Appropriation Sensation Journal

Overall definition from Practices of Looking:
Appropriation- taking something for oneself without consent
Cultural appropriation- process of borrowing and changing the meaning of cultural products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion.
- Makes a statement opposing dominant ideology
- Political art
- Fan cultures
Questions:

What is the original intended meaning?
In what way is the image or artifact appropriated?
What is the new meaning intended through the appropriation?

My post:
2/3 pictures that I found are those that I have seen and remember seeing. For some reason, they stuck out in my mind.

1. In a Glamour magazine, celebrities posed as iconic pop and history figures of the past and present. Lindsay Lohan posed as Madonna, Alicia Keys posed as Michelle Obama, etc, but the one picture that caught my eye was Alexis Bledel posing as Rosie the Riveter. The famous Rosie picture was advertised around the time of WWII as a motivator for women to work in factories to help out the soldiers. Some women took over jobs that men had left in order to keep their cities functioning.

I understand that these pictures were just for fun or even for celebration of these famous individuals; however, I think the pictures are examples of cultural appropriation. I focus on the Alexis Bledel picture because her role in society today is nowhere close to the impact Rosie the Riveter‘s role had. She has been in a few popular films and starred in “Gilmore Girls,” but is not changing the way women are viewed in the workplace as Rosie did.

The original intended meaning of the Rosie the Riveter picture is: We Can Do it! It meant that women could indeed step up to fill the shoes of men while they were away at war and take over jobs. Women could support their families and their cities with the work.

Alexis Bledel took the Rosie advertisement and posed in similar clothing and positioning to Rosie in order to appropriate the image.

The intended meaning was probably to give credit where credit is due to prominent past and present women. I think the meaning I can derive from it is that the iconic women of the past and present are not our celebrities. No one will ever touch the greatness of Madonna and no celebrity can make such a culturally impactful gesture as Rosie. Celebrities like Alexis Bledel, Lindsay and Alicia have not gotten close to impacting the world in the way that some other women have.

2. The next images that came to mind were the Cycle 5 America’s Next Top Model poses to famous artworks. Specifically, Bre’s imitation of the Mona Lisa.

The original intended meaning of the Mona Lisa is unknown, but beautiful. Mona Lisa has the slightest of smiles and the piece by Da Vinci is one of the greatest works of art of all time due to its cleverness and style.

The artifact is redone by Bre with a braid, an Africa-inspired headdress, a painting of a building in the background and, clearly, Bre is black, whereas Mona Lisa was white.

This photo does not, in my opinion, look very much like the Mona Lisa, and it is nowhere near the artistic expressiveness of the piece. Bre’s piece definitely comes off as more of a woman empowered, whereas Mona seems demure and sly. It is not a bad photo, but the meaning changed completely, as did the overall atmosphere. The photo doesn’t do justice to the art, in my opinion, but it certainly appropriated it.

3. This picture was one that showed up several times on my searches and I could not refuse posting it. The original photo or idea of a wedding cake topper features a man and a woman and this image is appropriated with two male cake topper figures.

The new meaning is that this image will be occurring a lot more if gay marriage is approved in each state or if it is made legal by law. Right now, not all states have legalized gay marriage, but those that have support the image. Those that have not supported gay marriage do not support the image. The ad itself asks if “Anyone objects” and seeks out the opinion of the viewer. The meaning intended there is to see if America really will object to gay marriage.