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Hymn for the Weekend is being criticised for misusing Indian culture (BBC)


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A bit beyond ridiculous accusing one minority (Beyoncé being African American) of oppressing another "non-white" culture. Honestly I think it's gone from senseless to ridiculous.

 

I think they might have been trying to say "Western Culture" in general. She may be a black woman but she's still from the West. She's not directly from Africa.

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I think they might have been trying to say "Western Culture" in general. She may be a black woman but she's still from the West. She's not directly from Africa.

 

So if the video had been shot in Africa they would have accused Beyoncé of appropriating her own ethnic culture? Lol I actually think they would have. I think if you're intent on finding something you will , even if it's not the truth. We all know neither Beyoncé nor Coldplay had any other intention but to celebrate the Indian culture but these people will find faults even when they are nowhere to be found...

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So if the video had been shot in Africa they would have accused Beyoncé of appropriating her own ethnic culture? Lol I actually think they would have. I think if you're intent on finding something you will , even if it's not the truth. We all know neither Beyoncé nor Coldplay had any other intention but to celebrate the Indian culture but these people will find faults even when they are nowhere to be found...

True true.

 

What makes people really mad about this is that they say lots of Indian people get abused and made fun of for wearing the traditional garments, practicing and celebrating their culture in Western society, but the moment Coldplay and Beyonce sport it off, it's cool. I dunno it kinda seems valid to me. It isn't really fair, and I know LIFE ISNT FAIR but... I think the band really needs to be careful next time.

 

 

I was actually wondering how people would feel if Coldplay were from India. They would probably react in the same manner like you said. lol

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I dunno man, I haven't heard Paradise video are in controversy for cultural appropriation. The band clearly made elephants experience human cultures like outfits and unicycle. Clearly elephants were oppressed by humans even until now

 

I'm not saying Indians are like elephants (so sorry if this sounds like that).... but I'm just making a point that this is all ridiculous

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I think the band really needs to be careful next time.

 

Hell naw. I bet they were extra careful with this video already by the looks of it. They just show some parts of India that most of the Westerners recognise and associate with India, and that's it. Almost everybody knows the Holi festival by now with the colour throwing around, a few of the Gods and Goddesses and that India is a huge country with a LOT of cultures and traditions mixed together. And that's what this video (IMO) basically conveys.

But it seems like Coldplay are only allowed to shoot a video in a white room (oh no wait that's racist) with zero background images (forget it they are mocking the concept of images how rUDE) because there will always be some asshat that dislikes something or throws some of that useless cultural appreciation crap at their faces to feel important :wacko:

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True true.

 

What makes people really mad about this is that they say lots of Indian people get abused and made fun of for wearing the traditional garments, practicing and celebrating their culture in Western society, but the moment Coldplay and Beyonce sport it off, it's cool. I dunno it kinda seems valid to me. It isn't really fair, and I know LIFE ISNT FAIR but... I think the band really needs to be careful next time.

 

 

I was actually wondering how people would feel if Coldplay were from India. They would probably react in the same manner like you said. lol

 

I´ve never once seen anyone making fun of an indian person for wearing their traditional garments! Now, granted...,some ass***** are to be found everywhere, but we are talking here of a systematic discrimination/ridicule that these people writing these articles seem to believe exist, which is just completely unfounded and untrue! I did mention this earlier, but I did do an in-depth research into this recent "pc movement" and it does have its own agenda...not the common good, lets leave it at that.

 

Moreover this CA thing draws one conclusion then. That I, as a citizen of the West and/or as a person of white colour, am not allowed to use any other cultures´elements (garments or else) because this automatically means Im doing it to spite them. This is the very definition of racism and discrimination: judging a person preemptively based on where one comes from or what skin one has. Ironically their premises are the very same things they claim to fight against....

 

I´d like to add one more thing. Draco mentions that they need to be careful...unfortunately this is not about Coldplay (I wish it were just a few incidents) but its everywhere. No matter what you do, the smallest thing becomes fodder for the pc crowd. It has grown out of proportion. It was not like this only a few years ago...so this is not Coldplay fault. Matter of fact I´d say they do well by not "caving in" to these absurdities. They should stand by their celebration of indian culture and their absolute right to do so...

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To be very very honest, me being an INDIAN myself have not seen even a single indian person get offended by the video. (So far)

Idk why people are debating so much.

The media creates the hype and we get hyped.

True they showed the more 'poor' regions of the country but the way they presented it does nothing else but make it look beautiful.

