and technologised hyper-mediation numbs the cultural class, a vicarious worship of all things bricolaged, improvised and threadbare - read pauperised - has taken hold. The acid bath of poverty is the urbane consumer's psychic chemical peel of choice. This admiration has strayed from the art world into the culture industry in general - a new chain of restaurants in Paris and London shamelessly, almost unconsciously, named Favela Chic now serves up top-dollar cuisine at soup-kitchen style collective tables, overlooked by an artlessly bricolaged DJ booth. Meanwhile the spectacle of the South's slum dwellers is served up to the cinema goers of the North, mixing equal measures of desperation and glamorous dreams of life beyond the law.
But, really, I don’t know what to make of all this. Is it entirely a bad thing, or is it just something that is? Certainly, we can react with moral revulsion to the idea of really bored, affluent people making escapist fashion fantasies out of other people’s poverty. (Once again, I can’t help thinking of the Sex Pistols’ line, “A holiday in other people’s misery.”) But on the practical level, we might hope that some poor cultures will benefit, at least materially, from some more widespread public admiration of their music, their art, their architecture, etc. (Incidentally, when I think of music and Brazil's favelas, I am aware that I, myself, may be one of many people in a northern culture far outside of those favelas who are starting to develop an interest in their special brand of funk, thanks much, of course, to certain stars in the world of rock and hip-hop. And as revealed by one fascinating article that I stumbled upon from a year-old issue of The Oberserver, there are a few people anyway who will be able to get beyond an awful life in an awful ghetto, thanks to this growing international interest in their music.)
Additionally, while corny movies might romanticize the "outlaw" life of Third World slum dwellers without daring to approach any real political or class-conscious analysis, we can always hope that some of these fictions will inspire a few people to delve into the subject and actually pursue some real analysis or even pertinent action further down that road.
Or would it be positively naïve to assume that any real benefits can come out of this perverse "cultural expropriation" from the poor?
Honestly, I can’t decide on an answer to that one; it just leaves me kind of stumped.
Comments:
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Great post. This phenomenon happens a lot here in the U.S. Think of all of the white folks who have some Indian grandparent or Nuage types who "adopt the Indian Way of Life". The so-called "benefits" of doing this is basically developing denial about one's being part of a kleptocracy; we all know how blissful ignorance can be. The thinking goes: if I can emulate those who lack my own privelage, I can feel better about my status, no?
I've asked black folks what they think of the "whigger" phenomenon and for the most part, "it's better than 30 years ago" is the usual response. And it's true, but it's certainly not what it could/should be (who the hell knows who Huey P. Newton is anymore?)...
Cultural appropriation is one thing, but cultural appropriation without history is far, far worse.
I've asked black folks what they think of the "whigger" phenomenon and for the most part, "it's better than 30 years ago" is the usual response. And it's true, but it's certainly not what it could/should be (who the hell knows who Huey P. Newton is anymore?)...
Cultural appropriation is one thing, but cultural appropriation without history is far, far worse.
Thanks for the comment, no. 6, and for the compliment.
All points well taken, but one thing I am wondering is, while we may have ethical problems with this sort of appropriation, when and how can we say that it's really a completely negative thing? Most of all speaking in practical, material terms.
If people go around emulating a certain culture, then one can hope (perhaps naively) that this may slightly discourage the general tendency among others to look down on that culture or the people from whom it originated. And, as I was trying to get at in the post, this outside interest can result in a material advantage for at least a few people, and in the case of a group of people who are poor or oppressed, we might hope that it will encourage at least a few people from outside to look into, or even act upon, the conditions and causes of that oppression (maybe even with some kind of solidarity, we might hope).
Of course, appropriation in the market can be a more negative thing: E.g., lots of white people making money off of poor black people's music with many of the original poor black people simply not getting comparable credit or rewards. Certainly, this happened plenty with rock 'n' roll. But, on the other hand, I do think the society in general was greatly improved culturally by the widespread discovery of rock 'n' roll - which just wouldn't have happened without the appropriation by white people and the marketing that followed. (And all the "whigging' that went with it.) (We could say that maybe it could have happened differently if the whole system, hypothetically, were different, without the inherent racism and so forth - but given the cultural/historical conditions, etc., was this phenomenon really a bad thing for the culture overall?) (And, by the way, I guess we also can't forget the appropriation of the music of poor white people which was part of all that.)
