Hawaiians Sign Petition Against Dodge Kahuna - General Tiki

B bigbrotiki Tiki Socialite Tiki Island, above the Silverlake Joined: Mar 25, 2002 Posts: 11621	B bigbrotiki Posted posted on Fri, Feb 6, 2004 1:27 PM You are right, SneakyTiki, in all my love for the corny, tacky, in-bad-taste pop culture, one tends to forget that there are still many people out there that take these things for face value and do not see the irony. I mean I LOVE to listen to Roy Orbison's "MEDICINE MAN", where every line is so chockful of bad clichees of American Indian culture that it would make your hairs stand on end, just as I love to listen to "SCHNICKEL-FRITZ presents AN EVENING AT SCHMIDT'S", the equivalent in German kitsch (MY culture). Where it gets scary is when you see that with some people the historical fact of the injustice of the treatment of indigenous peoples, be it American Indian, Jewish, or Hawaiian, which any educated person takes as a given, has not registered, or worse, is even seen with revisionist candour. Case in point is a write up of my book on Amazon, where I was describing part of the end of exotic idealization with: "Exotica and Tiki style were denounced as contrived rituals of the imperialist establishment as the Vietnam war developed into an ugly mistake, with native huts and palm trees burning on T.V..." and the person responds with: "...it had me wondering if they (the author) were tongue-in-cheek or were actually serious.." Which gave me the creepy realization that there are some of us out there who might view the Vietnam war NOT as an ugly mistake, something I thought was an accepted historic fact (well, until the most recent display of collective amnesia regarding involvement in foreign affairs). The tricky question is where to draw the line, so that political correctness does not stifle creativity and freedom of expression, but at the same time the argument AGAINST political correctness can not be abused by revisionist ignorants.

You are right, SneakyTiki, in all my love for the corny, tacky, in-bad-taste pop culture, one tends to forget that there are still many people out there that take these things for face value and do not see the irony.

I mean I LOVE to listen to Roy Orbison's "MEDICINE MAN", where every line is so chockful of bad clichees of American Indian culture that it would make your hairs stand on end, just as I love to listen to "SCHNICKEL-FRITZ presents AN EVENING AT SCHMIDT'S", the equivalent in German kitsch (MY culture).

Where it gets scary is when you see that with some people the historical fact of the injustice of the treatment of indigenous peoples, be it American Indian, Jewish, or Hawaiian, which any educated person takes as a given, has not registered, or worse, is even seen with revisionist candour.

Case in point is a write up of my book on Amazon, where I was describing part of the end of exotic idealization with:
"Exotica and Tiki style were denounced as contrived rituals of the imperialist establishment as the Vietnam war developed into an ugly mistake, with native huts and palm trees burning on T.V..."

and the person responds with: "...it had me wondering if they (the author) were tongue-in-cheek or were actually serious.."

Which gave me the creepy realization that there are some of us out there who might view the Vietnam war NOT as an ugly mistake, something I thought was an accepted historic fact (well, until the most recent display of collective amnesia regarding involvement in foreign affairs).

The tricky question is where to draw the line, so that political correctness does not stifle creativity and freedom of expression, but at the same time the argument AGAINST political correctness can not be abused by revisionist ignorants.

Post #74872 by bigbrotiki on Fri, Feb 6, 2004 1:27 PM