They wanted to showcase colours and beauty of the country and they did it the best way. No complaints at all.

I see no indian getting riled up with the video. We totally welcome the video and we love coldplay to our cores.

Totslly cool with the video.

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To be very very honest, me being an INDIAN myself have not seen even a single indian person get offended by the video. (So far)

Idk why people are debating so much.

The media creates the hype and we get hyped.

True they showed the more 'poor' regions of the country but the way they presented it does nothing else but make it look beautiful.

They wanted to showcase colours and beauty of the country and they did it the best way. No complaints at all.

I see no indian getting riled up with the video. We totally welcome the video and we love coldplay to our cores.

Totslly cool with the video.

 

Thank you for posting this. It´s also my impression that people actually belonging to the culture they accuse of appropriating usually feel the same way we do about it, that is as a homage and a flattering thing instead!

And I think showing the "poor" regions was probably a good thing in terms of showing a realistic India, but showing beauty despite the poverty/challenges as you mentioned.

 

Glad you guys are happy about the video! It certainly had a very positive impact on me watching it, had the effect of making me want to visit soon! hehe

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So for example we are blamed for not featuring the right amount of other races in the Oscars, but Bollywood is "allowed" to be all indian.

I am sorry but you should research before making such claims.

I guess a handful of our female actors are from England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Czech, USA, and other parts of the world.

Moreover many male actors are pakistani citizens who constantly feature in bollywood films.

Secondly, OSCARS have the status of being a representative of a GLOVBAL film award which gives ground for the debate on people of a particular race being given more preference.

You can't compare the Oscars and Bollywood.

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I am sorry but you should research before making such claims.

I guess a handful of our female actors are from England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Czech, USA, and other parts of the world.

Moreover many male actors are pakistani citizens who constantly feature in bollywood films.

Secondly, OSCARS have the status of being a representative of a GLOVBAL film award which gives ground for the debate on people of a particular race being given more preference.

You can't compare the Oscars and Bollywood.

 

Im not saying Bollywood does not represent other races (I have no way of knowing this, being ignorant about bollywood movies and apologise if my post implied that), but Im saying that people in India are not being checked about whether they fulfill certain quotas of representation or not in terms of races/gender/etc in their movies. As far as Im concerned only the west seems to be the focus of this.

 

And Im not sure Oscars represent a global film award...in fact they do have a section specific for foreign movies. The Oscars are a prize given, as far as I know, from people in the industry to people of the industry in the USA. There are other prizes in Europe which have different focus and often feature more local movies. We also have a danish film festival in Denmark , etc :)

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I´ve never once seen anyone making fun of an indian person for wearing their traditional garments! Now, granted...,some ass***** are to be found everywhere, but we are talking here of a systematic discrimination/ridicule that these people writing these articles seem to believe exist, which is just completely unfounded and untrue! I did mention this earlier, but I did do an in-depth research into this recent "pc movement" and it does have its own agenda...not the common good, lets leave it at that.

 

Moreover this CA thing draws one conclusion then. That I, as a citizen of the West and/or as a person of white colour, am not allowed to use any other cultures´elements (garments or else) because this automatically means Im doing it to spite them. This is the very definition of racism and discrimination: judging a person preemptively based on where one comes from or what skin one has. Ironically their premises are the very same things they claim to fight against....

 

I´d like to add one more thing. Draco mentions that they need to be careful...unfortunately this is not about Coldplay (I wish it were just a few incidents) but its everywhere. No matter what you do, the smallest thing becomes fodder for the pc crowd. It has grown out of proportion. It was not like this only a few years ago...so this is not Coldplay fault. Matter of fact I´d say they do well by not "caving in" to these absurdities. They should stand by their celebration of indian culture and their absolute right to do so...

 

Yeah. And artistic freedom is being oppressed. I recall a nice song by The Vapors called "Turning Japanese", which was more symbolic about growing up. If it was released now it would have gotten a really shitty reaction.

 

And thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy here. We have a mob mentality that poisons social media and gets everyone turning a certain direction like ducklings following a mother duck that don't bother to question anything... And we wonder why the masses get so easily brainwashed. In the end it's best to think for yourself and do more research. Take your own stand, even if it's unpopular.

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Yeah. And artistic freedom is being oppressed. I recall a nice song by The Vapors called "Turning Japanese", which was more symbolic about growing up. If it was released now it would have gotten a really shitty reaction.

 

And thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy here. We have a mob mentality that poisons social media and gets everyone turning a certain direction like ducklings following a mother duck that don't bother to question anything... And we wonder why the masses get so easily brainwashed. In the end it's best to think for yourself and do more research. Take your own stand, even if it's unpopular.

