As some of you may have heard, Avril Lavigne (I know, right? "Who?") recently came under fire for releasing a racist music video, called "Hello Kitty."
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| Gwen Stefani is that you? |
You'd think that a decent person's response to such a backlash might include some display of humility or remorse... but no, Avril's only retort was "RACIST??? LOLOLOL!!!"
(such a master with words, that one.) But seriously, how cynical do you have to be to laugh off somebody else's pain like that? And at this point it's pretty official: The Asian community (including a thoroughly annoyed Margaret Cho) has made it clear that they feel insulted by Avril's music video.
Shouldn't that be enough to garner an apology from the "Complicated" starlet? You know, given that she's loudly identified herself as someone who "loves Japanese Culture?" (Guess that love just doesn't extend to the people!)
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, as defensiveness seems to be white America's go-to reaction for everything these days. But still, I hold out hope for the glorious moment when one of these yellow-haired lasses finally spits out her gum and declares "I screwed up, you guys! Also, check out my sex tape. Now available on Amazon."
And of course it's not "just" the blatant appropriation of Japanese culture that uncomfortably reverberates from the cotton-candy set-- it's also the music video's painful reliance on a 2004 aesthetic, which has since faded into that stomach-churning void of cultural contempt, currently filed under "Gwen Stefani, Relevant" (Yes, it's been that long.)
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