Let’s guess if the feedback below came from Great British Bake Off Judges or my editor:  

1. Underbaked
2. Raw, totally raw
3. The layers are there…at least
4. Good idea but not executed as well as it could have been
5. Crispy all the way through
6. This isn’t finished
7. It’s a bit boring
8. Not enough proofing
9. A work of art
10. Definitely a mouthful
11. Very rich
12. You had so much time to work on this. What happened?
13. Not bad
14. This batch is inconsistent
15. How whimsical
16. Disappointing
17. I could picture this in a Parisian shop
18. It’s perfect
19. Way too sweet
20. I expected more from you, to be quite honest

As a long-time Shirley Jackson fan, I was eager to binge the new Netflix show based on her book, The Haunting of Hill House. While I don’t love slasher films, give me anything in a creepy old house. The Shining wouldn’t be what it is without the Overlook Hotel. Settling in to watch, I expected to feel the usual emotions you feel viewing something scary—dread, fright, perhaps revulsion. But suddenly I felt an emotion wash over me that took me by surprise: anger. Anger over watching a character being forced to view the embalmed body of a loved one.

Told over a series of ten episodes, the visually stunning show is a reimagining of Jackson’s story, rather than a direct adaptation. Jackson’s group of strangers meeting in Hill House to take part in a paranormal study are now a nuclear family, the Cranes. Olivia and Hugh Crane purchase Hill House with the intention of remodeling it over the summer, then flipping it for a fortune so that they can build their “Forever House” for their family of five children. Hill House has other ideas however.

The Cranes are haunted not only by their experiences that summer, but by the lasting devastation of grief. Director Mike Flanagan tells their tale in present time mixed with flashbacks that reveal how they became the fractured adults that they are. The show has received mainly positive critical reviews, and is currently the most popular user rated Netflix series.

Living a life damaged by grief is something I understand well. When I was eleven, my sister died. I usually just tell people that she died in a car accident, which is sort of true, but really, she drowned. It happened in Colorado, during the spring thaw when the melting snow on the mountain peaks turns peaceful, meandering rivers into dark, raging torrents.

Living in a tiny coal mining town, restaurants and teen-age entertainments were both in small supply, so one April evening, she and a few friends decided to drive a few towns away for pizza. The driver lost control of the car, and in the mountains, when that happens, you either drive into the side of the mountain or you plunge off the other side, over a cliff. He swerved to the cliff-plunging side that had a spring-swollen river at the bottom. I don’t know if my sister drowned in the car or was thrown from the car into the river. I suppose it doesn’t really matter—the outcome was the same. She was seventeen.

In the Netflix series, Shirley (Crane sibling #2) is a mortician, running her own funeral home with her husband as the business manager. In the first episode, we see her counselling a child named Max, who does not want to view his dead grandmother lying in her coffin. Max has been seeing the ghost of his grandmother at night, who shows more signs of decay with each visitation. Shirley tells Max that viewing the open casket of his grandmother will give him the opportunity to say goodbye, to have closure. Shirley tells him that she has “fix[ed] her, that’s what I do.” She will “look just like you remember her — just like she’s supposed to.”

These reassurances do not work on Max, as we see in episode 2. At the funeral, Max is still firm in his resolve to not view the open casket. “I don’t want to,” he insists. But for some reason, he must look. Shirley tells him, “If you don’t, you’ll be upset later. I promise. This is a good thing, and you’re a good boy.”

We don’t learn if Max does view Grandma or not, but most likely he was forced to do so. The show at this point flashes back to Shirley as a child, at a funeral, unwilling to view her mother’s corpse. Young Shirley gives in, and is amazed at how her mother looks lying against the satin. “You fixed her,” she says to the funeral director, highlighting the seminal moment to her becoming a mortician. (Likely the kittens and her need to control played a role as well).

Watching these scenes with Max resurged feelings of frustration and anger that I thought I had long let go of. Why won’t anyone listen to him? Why does he have to see his Grandmother’s dead body? Why is there an assumption that children don’t know what they need?

Like Max, I was very certain that I did not want to see my sister lying in a coffin. I did not want that to be my final image of her. Like Max, none of the adults around me listened to me either, believing that they knew what was best for me. “You need to say goodbye to your sister. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” “She’ll just look like she’s sleeping.” “It’ll be okay.”

