orientalism

Hardly known for being tasteful, Victoria's Secret hit a new low earlier this month with its "Sexy Little Geisha" lingerie. As Nina Jacinto put it on Racialicious, "It’s the kind of overt racism masked behind claims of inspired fashion and exploring sexual fantasy that makes my skin crawl." This offensive cloud has a silver lining, however: Thanks to the power of the Internet and righteously pissed off consumers, the godawful bra, underwear, obi, and chopsticks(!?) set is no longer for sale.


What. The. Hell.

You know what I totally appreciate? Being called out when I am stupid! An exciting incidence of this occurred recently, on my Madonna post, where commenter Crys T notes: 

OK, on this point, I get why you're happy to have Madonna around. But it would be nice to see more recognition on the part of Anglo-American feminists on Madonna's extensive history of cultural appropriation. It's not just that she now buys African children (though even I never thought she'd become that monstrous), it's a very long history of exploiting, offending and therefore harming people from cultures that don't have much of a voice in the English-speaking world.

Which is a darn solid point! In that post, I made reference to Madonna's history of cultural appropriation, and that it gave me "serious pause." And then I just kind of breezed on by it like it was no big thing! Because apparently that was the day that I decided to be gross and obviously privileged, SORRY. Madonna's appropriation of other cultures definitely deserves to be addressed and critiqued at length, in its own post. A post such as this one, right here!  

Richard Bernstein thinks Asian women are attracted to Western men because they think colonialism is glamorous. And here I thought it was an exploitation thing.