Pop sensation Gwen Stefani is not at all fearful of the wrath of the woke mob and their attempts to cancel her over her love of Japanese culture after she defiantly proclaimed, “I’m Japanese,” and defended her own personal, Japanese-inspired style from absurd claims of cultural appropriation. Apparently, the left doesn’t believe it’s okay for someone to love another culture in the world and desire to adopt and blend elements of that culture into your own. Which is strange, because that’s exactly what America is all about. It’s the melting pot.
“[It] should be okay to be inspired by other cultures because if we’re not allowed then that’s dividing people, right?” she said during an interview with Allure magazine. Exactly. When someone takes on bits and pieces of another person’s culture, what they are really saying is that culture is cool. Isn’t that a good thing? I mean, if someone said the really liked something about my personal style and then started blending that into their own style, I would be really flattered.
However, Allure reporter Jesa Marie Calaor, who is an Asian-American, did not share that same opinion, going on to write in the piece that even if Stefani meant well, what she said has the potential to cause “harm.”
“In the interview-turned-hit piece — which Allure prefaced with an alarmist sub-headline claiming ‘What she said stunned us’ — Stefani recounted how she was introduced to Japanese culture by her father, who worked at automaker Yahama for 18 years and traveled between California and Japan,” Breitbart News reported.
“That was my Japanese influence,” she continued. “And that was a culture that was so rich with tradition, yet so futuristic [with] so much attention to art and detail and discipline and it was fascinating to me.”
As an adult, Stefani made a trip to the Harajuku district in Tokyo in order to experience Japanese culture for herself. Speaking of the experience, the pop star said, “I said, ‘My God, I’m Japanese and I didn’t know it.’ I am, you know.”
“In the interview Stefani defended herself against accusations of cultural appropriation for incorporating Japanese influences into her songs, music videos, and personal style — especially during her so-called Harajuku period that included her backup dancers known as the ‘Harajuku Girls,'” the report continued.
“If [people are] going to criticize me for being a fan of something beautiful and sharing that, then I just think that doesn’t feel right,” she added, with more than a grain of truth in her statement. “I think it was a beautiful time of creativity…a time of the ping-pong match between Harajuku culture and American culture.”
She then stated, “[It] should be okay to be inspired by other cultures because if we’re not allowed then that’s dividing people, right?”
A representative for Stefani reached out Allure magazine the day after the interview, stating that Calaor had misunderstood the point the singer was attempting to make. The magazine responded by saying they offered Stefani a chance to explain her statement, but she did not participate in a follow-up interview.
There’s no need for a follow-up interview. And there’s also no need for an apology from Stefani. She said nothing wrong. There’s nothing wrong with liking another culture and being influenced by it. Those who say otherwise are out of their minds.
“I don’t believe Stefani was trying to be malicious or hurtful in making these statements. But words don’t have to be hostile in their intent in order to potentially cause harm, and my colleague and I walked away from that half hour unsettled,” Jesa Marie Calaor stated.
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