Unlike the dramatic, stylish gloom of Shirley’s funeral parlor, the one in which my sister’s casket was displayed had bright white walls, her burgundy carpeting, gold detailing, and multiple blinding flood lights; there was nary a shadowy nook to be found. No spaces for lurking specters. No place to hide from well-intentioned spectators. Bouquets and wreaths of flowers lined either side of the room. The peppery scent of lilies was so thick, you could taste it; to this day, I am triggered by their smell.

Why is there an assumption that children don’t know what they need?
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While I wasn’t physically dragged to the coffin, and absent of support from any adult, the continual emotional pressure eventually broke down my defenses. I finally was a “good girl” and went to see how the mortician “fixed” my sister.

She lay on white satin, in a white dress. You might have thought she was sleeping, if you viewed her from a distance. But up close, no amount of pancake base or pink blush could cover the green and purple bruises. She was swollen, caused either by drowning or embalming. The glue used to keep her eyes shut was visible. Her face was in a grimace, and nothing about her looked peaceful.

As I stood beside her, the hope that it was all a horrible practical joke and she might sit up — alive — all dissolved when I clasped her folded hands. Hands that had brushed my hair a thousand times, turned the beloved pages of hundreds of books, and caught lizards just to make me laugh, were now the icy hands of mannequin.

As my delusion shattered, a fellow mourner came up beside me and said, “Oh, look at her! She looks like a sleeping angel.” Unable to face such obvious posturing and lies, I ran outside to wait on the steps until it was time to drive to the cemetery. I didn’t say goodbye, because she was neither there nor gone for me.

The act of burial — placing a dead person in the ground with intention — is indisputably traced back 100,000 years to a group burial in Israel and possibly goes back 250,000 years, to a Homo naledi find in South Africa. Paleoanthropologist Paige Madison describes the desire to bury the dead as a part of the human ability to think in the abstract:

“Humans use symbols to communicate and convey these abstract thoughts and ideas. We imbue non-practical things with meaning. Art and jewelry, for example, communicate concepts about beliefs, values, and social status. Mortuary rituals, too, have been put forward as a key example of symbolic thought, with the idea that deliberate treatment of the dead represents a whole web of ideas. Mourning the dead involves remembering the past and imagining a future in which we too will die.”

As humans began creating more complex living arrangements, so too, did the rituals surrounding burial become more elaborate. It’s difficult to tell if the earliest burials were secular or involved any spiritual meaning, but soon, funeral rites took on a religious element, typically involving a belief in an afterlife. The development of social hierarchy also played a role in the development of how we bury our dead. The higher up the social ladder, the more elaborate and costly the service.

The specific traditions widely vary, across time and cultures. Since the Civil War, embalming and underground interment within a coffin has been the traditional burial practice in the United States. While embalming does delay decomposition, the notion that viewing the body somehow helps with the grieving process is not scientific, as noted by investigative journalist Jessica Mitford in her exposé, The American Way of Death. Rather, it’s a justification put forward by those who have a financial stake in encouraging embalming: the funeral industry.

As an adult, I took a class on grief. Part of the course work was a field trip to a funeral parlor. It was a large blue Victorian house that had been converted to part living space and part business, much like Shirley’s set up on the show. Keeping with the Victorian architecture, the interior decoration was heavy wood, silk-lined walls, and sumptuous fabrics of deep peacock-blue. The air was vanilla scented. It could have been an upscale bed and breakfast.

Our tour guide was tiny, with a sleek business bob and black-framed glasses. She was a recent graduate, joining the family business right out of college. “Third generation mortician!” she chirped. “I know I look really young, but I’ve been around this business my whole life. A lot of morticians are multigenerational. I guess we like to keep it in the family.” She was “passionate about helping people in their worst time.” After touring the viewing room, the coffin showroom, and business offices, we trooped downstairs to see the embalming rooms.

Walking down the narrow stairs, I began feeling the short breath, racing heart and sweatiness of a panic attack, knowing I wouldn’t like what I was about to learn. The pull to know what had been done to my sister was stronger and I kept going, doing calming breathing techniques. Downstairs was completely different world than above. Hospital doors, Dijon mustard-colored walls, dim fluorescent lighting, and cement floors. Odd chemical smells, plus something undefinable replaced the vanilla. It felt cold. And here? There were dark corners.

The embalming room looked much like it did in The Haunting of Hill House, except I remember more hoses and sprayers hanging from the ceiling. When I learned about all the draining, and injecting, and filling, I felt a screamless horror. I viscerally knew that my sister would not have wanted any of that done to her body. A body that she was so meticulous in maintaining. Not only was her death violent, but it felt like she had been further violated, after death.