 

I agree about freedom being oppressed. And yes its hard to take a stand in an environment of mob mentality as you call it, especially where voices of dissent against the status quo are quickly silenced with gratuitous monickers & labels. I remember a good saying about "my personal freedom ends where yours begins". Its not always easy to see where that line goes, and sometimes we are tricked into believing something is good and not even realise its oppressing us. Its all very tricky and all too easy to be misled and you almost need a map to navigate through it!

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i thought this is a well thought out piece, from an indian.

 

 

Viewpoint: Is India's outrage over Coldplay justified?

By Sandip RoyKolkata

_88027897_gettyimages-500445944.jpgImage copyrightGetty Images

Image captionChris Martin starts out as a normal wide-eyed white tourist

In 1492 Christopher Columbus was looking for India. In 2016 Christopher Martin aka Chris Martin discovered it.

 

Coldplay's music video

featuring Beyoncé has made landfall and it seems to have broken the Indian internet.

 

It is the great Western discovery of Incredible India all over again. Age cannot wither her nor Coldplay stale her infinite variety.

 

Every cliché has found its way into the video except perhaps the Taj Mahal. There are peacocks and Bharatanatyam dancers, yellow and black taxis, saffron-clad holy men, their robes in slow-mo full flow.

 

In director Ben Mor's vision it is as if a locust swarm of candy-coloured M&Ms is splattered all over India.

 

"When you take a closer look at India, surrealism and psychedelia immediately come to mind, at least to mine," says Mr Mor.

 

No wonder the taxi has psychedelic interiors. The temple seems to be made out of marshmallow. The boats are candy-striped as they head out into a firework sunset.

 

Cultural appropriation?

But it's still not colour saturation enough for the good people of India who play Holi all day long, dousing each other in great joyous rainbow showers.

 

Chris Martin starts out as a normal wide-eyed white tourist, the sort that sticks his head out of a taxi-cab to inhale the wonders of India.

 

By the end he's soaked in the colour a little too literally, as if a children's sit-and-draw competition trampled all over him.

 

First-world citizens are often transformed by their "India experience". Some find spirituality. Some find drugs. Some find the Marabar caves. Chris Martin finds Technicolor and he becomes in the end, if not a person of colour, at least a more colourful person.

 

Pump up the colour saturation. This is eat, pray, love in the age of Instagram.

 

Many Indians have not been amused. Et tu, Coldplay?

 

Hybrid Hues writes: "Coldplay, y'all are British. India was under British occupation less than 70 years ago. So that makes the idea of you talking about "feeling drunk and high" over the felicitations of our children a million times worse. Respect our space in re-establishing our identity and the nation's healing process."

 

And Beyonce, how could you go down the path of cultural appropriation?

 

In the video she turns into a Bollywood queen, doing her thing against an eye-popping wall of flowers.

 

_88027902_gettyimages-491503802.jpgImage copyrightGetty Images

Image caption'Pump up the colour saturation. This is eat, pray, love in the age of Instagram'

_88027518_gettyimages-465482252.jpgImage copyrightAFP

Image captionIndians in the video seem to play Holi all day long, dousing each other in great joyous rainbow showers

Actually, given that Bollywood likes its heroines fair and lovely (and the fairer the better), Beyoncé as a Bollywood queen is unintentionally a cheeky bit of subversive casting across the colourline.

 

But the wall of multi-coloured flowers makes the whole spectacle look more like a colour-blindness test than colour-blind casting.

 

Sensory onslaught

Anyway, is Beyoncé as Bollywood diva as much cultural appropriation as Madonna doing the same? These notions are contextual, hardly cast in stone.

 

Thus Chinese artist Ai Weiwei closing his eyes and lying face down on a rocky beachin Lesbos is a tribute to a drowned Syrian toddler rather than cultural exploitation because it is Ai doing it. A Manhattan artist might not have got away with it.

 

Coldplay's video is all very Indo-chic and ethno-cool but the Twitterati doth protest too much about cultural appropriation.

 

If Coldplay can be accused of anything, it's being a little too swept away by India's sensory onslaught.

 

Their India is trapped in a tourist-friendly time-warp of hand puppets and simple happy natives. There's not a mobile phone in sight. But give them some credit, there's not a snake charmer in sight either. This is more a wide-eyed valentine to India than an exercise in stereotyping.

