Post #776287 by Ragbag Comics on Thu, May 25, 2017 2:43 PM

I just typed out a whole buncha crap on Facebook... I am re-editing and elaborating here, because I am really enjoying this thread (and... TC...)

I guess what bothers me when the "cultural appropriation" word gets brought up is, what is your INTENT in your decor, and in what oceanic artifacts (or other Tiki stuff, new or old) you bring into your home?

What about the spread of actual, honest-to-god KNOWLEDGE and RESPECT for a culture, its art, and its people, that has been kickstarted in some of us through an overarching love of Tiki and might not otherwise ever happen?

I can say, I know a helluva lot more about Papua New Guinea, Hawaiian folklore, and the art/cultural heritage of Fiji, the Marquesas islands, et al, than I ever would have probably dug into if I wasn't interested in Tiki first. If you can appreciate a piece of Oceanic art as ART, I feel you are more likely to want to LEARN (I am anyway) about where it came from, the people who made it, and why it exists. I don't personally see a difference between having a cocktail and admiring a beautiful Marquesan carving and somebody having a cocktail and admiring a landscape painting or something... You're appreciating the art and the craft of it. If you know where it came from and why it exists and can appreciate it for what it is in the larger context of it being something that someone MADE and brought into the world to be looked at and appreciated. With that, the art piece you're looking at and appreciating, you are undoubtedly appreciating because it conjures certain feelings inside of you that you enjoy. I think that's where the importance lies, personally.

And with that, how many (hundreds?) of artists have been INSPIRED by Oceanic art and culture to make their own ART? From Gaugin, to Witco, to Bumatay, to Hedley up to Bosko and Crazy Al (and Lake Surfer... Hi Dave!) Is THAT cultural appropriation? I don't see how it possibly could be... there's nothing disrespectful about it. To the contrary, these art pieces are made with the UTMOST respect and reverence for the source material and the people who first created their carvings before the marching Christian soldiers came along and all but obliterated native culture. This is ART inspired by an Polynesian person's CULTURE... isn't that the pinnacle of respect and maybe even flattery? I'm a white dude in Wisconsin in my mid-30's, so I maybe can't speak to how actual Polynesian and Oceanic peoples would feel about some of these things, but personally I would think you would be HAPPY to know there are these folks out there appreciating your culture in a way they might not have otherwise known about it. Is the gateway that got them there (whether walking around the Field Museum or in a Tiki bar) really that important?

I know I'm coming at this one sided, because when you have clown Tikis or Tikis wearing sunglasses and flip flops with a sign that says "TIKI SAYS RELAX!" or steam punk Tiki mugs or fezzes or pink gorillas or Star Wars Tiki mugs or... whatever... there is undoubtedly a much stronger argument to be made about respect to the source material. Or what constitutes "art" or a "tribute" or "reverence." With all this stuff... my personal feeling is it's fun and goofy or stupid or whatever. To each their own... how a Polynesian person might view that, I don't know. They likely have every right to be a little agog about it. But again, what's the intent? Is it borne from a love of Tiki and just having some fun with it (a gentle ribbing, maybe), or is it meant to be mocking or cheap or "cashing in?"

I am also very much into Sideshow and Circus history, and more oddball ethnographic stuff like what Robert Ripley was doing in the 1930's and 40's. Was writing a cartoon about Tsantsa shrunken heads or making a newsreel about the "giraffe necked women" of Burma explotative? Sure... that could be argued. But going back to my original point it's the INTENT... Ripley wasn't making these things (and Barnum didn't start his sideshows) to LAUGH AT or MOCK people or other cultures... they had a genuine interest in other cultures and far-flung parts of the world, and in people different than them... the mysteries of the world and of nature itself, and had they not documented certain aspects of it during the time they were alive, in the ways they knew how, think of all of the things we may never have actually known about, or had any real documentation of. It's the intent... Were there braying morons who went to point and mock and look down upon, of course, but that's because there are awful people everywhere.

Two more quick points and I'll turn over the lecturn (ha...)

One, Swanky had mentioned (either here or on Facebook) the point about the Redskins, and how saying "just relax and have a Mai Tai" is no different than a Redskins fan saying "just have a beer and relax." I absolutely agree with that, though if we're looking at something like the Redskins (a universally accepted derogatory term for indigenous peoples applied to a football team) and Tiki (in the modern context, a blanket term for a lot of different parts of a subculture, in the traditional context, the name for the "First Man" in Maori mythology or a god throughout Polynesian cultures... not derogatory in the least, just perhaps being mis-applied) I see this as an altogether different thing. If someone is LEARNING about Oceanic and Polynesian cultures in WHATEVER way that is, via Tiki, or creating art based on those cultures and a reverence for them, that is very different than a football fan... I seriously doubt there are Redskins fans who so love the team they are motivated to learn about Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest. That's me being a nerd, sure, 'cuz are there a lot of people into Tiki who don't give three wet shits about the history or Oceanic culture or the more curatorial, museological aspect? Damn straight... a lot of 'em, no doubt... but that is hardly representative of the entire subculture of people into "Tiki."

...Second thing...

All this stuff stems from museums. The history of natural history museums (I can recommend a fantastic book about this topic for anyone interested) is the story of "Say, look at this interesting thing I found" and showing it to people. The Sideshow was born there. Journalism was born there. And, arguably, Tiki decor was born there... The set designers and decorators who inadvertently created the pillars of what we might call original "authentic tiki" (the "jumbo shrimp" of our conversation) saw artifacts on travels or in museums and they wanted that curatorial feel to have a level of "authentic" escapism... to try and conjure that sense of other lands, other cultures. Maybe that's two points in there... I'm rambly today.

To repeat the point after typing out a huge post most people will probably not read, it's the INTENT of the thing, and what you do with it.

--Pete