Seeped in a commercialism that has largely removed meaningful ritual from burial rites, the funeral industry in the United States rakes in many billions of dollars each year. With the cost of cremation being many thousands of dollars less than embalming, funeral homes have a vested interest in steering their clientele in the direction of chemical preservation. Still, the number of people choosing cremation in the U.S. continues to rise.

According to the Cremation Association of North America’s 2017 industry statistics, the number of people cremated vs embalmed was 51.6%. Reasons behind the growth are varied, from cost to decreased religious stigma against it (the Catholic Church opposed cremation until 1963). Concern for the environment is shaping people’s choices as well, with the growing awareness of the toxicity of embalming chemicals leaching into the soil and water.

I’ve chosen cremation for myself because I don’t want anyone I love forced to see my death face; I want them to only recall how I looked alive.

My mother and I have only talked about this issue once, when I was in my early twenties. I don’t recall who brought it up, or how or why we discussed it. What I do remember is that I wanted her to know I was angry over being forced to view the open casket. I wanted — at least — an acknowledgement that my autonomy had been overlooked, that maybe a mistake had been made.

“I told you then that I didn’t want to see her, and now I’ve had to live with that image of her dead stuck in my mind since then. No one would listen to me!”

“I just had to see her one more time.”

“Then why couldn’t you look at her back in a private room? Instead of demanding that everyone see her? That I see her?” My resentment was like a pin popping a balloon; my mother’s entire body deflated. Looking at the ground, she mumbled, “I don’t know. I just couldn’t think really about anything at the time.”

In that moment, she seemed so tiny and fragile—something I could either choose to set carefully down or hurl at the floor, smashing to bits. Witnessing her hurt, I felt ashamed for only focusing on myself, and decided to let the anger go. I thought I had until it flared up while watching The Haunting of Hill House.

While the final episode is the one most negatively reviewed, I believe it gets it right. In order to move past grief — at least enough to heal and learn to live on — the raw honesty that comes from a moral inventory is needed. I’ve never wavered in my certainty that seeing my sister in her coffin was not right for me. I still wish one person had listened, and helped me, rather than being coerced into what other people thought would bring me closure.

However, I did need to let go of my anger, because I honestly don’t know how I would have reacted in my mother’s situation. The possibility that I might find out is my own Bent Neck Lady. I don’t fear my own death, but I am afraid that I will know the nightmare of burying my child, that I will have to make the impossible decision: embalming or cremation?

And does either choice really matter? Death’s outcome is the same.

by Taté Walker

We’ve told you to stay away from headdresses and not get the dreamcatcher tattoo. We’ve asked you to burn the Indian princess Halloween costumes and stop referring to everything as your spirit animal.

Trust me: Your attempt at irony has failed.

Still, even when it clicks with things like mascots, y’all keep finding new ways to twist the knife. The line between casual and overt racism is getting thinner and thinner, folks.

As I write this, there are a few such anti-Native gems circulating across pop culture, from movies, to politics, to fashion.

“Savage” slang, fashion’s legal thievery of the tribal name “Navajo,” and politicians and superheroes going “off the reservation” are some of the most despicably buzz-worthy items happening now.

Good-intentioned people keep coming up with new ways to prove racism isn’t going anywhere soon.
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Good-intentioned people keep coming up with new ways to prove racism isn’t going anywhere soon, especially when they dig defensive trenches full of dismissive and self-centering rhetoric like, “But I’m honoring you!” or “Stop limiting my creativity!” and “It’s just a movie — stop being so sensitive!”

Here, we’ll discuss why these items (and excuses for them) are problematic and where you can go for better Native representation.

1. ‘Savage’ Slang

I see this word being used a lot on places like Twitter to describe when someone does something badass or gutsy or without remorse, i.e. “Damn @KimKardashian did @taylorswift13dirty. #savage” (actual tweet referencing Kanye/Kim/Taylor beef).

I remember people using it back in high school (late nineties) for the same reason. Its recent resurgence can be traced back to the British, which is interesting considering their ancestors used the term in colonist propaganda to describe Indigenous people the world over.

Savage, meaning wild and untamed, was a term to dehumanize; it excused everything from land occupation and Native genocide to slavery.
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Savage, meaning wild and untamed, was a term to dehumanize; it excused everything from land occupation and Native genocide to slavery.