 

Cultural appropriation is when Madonna wears a bindi (a bright dot of red colour applied in the centre of the forehead) because it's cool but an Indian aunty with a bindi is still a "dothead" - slang for a South Asian person - somewhere.

 

Cultural appropriation is when some company puts Hindu Gods on slippers and toilet seats because they are bright and colourful, more Disney than divine.

 

And as this article points out, "cultural appropriation is when Bollywood's own Helen dances before a man in blackface in Intaquam and Priyanka Chopra plays Manipuri boxer Mary Kom. Or Bollywood composers are not even conscious that they are "appropriating" the songs of others.

 

_88027895_gettyimages-492051128.jpgImage copyrightGetty Images

Of course, Bollywood's insensitivity toward depicting other cultures and races should not be a free pass for Coldplay to do the same.

 

Yes, in the video India is a brightly coloured palette once again for Westerners to get their mojo back, its urchins are happy "slumdogs" prancing around a rich singing millionaire.

 

But, at least Martin is not playing the Western saviour who comes to India to lift the poor natives out of their leprous darkness like Patrick Swayze in The City of Joy.

 

Nor does he chant Sanskrit verses the way Iggy Azalea channels Southern black hip-hop, despite being white and Australian.

 

'Western gaze'

The larger problem the entire furore reveals is not just how thin-skinned we can be, prone to screaming cultural appropriation at the drop of a Selena Gomez bindi but how susceptible we still remain to the power of the Western gaze.

 

Indians still care too much about how we are reflected in the West's golden eye.

 

When an editorial in the New York Times or The Economist critiques the prime minister Indians go apoplectic as they huff "Who cares?" The same Indians are over the moon when those same publications say anything laudatory about the same prime minister.

 

Our anxiety about how the world sees us makes us ultra sensitive to a video like this.

 

Some, like Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor, who has a blink-and-you-missed it cameo scattering flowers, tweets: "A story to tell my grandkids! I was in a Coldplay video! Woo hoo! #biggestfan."

 

At the other extreme people rail angrily about cultural appropriation and Orientalism.

 

Both are overreactions.

 

But really, someone please tell all those tourists getting ready to come to India from drab bed-sit apartments in grey European towns after watching the video, that we don't play Holi all year round. We are too busy listening to Coldplay.

 

bbc

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Interesting article making several reflections. However I think it´d be good to point out that Hymn for the Weekend video , while honouring some Indian elements Coldplay certainly found inspiring, is not meant to be a "100% accurate tourist video" of India hehe So of course they are free to select and depict the elements they found inspiring or relevant for the video. I don't believe any of us expect indians to "play Holi all year around" just because we see it in the music video *lol*

 

There are elements in each culture that tend to stand out and people keep talking about it, like The Little Mermaid and HC Andersen for Danes hehe I think its fine, I don't think stereotype is always synonymous with negative. However I disagree about chanting sanskrit hehe I think anyone should be allowed to do that if they are inspired by it as long as the inspiration is genuine, as for everything else. And about his Madonna quote, the thing thats wrong there is not that Madonna wears a bindi but that an "indian aunty" is made fun of for wearing it. The latter we should all stand against, but without demonising the former for no reason.

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Interesting article making several reflections. However I think it´d be good to point out that Hymn for the Weekend video , while honouring some Indian elements Coldplay certainly found inspiring, is not meant to be a "100% accurate tourist video" of India hehe So of course they are free to select and depict the elements they found inspiring or relevant for the video. I don't believe any of us expect indians to "play Holi all year around" just because we see it in the music video *lol*

This ohmygod!!!!!!!! Like how dumb do you think people who see that video are?! I don't see India as a whole here, and there's no rule anywhere that says that whenever you talk about a specific culture, you have to show all of it in its complexity and depth. Geez.

Also this is all another proof that people can never be satisfied. Coldplay are always considered to be almost too nice, too inoffensive ("bland" is the term that comes the most in negative reviews afterall), yet somehow here they're super rude and offensive?! It seems that the only thing certain for people is that they dislike Coldplay. The reason why they do, though, depends on whatever new stuff gets mentioned in the media. Ugh. Can't people just let them be?

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It seems that the only thing certain for people is that they dislike Coldplay. The reason why they do, though, depends on whatever new stuff gets mentioned in the media. Ugh. Can't people just let them be?

Exactly. I was reading an article about Coldplay doing the halftime show and one of the comments was literal cancer. He said "The problem Coldplay is that they don't change their style artistically" and I explained to him how they have, for better or worse changed completely. Then he completely abandoned his first argument and moved on to general Coldplay bashing.

