Orientalism or Cultural Appreciation?

Orientalism is used by people in the West to separate themselves from people in other regions of the world, specifically the East. It labels people in the East as “others”, by promoting stereotypes and generalizations about that part of the world and its culture. Many Western Pop Culture artists have incorporated Orientalism into their music and music vidoes by incorporating aspects of Asian culture in a way that makes them out to be exotic, glamorous, and over sexualized instead of representing them in the way they were created for. One specific artist, Nicki Minaj’s 2010 single "Your Love" and her more recent "Chun- Li" give almost undeniable examples and evidence for Said’s theory. Back in 2010, Minaj’s debut album featured lyrics and a costume design that showed just how unaware she was of Eastern cultures and the significance and history behind certain people and items that she was referencing. One of Nicki’s mistakes in her song come in the lyrics “I was a Geisha, he was a Samurai. Somehow I understood him when he spoke Thai”. She is saying that the Samurai mentioned, spoke Thai when In fact samurai’s are part of Japanese culture and would most likely not be speaking that language. This shows that Minaj did not take the time to separate, understand, and appreciate the cultures she was referencing. She took two distinct cultures and histories and categorized them as one. Secondly, Minaj’s costume choice in this music video is another problematic aspect of the way Westerns view Eastern cultures. Minaj dresess as an oversexualized geisha, diminishing the history and its real meaning in their culture. The mistakes shown in this one music video show her goal was not to take the time to use her work as a way to appreciate and acknowledge other cultures because she is referencing them in a way that shows her ignorance to their real customs, beliefs, and way of functioning. It was as if she was using their culture for a storyline because she thought it looked pretty. Our ability to repeatedly misrepresent and possibly offend those of different cultures shows our ignorance and disregard for them because too often we do not take the proper time to explore and honor other cultures and this comes at the expense of actual people.