While I despise Disney’s Pocahontas on several levels, the scene in the film where the bad guys sing “Savages” is pretty accurate in terms of how the British felt about Native Americans.

More to the point, the term spreads the systemic racism Native Americans experience here in the United States. The founding fathers called us “merciless Indian savages” in the Declaration of Independence, a document paraded out every July while Natives continue to flail at the bottom of every socioeconomic ranking imaginable.

If you’re operating under the impression the term no longer applies to people, think again: A quick glance at “savage” on Thesaurus.com shows “aboriginal” and “native” as relevant synonyms.

The founding fathers called us ‘merciless Indian savages’ in the Declaration of Independence.
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It’s not a term welcome among Indigenous communities. Stop using it.

2. Tribal Names as Fashion Trend

In a decision that left many of us who follow cultural appropriation issues angry and confused, New Mexico Federal Judge Bruce Black ruled in July to accept Urban Outfitters’ fair use defense in an ongoing suit filed against them by the Navajo Nation in 2012.

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According to The Fashion Law, Urban Outfitters claims the term “Navajo” has “acquired a descriptive meaning within the fashion and accessory market… the fashion industry has adopted ‘Navajo’ to describe a type of style or print.”

Before I get into how gut-wrenchingly awful this perspective is (I mean, can we talk about reducing a whole tribe of people to a style or print?!?), some backstory.

A few years ago, Urban Outfitters came under fire primarily for featuring a set of tribal print (cringe) underwear they called — wait for it — “Navajo Hipster Panty.”
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It’s important to note many Navajo people refer to themselves and their language as Diné; some prefer Diné over Navajo, and some use both terms.

This is common in tribal communities. We have “legal” names made official by the U.S. government and these names were often given to us by outsiders. When in doubt, ask for individual preference.

For better or worse, Navajo is the official, legally recognized name for which the tribe has many live trademarks.

A few years ago, Urban Outfitters came under fire primarily for featuring a set of tribal print (cringe) underwear they called — wait for it — “Navajo Hipster Panty.” At the time (2011-ish), the company sold more than 20 items with “Navajo” in the name.

After the retailer ignored a cease and desist order, the Navajo Nation filed suit.

This isn’t the first (or last) time we’ve seen tribally-specific cultural appropriation used by mega brands.
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The largest federally recognized tribe in both land and citizenry alleged the use of the word “Navajo” on products like panties and flasks violated trademark laws and the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which says you have to be a member of a federally or state recognized tribe or certified as a Native artist by a tribe in order to sell items marketed as Native-made, or tribally-specific products.

This isn’t the first (or last) time we’ve seen tribally-specific cultural appropriation used by mega brands — the automobile industry loves driving over us, i.e. Pontiac, Jeep Cherokee, or Dodge Dakota.

It’s also not the first time tribes have taken these companies to task: The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina recently dropped a suit it had filed earlier this year against Anheuser-Busch for using its tribal trademark in advertising its beer products. The company took the ad down and agreed to make “a substantial donation” to a tribal nonprofit.

The Navajo case is different. A decision like this has the potential to open the door for companies to plaster their products with whatever tribal-themed trend comes their way.

Our culture and spiritualities and languages are not a trend. We’re not panties, flasks, t-shirts, cars … The fact that we even have to spell this out highlights the systemic oppression we face.

Our culture and spiritualities and languages are not a trend. We’re not panties, flasks, t-shirts, cars.
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A government whose policies brought our lands, bodies, and cultures to the brink of extinction via colonialism, genocide, and assimilation now uses its judicial system to not only arrest, kill, or imprison us at rates well above any other racial demographic, but to also decide that not even our names and images are our own.

Because capitalism.

3. Going ‘Off the Reservation’

Both Hillary Clinton and Ironman’s Tony Stark were recently heard using this phrase against their rivals.

Clinton said she has worked with men who go off the reservation in behavior/speech and can therefore handle a political challenger like Donald Trump; and Stark said Steve Roger’s Captain America had gone off the reservation in rescuing his one-time-bestie-turned-brainwashed-villain Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier.

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In most cases, people use “off the reservation” to refer to someone deviating from the expected or authorized. This is similar to using the phrase “gone Native” to describe a defector sympathetic to uncolonized/enemy ways.

In all cases, regardless of intent, it’s an oppressive throwback to anti-Native sentiments of yore.

Too many people called out for using it, including Clinton, claim ignorance to the phrase’s racist origins. Well, here you go.

