Did Katy Perry just do a "geisha" performance at the American Music Awards? Yes. Complete with “geisha” costume (with slits up to the butt), stunted pseudo-Asian dance/walking, cartoon Kabuki makeup on her backup dancers, lots of fans, people in “Oriental” costumes beating drums, rice paper screens, and blown-up versions of the cheap paper umbrellas you put in your drinks.
Is it racist as fuck? Yes.
Is it the worst thing ever? Also yes.
Did the song have ANYTHING to do with Asian culture? No.
Is she the first pop princess to pull this shit? Absolutely not (for further reference, see Rihanna/Coldplay’s “Princess of China” and Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B. phase)
I’d just like to say that the actual definition of “racist” is: having or showing the belief that a particular race is superior to another.
And it is my personal opinion that Katy Perry was in no one making fun of or mocking “geisha” culture. She was closer to celebrating it if anything. If you can show actual racism from Katy, showing that white culture or anything else is “better” than this chinese culture she illustrated, THEN you can label it as racist. Tumblr is getting too crazy with all this racism stuff.
Actually Racism has many shades, tones and tints outside of that tired ass definition you probably got from an outdated dictionary.
Katy is exhibiting is a mix of cultural appropriation and fetishization in which she is not only talking traditional cultural garb and imagery from mostly Japanese culture though the whole show is just a cacophony of stereotypical ‘oriental’ shyt (like how you go call yourself a geisha THATS NOT EVEN WHAT GEISHAS WEAR) but also she’s clearly playing into the ‘exotic oriental beauty’ stereotype that is usually put onto Asian women for the western ( and usually male) gaze.
Its racist because as a white person Katy is
- playing into dehumanizing stereotypes about asian women and using their culture as a way to make her self look ‘exotic’ and ‘alluring’ reinforcing racist orientalist ideals.
- exhibiting that age old imperialist behavior in which she a white person feels she can take what ever she wants from PoC culture and play around using their traditions for her personal game dress up. Not to mention she doesn’t take the culture seriously enough to actually learn about so she could steal the shyt properly. She just slapped together whatever looked ‘Asian’ to her and called it geisha.
That in itself is an act of white supremacy because it shows she thinks she above respecting cultural traditions of PoC which is a tell tale sign of racism. It also shows she don’t think its important to even portray it correctly because as long as it looks the way she wants it to look she can call it ‘geisha’ and its fine. Heck that even fits right in with the ‘asserting your race as better than other races’ concept you were mentioning. Its also important to note that she is a major fetishizer of Asian (specifically Japanese) culture as she has even said her self on national television that she wanted to skin Japanese people alive so she could wear their skin.
So over all if your going to try and tell people they can’t call something racist you should probably learn what racism actually is outside of your ‘my first dictionary’ definition.
Otherwise your going to end up lookin like a fool
like you do know.
ALL YOU PEOPLE ON TUMBLR ANNOY ME SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ALL NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK UP
crying
for people who needed a better explanation of the fuckery that I was too exhausted/pissed off to give