If you don't like something for no particular reason, it's okay. Just don't make up BS reasons to act like your opinion is legitement criticism.

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Exactly. I was reading an article about Coldplay doing the halftime show and one of the comments was literal cancer. He said "The problem Coldplay is that they don't change their style artistically" and I explained to him how they have, for better or worse changed completely. Then he completely abandoned his first argument and moved on to general Coldplay bashing.

If you don't like something for no particular reason, it's okay. Just don't make up BS reasons to act like your opinion is legitement criticism.

 

As an outsider, sometimes I feel about other bands too. Whenever I listen to their stuff it can occasionally sound all the same to me (I know I haven't listened to it in depth, but still). Whether or not the styles differ depends on the ear and the brain deciphering it. All bands have their own "thang" and music is such a subjective thing. Plus in my opinion Coldplay's style changed, but maybe not to a great extent. There are many elements technical wise that have remained consistent, like the overall use of repetitive chords, those one note melodies, how the music swells and dips (there's always a certain pattern in it that I also see in other bands they have taken influence from), vague lyrical styles, dynamic changes (included in swelling and dipping), staying within certain tempos and not taking the most extreme experimental jumps, maybe with a few exceptions (which is why I like Kaleidoscope)... But not much. In my view the critic kinda has a point. Although they should have explained it further.

 

Sorry for the long explanation.

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As an outsider, sometimes I feel about other bands too. Whenever I listen to their stuff it can occasionally sound all the same to me (I know I haven't listened to it in depth, but still). Whether or not the styles differ depends on the ear and the brain deciphering it. All bands have their own "thang" and music is such a subjective thing. Plus in my opinion Coldplay's style changed, but maybe not to a great extent. There are many elements technical wise that have remained consistent, like the overall use of repetitive chords, those one note melodies, how the music swells and dips (there's always a certain pattern in it that I also see in other bands they have taken influence from), vague lyrical styles, dynamic changes (included in swelling and dipping), staying within certain tempos and not taking the most extreme experimental jumps, maybe with a few exceptions (which is why I like Kaleidoscope)... But not much. In my view the critic kinda has a point. Although they should have explained it further.

 

Sorry for the long explanation.

Yeah if he put it like you did and firmly explained his point of view, I would have taken it as actual criticizm, and you certainly do have a point. But in his case, he was certainly making up reasons on the spot. He difn't explain any of his claims. Like you said, he really should have elaborated.

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you know, i was thinking if chris' clean water initiative in india would be affected by all these nonsense going around.. that would be a shame.

 

I don't think it will. This nonsense has been going on for a while...people are becoming desensitised to it I hope by now...

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Yada yada yada

So when I dress up in my Maiden outfit for Oktoberfest or my wear green for Saint Patrick's Day or dress up for whatever holiday I choose to to celebrate and embrace for whatever culture, this is wrong? Imitation is the highest form or flattery. We dress and emulate what we love and adore. How can this be disrespectful?

 

Oops!

 

Just recently there is a big fuss in Australian media as two white men dressed up as Aboriginals to an 'Australian icon' party.

 

92d7f681d12e5870cbed1bd998f03f5f

 

------

 

I personally find the video awkward similarly as I did Rihanna having a billion arms in PoC but hold my tongue as I feel like it's not really my place to decide.

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Oops!

 

Just recently there is a big fuss in Australian media as two white men dressed up as Aboriginals to an 'Australian icon' party.

 

92d7f681d12e5870cbed1bd998f03f5f

 

------

 

I personally find the video awkward similarly as I did Rihanna having a billion arms in PoC but hold my tongue as I feel like it's not really my place to decide.

 

As with anything if done with disrespect it should not be condoned. I can think of other examples of people "dressing up" to honour, not to ridicule. Intention is the key here...and that is really why I don't jump on the CA bandwagon, because they don't judge intention but simply skin colour or where you come from. I think we´ve had enough of that in our past, I don't need more of that in our present.

 

Btw I did love Rihanna in PoC with all those arms. lol I have a great respect and love for hinduism (researching religion is a passion of mine) and honestly I did not find that disrespectful, but I can see why some might find it out of place, a bit like the Jesus references in Lady Gaga music videos...

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I just shared the following video on the HFTW video thread btw; I don't really know where to stand on this, because while there are unnecessary stereotypes about India in the video, I know they didn't do it out of ignorance or malice for sure. I think they just wanted something colourful because their album is colourful, and shooting there made sense.

They could've done this otherwise to do justice to India's 'reality':

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