In most cases, people use ‘off the reservation’ to refer to someone deviating from the expected or authorized.
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From the nation’s founding in 1776 through the late 1800s, the US government treatied, swindled, and stole some 1.5 billion acres of land from tribes. During this time, the government forced tribes onto reservations and promised government assistance for food, housing, protection, education, healthcare and more (not welfare but a bill of sale; assistance in exchange for land).

Reservations, as well as the promised assistance, were assimilation tactics meant to subjugate Natives and turn them into dependent white people. No really. These reservations were monitored by the US federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Natives needed federal permission to leave the reservation. For those tribes removed from their traditional homelands and sacred sites, reservations were like prisons, and many tribes, like my Lakota people from the Great Plains, resisted, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

Essentially, the phrase ‘off the reservation’ was U.S. government code for ‘escaped captive.’
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Essentially, the phrase “off the reservation” was U.S. government code for “escaped captive.”

In this 2014 story from NPR, the phrase’s origins and usage are described, including:

Many of the news articles that used the term in a literal sense in the past were also expressing undisguised contempt and hatred, or, at best, condescension for Native Americans — “shiftless, untameable … a rampant and intractable enemy to civilization” (New York Times, Oct. 27, 1886).

Besides its problematic origins, there are other issues with the phrase.

“Off the reservation” has a negative connotation. And yet today, though many face extreme socioeconomic disparities, reservations are filled with positivity, which outsiders can fail to recognize due to mainstream media’s poverty porn fixation. Interestingly, urban Natives like me will often say we’re “going back to the rez” to reconnect with families, lands, and spiritualities, especially during this time of year.

Not every tribe has a reservation. There are 567 federally recognized tribes in the U.S.; hundreds more tribes are not federally recognized.
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The phrase also furthers the stereotype that all Natives live on reservations and all tribes have reservations. Both assumptions are harmful in that they erase many Native people’s lived experiences in urban areas and devalue “unrecognized” tribal people.

Not every tribe has a reservation. There are 567 federally recognized tribes in the U.S.; hundreds more tribes are not federally recognized. Just 326 reservations exist.

Hearing someone — especially popular public figures — use “off the reservation” is an unwelcome reminder of how little we and our histories and our contemporary selves matter.

The message in all these examples is Native Americans aren’t living, contemporary people. To the average American, Natives look a certain way, act a certain way, and are neat props for trendy vernacular, fashion and politics.

Acknowledging our humanity doesn’t have to cramp your style.

Stop shopping at stores like Urban Outfitters that appropriate Native cultures and designs. Side-eye that generic, tribal print t-shirt, then head over to Native-owned enterprises like Beyond Buckskin, NDNcraft, and Eighth Generation, and buy something that truly represents that tribal spirit you love to honor so much.

Invest in a thesaurus. If you’re called out for ignorantly using a phrase like “savage” or “off the reservation,” listen, learn, remove from vocabulary, and continue on with human decency.

Uplift Native voices and demand better from your heroes, be they politicians or ironmen. These tips will help ensure your trends don’t tread on real people.

This story originally appeared on Everyday Feminism. Republished here with permission.

Jon M Chu is on a mission: He’s combing the world for Asian talent to be in Crazy Rich Asians, an adaptation of Singaporean author Kevin Kwan’s bestselling novel of the same name.

The novel follows Chinese-American economics professor Rachel Chu, who travels with her boyfriend Nicholas Young back to his home in Singapore to attend his best friend’s wedding. There, she discovers that Nick comes from an obscenely rich family, and is plunged into a world of ridiculous extravagance and lavish parties, complete with Thai handmaidens.

“You may or may not know that it’s the first all-Asian cast from an American Hollywood studio in a long, long time. So it’s a huge step in representation and a great opportunity to showcase all the most talented Asian actors out there,” he said in his casting call posted on YouTube.

The call pushes all the right buttons: At a time when Scarlett Johansson adorns Ghost In The Shell posters and Matt Damon is front and center in The Great Wall, the announcement of a major all-Asian film feels like an antidote to the white-washing that Hollywood is notorious for. Constance Wu — who has been brave and unflinching in speaking out about race and representation in the industry — has already signed on to play the female lead.

But it’s hard to feel the hype from where I’m sitting, here in Singapore, where most of the Crazy Rich Asians story unfolds. While it’s definitely significant that Hollywood’s finally producing an all-Asian film, the anticipation for this film demonstrates that representation can mean different things to different groups of people, and that there is divergence between the needs and priorities of Asian Americans and Asians.