And with hip-hop, too, I am kind of glad that it got picked up by a wider culture and more people know about that. (I may be a minority among middle-aged white guys who feel that way, but overall, I think it's a good thing.) Of course, once corporations caught on (and, some would say, once suburban white kids caught on), a lot of crap got peddled and a lot of good stuff seemed to get buried under the crap. But that's another complication...
With appropriation from world cultures, that's a very complicated thing. Getting back to the example of music, there are many more examples these days of people from a non-Western or non-northern culture getting direct cultural and financial credit for their contribution to "world" or "global" music compared to what there used to be. (Also, there is plenty of appropriation going the other way - music from our area being sampled and reprocessed somewhere else, then fed back to us in a different form, which people from our area will (re)appropriate, etc.) Although it does still usually boil down to exchange of commodities and the drive for profit, and which few, mostly northern, corporations control everything...
But in practical terms... If a trendy northern/western interest in music (or some other form of culture) originating from a foreign ghetto can cause a few people from that ghetto to have a better life, then is this whole phenomenon entirely bad? It's not what we're aiming for in terms of broader social change, but given the present conditions...
All points well taken, but one thing I am wondering is, while we may have ethical problems with this sort of appropriation, when and how can we say that it's really a completely negative thing? Most of all speaking in practical, material terms.
If people go around emulating a certain culture, then one can hope (perhaps naively) that this may slightly discourage the general tendency among others to look down on that culture or the people from whom it originated. And, as I was trying to get at in the post, this outside interest can result in a material advantage for at least a few people, and in the case of a group of people who are poor or oppressed, we might hope that it will encourage at least a few people from outside to look into, or even act upon, the conditions and causes of that oppression (maybe even with some kind of solidarity, we might hope).
Of course, appropriation in the market can be a more negative thing: E.g., lots of white people making money off of poor black people's music with many of the original poor black people simply not getting comparable credit or rewards. Certainly, this happened plenty with rock 'n' roll. But, on the other hand, I do think the society in general was greatly improved culturally by the widespread discovery of rock 'n' roll - which just wouldn't have happened without the appropriation by white people and the marketing that followed. (And all the "whigging' that went with it.) (We could say that maybe it could have happened differently if the whole system, hypothetically, were different, without the inherent racism and so forth - but given the cultural/historical conditions, etc., was this phenomenon really a bad thing for the culture overall?) (And, by the way, I guess we also can't forget the appropriation of the music of poor white people which was part of all that.)
And with hip-hop, too, I am kind of glad that it got picked up by a wider culture and more people know about that. (I may be a minority among middle-aged white guys who feel that way, but overall, I think it's a good thing.) Of course, once corporations caught on (and, some would say, once suburban white kids caught on), a lot of crap got peddled and a lot of good stuff seemed to get buried under the crap. But that's another complication...
With appropriation from world cultures, that's a very complicated thing. Getting back to the example of music, there are many more examples these days of people from a non-Western or non-northern culture getting direct cultural and financial credit for their contribution to "world" or "global" music compared to what there used to be. (Also, there is plenty of appropriation going the other way - music from our area being sampled and reprocessed somewhere else, then fed back to us in a different form, which people from our area will (re)appropriate, etc.) Although it does still usually boil down to exchange of commodities and the drive for profit, and which few, mostly northern, corporations control everything...
But in practical terms... If a trendy northern/western interest in music (or some other form of culture) originating from a foreign ghetto can cause a few people from that ghetto to have a better life, then is this whole phenomenon entirely bad? It's not what we're aiming for in terms of broader social change, but given the present conditions...
re: "one thing I am wondering is, while we may have ethical problems with this sort of appropriation, when and how can we say that it's really a completely negative thing? Most of all speaking in practical, material terms"
The way it affects us is that it is patronizing when the rich adopt our cultural trademarks. The poor only create culture because they are too poor to "buy" mass produced culture and entertainment.
