REPRESENTATION: ISSUES

We tackle issues raised when analysing representation today: 

Language issues. The Spastics Society to Scope: The story of the name change and relaunch November 1994. 

• People with cerebral palsy, particularly younger adults living moreindependently in the community, reaffirmed their disquiet over the continuing use of the word ‘spastic’ in our name. 
• Parents of children and adults with cerebral palsy also expressed reservations in many instances. It was particularly worrying that a significant number of younger parents had chosen not to seek the services of The Spastics Society to avoid their child being associated with the stigmatising label.
• Most staff and volunteers expressed pride and support for the organisation for whom they worked but had reservations about the word ‘spastic’ in the name – some to the extent that they would be reluctant to say the name of the organisation they worked for when asked.
• Individual and corporate donors were reluctant to link the name with their bran

Analysing diversity
Lenny Henry draws attention to the lack of diversity in UK television and film, and the failure of broadcasters to reflect ethnically diverse Britain in their representations.

Cultural Appropriation 

• is the term for the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of another culture, such as the representations in The Black and White Minstrels Show.
  Article 31 1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states:
  Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.
• In the UK, there have been objections to representations of other cultures in university balls. For instance, a Japanese-themed ball at Cambridge University was scrapped and Cambridge University was embroiled in a race row after students complained about an African-themed dinner which was based on the Lion King and invited guests to "Bring your Rafikis along". Some students called for a boycott of the traditional end-of-year event because it represents 'cultural appropriation' rather than appreciation.
• In 2016, author Lionel Shriver gave a speech^[97] at the Brisbane Writers Festival, asserting the right of authors to write from any point of view, including that of characters from cultural backgrounds other than their own – as writers "should be seeking to push beyond the constraining categories into which we have been arbitrarily dropped by birth. If we embrace narrow group-based identities too fiercely, we cling to the very cages in which others would seek to trap us." She also asserted the right of authors from a cultural majority to write in the voice of someone from a cultural minority, attacking the idea that this constitutes unethical "cultural appropriation". Referring to a case in which American college students were facing disciplinary action for wearing sombreros to a 'tequila party', she said "The moral of the sombrero scandals is clear: you're not supposed to try on other people's hats. Yet that’s what we’re paid to do, isn't it? Step into other people's shoes, and try on their hats." During the speech, Australian social activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied walked out.^[98] In a subsequent opinion piece published in The Guardian, Abdel-Magied called the speech "a poisoned package wrapped up in arrogance and delivered with condescension". She argued that "marginalised groups, even today, do not get the luxury of defining their own place in a norm that is profoundly white, straight and, often, patriarchal. And in demanding that the right to identity should be given up, Shriver epitomised the kind of attitude that led to the normalisation of imperialist, colonial rule: 'I want this, and therefore I shall take it.' The attitude drips of racial supremacy ..."^[99]

This reproduction of a 1900 William H. West minstrel show poster, originally published by the Strobridge Litho Co., shows the transformation of a white American actor using blackface makeup. Blackface was both a cultural appropriation of African-American culture and way of portraying racist stereotypes.

Describing ethnicity

• Historical terms for people of colour or black people are now considered offensive because of their connotations, for example, the taint of slavery. Racist terms give offence: we discuss some examples in class.