Major Western productions tend to see Asia in very particular ways. We could be the “rising Asia,” all glittering skyscrapers and futuristic urban design, or the rustic, impoverished-yet-inspiring backdrop for slumdog millionaires. We are dumplings and kungfu, curry and tech support, wise gurus who talk in riddles for all your “eat, pray, love” needs.

But this is not what we are. A continent as massive as Asia can never be as simple as the stereotypes imposed upon us. Asians — a population of over 4.4billion people — are not a monolith, and our need for representation and empathy can’t be addressed by non-white casting.

I did not grow up as a “person of color.” As of 2016, 76.1% of Singapore’s citizens claim Chinese ancestry; at no point in my life here have I felt under- or un-represented because of my race. While Singapore has its fair share of colonial hang-ups — allowing white people in Singapore to enjoy a significant amount of privilege — Chinese Singaporeans can be confident that their interests will not only be served, but usually be dominant, in national affairs. (In fact, the matter of whether Singapore is “ready” for a non-Chinese prime minister is apparently still up for debate, quite like it was in the United States back in 2008, pre-Obama.)

The promise of an all-(East) Asian cast in a film, therefore, doesn’t excite me very much, beyond the novelty value of it being an American-made film, as opposed to the many offerings from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China that we have access to here. As an Asian in Asia, what I need in terms of representation needs to go far beyond the casting process.

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Singapore is a tiny Southeast Asian country that many might have heard of, but not many know about. We don’t exist in the minds of people living overseas as a fully-fledged, complex society, but as a caricature. As a freelance journalist covering Singapore for foreign publications, I’ve heard all the tropes: We’re obsessed with order, we ban chewing gum, we’re so uptight with our laws that we whipped an American teenager in the ’90s. There are people who think we’re in China, and many don’t realize we speak English as our first language.

In recent Western productions, we were the shiny city backdrop for action sequences, or the bizarre smoky, steamy pirate hangout on stilts. A British television show digitally altered scenes actually shot in Singapore to make it look, according to them, “more like Singapore” — by which they meant doing things like changing the street signs from English to Chinese. None of this contributes to deeper understanding or appreciation of our lived experiences in Singapore; it only exoticizes.

When it comes to representation, what I would like to see as a Singaporean is something that reflects my country and society in all our diversity and complexity, and helps audiences make connections between our experiences and theirs.

Crazy Rich Asians does nothing to improve the situation. It’s touted as a win for representation in the U.S. because of its stated goal to have an all-Asian cast, but the focus is specifically on characters and faces of East Asian descent (as dictated by the book). This is already a misrepresentation of Singapore at the most basic level, obscuring the Malay, Indian, and Eurasian (and more) populations who make the country the culturally rich and unique place that it is. Ironically, in Singapore, Chu’s all-Asian boast is nothing more than a perpetuation of the existing Chinese dominance in mainstream media and pop culture.

The racialization of ‘crazy rich’ behavior— as if batshit insane extravagance doesn’t happen elsewhere — does little to combat the Othering of Singapore and Asia.
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The story of Crazy Rich Asians — and the racialization of “crazy rich” behavior, as if batshit insane extravagance doesn’t happen elsewhere — also does little to combat the Othering of Singapore and Asia. Reading the book was a strange experience; while I knew it was about my home, there was very little in it that I found recognizable, which is why I have little hope that the film will help anyone see Singapore as anything more than “kooky Asia,” stuffed with materialistic, flamboyant billionaires with bedazzled lifestyles.

Kwan, the author, is free to write whatever he likes. The director Chu, too, should be free to make any film he wants. It would be unrealistic — and undesirable — to expect Singaporean writers to write only one way, because Singapore can mean so many things to so many people. But touting Crazy Rich Asians as some sort of progressive win is false, especially in a context when there are already so few nuanced representations of Singapore and Asia in Western media. And when someone as lovely and woke as Constance Wu is saying that this is “a very important story to tell,” we see a divergence in the priorities of Asian-American people of color and Asians in Asia.

Our motivations when demanding representation stem from the same place — a desire to be portrayed in all our complex, nuanced, contradictory glory. To recognize ourselves on screen, and for others to recognize us as the fully-formed people and community that we are. This is important because it affects the way people perceive us, and by extension the way in which they connect or stand in solidarity with our struggles and challenges. Crazy Rich Asians doesn’t meet this need, no matter how nice it might be to see Asian faces in a Hollywood film.