The poor are afforded a sense of pride and dignity because we have created a unique identity and image from nothing...this bonds us to our community and our friends.
When the rich start to mass produce and consume our subcultural artifacts then those artifacts lose their meaning and symbolism, because they are being employed to symbolize wealth and privilege instead of individuality and community spirit.
If the poor were a corporation the poor would patent and copyright their inventions, then perhaps re-coup the research and development costs of creating cultural capital.
But in reality, the poor are just poor, existing organizations mass produce imitations and make millions while the poor receive nothing in return, in fact the poor lose because the symbols we created have been appropriated and are now used completely out of context by the mass media.
ie. products that once symbolized poverty now symbolize affluence. Hence the poor are forced to abandon those symbols because a: We can no longer afford them once they become boutique items and b: they no longer symbolize something unique to the subculture.
Hence the poor are forced constantly re-invent their culture so it can be once again be appropriated and stripped of meaning for consumption by those at the top of the economic hierarchy.
Communists Cuba hasn't benefited one cent from Che Guverea's image becoming a pop-culture fashion accessory. The only people who benefit are the people manufacturing the t-shirts and other merchandise. A great example of capitalism using socialist imagery to sell more product.
Another example, Dunlop Shoes. Used to cost 10 dollars because that's all they're worth because they're so poorly made. Suddenly they became fashionable and now cost 50 dollars. The rich can afford to buy a pair of shoes every week, but now the poor are left with the problem that Dunlops are now out of their price range, or no longer value for money. Hence the poor will have to find a new brand to be associated with.
Music is the same as fashion, as soon as a rapper gets out of the "ghetto" they immediately start promoting the values of white-affluent society, surrounding themselves with expensive cars, women and jewelery. At this point it becomes very hard to believe that these people who continue to sing about poverty and hardship actually know what they are talking about.
The way it affects us is that it is patronizing when the rich adopt our cultural trademarks. The poor only create culture because they are too poor to "buy" mass produced culture and entertainment.
The poor are afforded a sense of pride and dignity because we have created a unique identity and image from nothing...this bonds us to our community and our friends.
When the rich start to mass produce and consume our subcultural artifacts then those artifacts lose their meaning and symbolism, because they are being employed to symbolize wealth and privilege instead of individuality and community spirit.
If the poor were a corporation the poor would patent and copyright their inventions, then perhaps re-coup the research and development costs of creating cultural capital.
But in reality, the poor are just poor, existing organizations mass produce imitations and make millions while the poor receive nothing in return, in fact the poor lose because the symbols we created have been appropriated and are now used completely out of context by the mass media.
ie. products that once symbolized poverty now symbolize affluence. Hence the poor are forced to abandon those symbols because a: We can no longer afford them once they become boutique items and b: they no longer symbolize something unique to the subculture.
Hence the poor are forced constantly re-invent their culture so it can be once again be appropriated and stripped of meaning for consumption by those at the top of the economic hierarchy.
Communists Cuba hasn't benefited one cent from Che Guverea's image becoming a pop-culture fashion accessory. The only people who benefit are the people manufacturing the t-shirts and other merchandise. A great example of capitalism using socialist imagery to sell more product.
Another example, Dunlop Shoes. Used to cost 10 dollars because that's all they're worth because they're so poorly made. Suddenly they became fashionable and now cost 50 dollars. The rich can afford to buy a pair of shoes every week, but now the poor are left with the problem that Dunlops are now out of their price range, or no longer value for money. Hence the poor will have to find a new brand to be associated with.
Music is the same as fashion, as soon as a rapper gets out of the "ghetto" they immediately start promoting the values of white-affluent society, surrounding themselves with expensive cars, women and jewelery. At this point it becomes very hard to believe that these people who continue to sing about poverty and hardship actually know what they are talking about.
re: "one thing I am wondering is, while we may have ethical problems with this sort of appropriation, when and how can we say that it's really a completely negative thing? Most of all speaking in practical, material terms"
The way it affects us is that it is patronizing when the rich adopt our cultural trademarks. The poor only create culture because they are too poor to "buy" mass produced culture and entertainment.
