Celebrities have started to play a large role in influencing people’s daily lives. A celebrity can help make a change in the world due to their immense following, but some struggle with how to send the right message. In recent years a large social media outbreak has surrounded the topic of cultural appropriation and the role celebrities play in it. Cultural appropriation is defined as the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.
Many celebrities have been accused of cultural appropriation, including Selena Gomez and Karlie Kloss. Selena Gomez was accused of cultural appropriation when she wore a bindi on her forehead during one of her concerts as a fashion statement. The backlash to this was that the bindi is an ancient Hindu tradition and holds a religious significance. Hindu leaders felt as if the singer had failed to acknowledge this fact and had decided to wear the bindi to seem more seductive and fashion trendy. Hindu statesman Rajan Zed was pretty public about his feelings about Selena wearing the bindi. He too felt it was wildly inappropriate for her to have worn the bindi for fashion purposes. Selena is one of many celebrities who has worn the bindi and has been criticized for doing so. The problem with the bindi wearing is that all the people wearing it are not doing it for the right reasons. They are not doing so to learn more about the bindi’s meaning but instead disregard the history behind the bindi and wear it to look more trendy. Another public display of cultural appropriation occurred when Karlie Kloss wore a Native American headdress during a Victoria Secret fashion show. After people caught wind of the outfit they were outraged and the outfit was then removed from the show and the pictures were removed from the Getty. Victoria Secret reps quickly apologized for their foul decisions and Karlie also took to twitter to send an apology. The problem with Karlie wearing this headpiece has to do with the fact that Native Americans have been removed from their own land and forced to live in reservations away from everyone else in order to maintain their culture as is. Native Americans have been neglected for years from the rest of the US population and their culture has been looked down on by many people. Many people fail to acknowledge all the horrible things that have been done to Native Americans but are quick to take their cultural style as costumes. Victoria Secret allowing the headpiece in their show is one of many examples of Native American cultural appropriation. Although Victoria Secret took responsibility for their wrongdoing they continue to take part in cultural appropriation in their shows.
The problem with so many celebrities engaging in issues regarding cultural appropriation is the fact that they neglect to accept how they are in a place of privilege that gives them an opportunity to make a difference, but fail to do so. When they are called out for their culture appropriation, they fail to acknowledge what they had done wrong in the first place. Although some celebrities do apologize for what they have done, they continue to do so which means they did not learn from their past experiences or they simply do not care. If celebrities tried to understand and embrace other cultures in a different, more positive manner they could help shape the minds of the youth who look up to them. As educated college students it is our job to be well informed to try to prevent cultural appropriation. We should be able to acknowledged that cultural appropriation exists and that it stems from a place of ignorance.