Kim Kardashian And ‘Poor-nography’: The Dangers Of Celebrities Romanticizing Poverty

For privileged stars, it pays to pose as poor.

Photo via Unsplash, Flickr/Eva Rinaldi; Illustration by Maxine Builder

“Bad & Boujee” is how Kim Kardashian describes a photo of herself and friend Stephanie Shepherd sipping coffee from takeaway cups and pretending to eat cookies, apparently taken on a disposable camera but posted to Instagram. If they weren’t on Kim’s private jet, it’s the kind of photo you’d probably see on the Instagram feed of any young, fashionable creative trying to make it in a big city while holding down multiple jobs, maybe nannying in the day and bartending at night. The aesthetic is bad and boujee (or bougie, depending on whether you listen to Migos or not). It’s just that Kim is not.

Since her return to Instagram this year after taking a much-publicized break from social media, Kim has been embracing this new, grainy aesthetic, which falls under the umbrella of “poverty chic.” Kardashian has posted pictures of herself and her family in a home that’s sparsely furnished with grimy walls, photos of Kanye eating cereal, and even one of herself cooking. These seemingly mundane scenes are a jarring departure from the glossy, lavish lifestyle we’re used to seeing Kim boasting — but they’re just as carefully staged and almost entirely fictitious. That home turns out to be music producer Rick Rubin’s house, and the meal Kim’s preparing is actually a delivery service Atkins meal.

These seemingly mundane scenes are a jarring departure from the usually glossy, lavish lifestyle we’re used to seeing Kim boasting — but they’re just as carefully staged and almost entirely fictitious.

Kim’s not the only member of the Kardashian clan jumping on the poverty chic bandwagon. Little sister Kylie Jenner has been spotted rocking the ultimate rural poor emulation trend from the ’00s : the Von Dutch trucker hat. Other wealthy celebrities, too, have been posting photos to Instagram of themselves acting “poor.” Vogue Australia’s latest shoot with Selena Gomez, for example, features the former Disney star posing in a run-down home. Supermodel Bella Hadid has posted a photo of herself gone full aughts-era mallrat with an ironic caption, “pinkys up.” On Instagram, Hailey Baldwin posed with McDonald’s food, calling it “#essentials.”

The question isn’t whether or not poverty chic is making a comeback — it’s why.

Much the same as cultural appropriation, poverty chic is an act of “cherry-picking.” As Refinery29’s Leeann Duggan writes, “It glibly looks at the world with a purely visual eye, and refuses to consider meaning.” The celebrities and fashion elites flaunting these signifiers of poverty have likely never lived through the abjection they’re mimicking.

Why Should You Become An Establishment Member For $5 A Month?

This fascination with the lives of those less fortunate is nothing new for the rich and famous. Christian Dior’s spring-summer 2000 haute couture collection, designed by John Galliano, is often considered the birthplace of “homeless chic” in fashion. The collection was a mish-mash of ripped fishnet, belts made of found items, and scrunched-up garments in newspaper print, all twisted together in a futuristic, Dickensian style. At the time, it was harshly criticized by his peers and the media, in much the same way Kardashian’s photos are facing a backlash now. Galliano called his detractors “bourgeois people, condescending and smug,” excepting himself from actually being bourgeois — as Kardashian is currently attempting to with her Instagram pictures.

The rest of the mid-00s were bombarded with images of waifish celebrities dressed as “bag ladies,” and fashion culture insistently “cool-ified” the bottom echelons of the socio-economic spectrum. In 2010, Vivienne Westwood sent a whole tattered menswear collection down the runway. Photographer Miles Aldridge has deified the homeless in his work. The Olsen Twins dressed like homeless people through the mid-’00s. Erin Wasson heralded dressing like a homeless person as the pinnacle of style. Tyra Banks had the models in Cycle 10 of America’s Next Top Model pose as sexy homeless, while the Sartorialist made a model of an actual homeless person. Terry Richardson went on to capitalize on all of this, creating that instantly recognizable visual aesthetic — celebrities shot in high contrast images, as if on disposable camera, against a sparse white background, often with dirty or unmade hair, simple clothes (jeans, t-shirts, in lingerie, or shirtless), smoking (both cigarettes and marijuana), blowing gum bubbles or wearing hipster-style reading glasses, caught in “natural” off-guard poses, capturing the way the rich imagine the less privileged should look.