The poor are afforded a sense of pride and dignity because we have created a unique identity and image from nothing...this bonds us to our community and our friends.
When the rich start to mass produce and consume our subcultural artifacts then those artifacts lose their meaning and symbolism, because they are being employed to symbolize wealth and privilege instead of individuality and community spirit.
If the poor were a corporation the poor would patent and copyright their inventions, then perhaps re-coup the research and development costs of creating cultural capital.
But in reality, the poor are just poor, existing organizations mass produce imitations and make millions while the poor receive nothing in return, in fact the poor lose because the symbols we created have been appropriated and are now used completely out of context by the mass media.
ie. products that once symbolized poverty now symbolize affluence. Hence the poor are forced to abandon those symbols because a: We can no longer afford them once they become boutique items and b: they no longer symbolize something unique to the subculture.
Hence the poor are forced constantly re-invent their culture so it can be once again be appropriated and stripped of meaning for consumption by those at the top of the economic hierarchy.
Communists Cuba hasn't benefited one cent from Che Guverea's image becoming a pop-culture fashion accessory. The only people who benefit are the people manufacturing the t-shirts and other merchandise. A great example of capitalism using socialist imagery to sell more product.
Another example, Dunlop Shoes. Used to cost 10 dollars because that's all they're worth because they're so poorly made. Suddenly they became fashionable and now cost 50 dollars. The rich can afford to buy a pair of shoes every week, but now the poor are left with the problem that Dunlops are now out of their price range, or no longer value for money. Hence the poor will have to find a new brand to be associated with.
Music is the same as fashion, as soon as a rapper gets out of the "ghetto" they immediately start promoting the values of white-affluent society, surrounding themselves with expensive cars, women and jewelery. At this point it becomes very hard to believe that these people who continue to sing about poverty and hardship actually know what they are talking about.
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The way it affects us is that it is patronizing when the rich adopt our cultural trademarks. The poor only create culture because they are too poor to "buy" mass produced culture and entertainment.
The poor are afforded a sense of pride and dignity because we have created a unique identity and image from nothing...this bonds us to our community and our friends.
When the rich start to mass produce and consume our subcultural artifacts then those artifacts lose their meaning and symbolism, because they are being employed to symbolize wealth and privilege instead of individuality and community spirit.
If the poor were a corporation the poor would patent and copyright their inventions, then perhaps re-coup the research and development costs of creating cultural capital.
But in reality, the poor are just poor, existing organizations mass produce imitations and make millions while the poor receive nothing in return, in fact the poor lose because the symbols we created have been appropriated and are now used completely out of context by the mass media.
ie. products that once symbolized poverty now symbolize affluence. Hence the poor are forced to abandon those symbols because a: We can no longer afford them once they become boutique items and b: they no longer symbolize something unique to the subculture.
Hence the poor are forced constantly re-invent their culture so it can be once again be appropriated and stripped of meaning for consumption by those at the top of the economic hierarchy.
Communists Cuba hasn't benefited one cent from Che Guverea's image becoming a pop-culture fashion accessory. The only people who benefit are the people manufacturing the t-shirts and other merchandise. A great example of capitalism using socialist imagery to sell more product.
Another example, Dunlop Shoes. Used to cost 10 dollars because that's all they're worth because they're so poorly made. Suddenly they became fashionable and now cost 50 dollars. The rich can afford to buy a pair of shoes every week, but now the poor are left with the problem that Dunlops are now out of their price range, or no longer value for money. Hence the poor will have to find a new brand to be associated with.
Music is the same as fashion, as soon as a rapper gets out of the "ghetto" they immediately start promoting the values of white-affluent society, surrounding themselves with expensive cars, women and jewelery. At this point it becomes very hard to believe that these people who continue to sing about poverty and hardship actually know what they are talking about.
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