The propensity to “dress homeless” eventually disappeared along with the global recession, fashion’s reclamation of ’80s “bodycon” and, ironically, the beginning of Kim Kardashian’s rise to pop-culture icon status. But almost a decade later, here we are again, asking ourselves: What is it that drives the upper class to aspire to look poor? Why are celebrities once again looking for dilapidated environments in which to pose in grungy, mismatched, oversized streetwear? Why are they eschewing the signifiers of their “success” — ostentatious jewelry, hero handbags, and Michelin starred restaurants — to hang out at Dave and Busters?

What is it that drives the upper class to aspire to look poor?

Our return to this trope of “acting poor” has a lot to do with the romanticization of poverty, projecting a purity onto the poor that the rich just can’t seem to buy. For Kardashian, the turn to this new aesthetic might be reactive. Following the robbery in Paris in 2016 which saw her held at gunpoint over around $10 million in diamonds, many commentators saw her lavish displays of wealth as courting that exact sort of trouble. Downplaying her wealth, then, might be a form of repentance, where she actively attempts to distance herself from the notion that her excessive having makes her deserving of being taken from.

In an article addressing the phenomenon of poverty chic from 2002, writer Zoe William posits in The Guardian that the notion of poor equating to “cool” is “timeless.” This, it is argued, is rooted in religion, and the core “notion of the poor being inherently pious.” The poor, unlike the privileged, are exonerated from guilt, something the upper class rich are eternally shouldered with. This condescending idea of the “pious poor” might be what’s propelling the currency of struggle in the modern climate.

The glorification of poverty is intrinsic to the wider perception that this generation’s trendmakers have never actually endured any kind of palpable struggle. Taylor Swift’s girl squad and the Kardashian family’s Instagram photos are too clean and neat, and all celebrities can do to earn “authenticity” is to co-opt the visual signifiers of struggle — a yellow stained wall, blurry photos, ripped jeans and dirty hair. Essentially, the socioeconomic barriers that preclude people like Kardashian from being viewed as “genuine” or “empathetic” can’t be dismantled. The best she and her peers can do is to attempt to appear like the every person.

But the rich acting poor isn’t emulation or flattery. Indeed, the aesthetic Kardashian is glamorizing is a daily reality for many — often born out of cyclical patterns of institutional bias, social stigma, cultural abuse, and a whole system that is rigged to ensure that those poor stay poor, while the rich jealously guard their privilege. As July Westhale, writing for The Establishment, points out, many of the appropriations that take place — from Instagram-friendly hipster bars promoting trailer park aesthetics to preposterous lifestyle trends for wealthy young people extolling the virtues of “minimalist” living — are often things for which the poor are scrutinized and belittled. We celebrate the performance of poverty, but we demonize the the poor, and according to Westhale, because of the “systemic oppression that makes it difficult for them to have the same access to upward mobility, [the poor] are considered socially uncouth and lazy, while white anarchists…are praised for their radically subversive actions.”

Whether it’s the burden of an unfair tax system, the Republican attack on health care including the defunding of Planned Parenthood, or the onerous user-pays education system, poverty isn’t really a choice, but something that’s been foisted on the working class — and disproportionately on communities of color — in America and across the globe since time immemorial. The rich are happy to perpetuate dangerous stereotypes of the poor for their own gratification, but when it comes to the actual poor, judgment abounds. What Kardashian and her peers have therefore failed to understand is that just because they choose to romanticize poverty, that choice isn’t a universal reality.

The Troubling Trendiness Of Poverty Appropriation

Dressing in shabby chic and posing against the background of a dilapidated domestic environment suggests that despite unknowable wealth, these rich have been humbled — something Kardashian seems adamant on proving post-robbery. Writing in Salon, Brook Bolen suggests poverty chic is an attempt at “enlightenment” where those performing it show how they “pared down possessions to live more simply and happily.”

Celebrities are attempting to disavow themselves of dirty words like “privilege” and “entitlement,” and mainstream aesthetic culture, once again, is drawn to the latest iteration of “slumming it.” In a climate where even a billionaire businessman was able to win a presidential campaign by positioning himself as a man of the people, it pays to pose as poor.

It might be an outward projection of humility, or a grasping at some kind of inner solace against the guilt of privilege, but either way, for Kim Kardashian and her peers, lavish displays of wealth have been sidelined as alienating. Instead, they’re standing on the precipice of the echo chamber where rich people go to shout, “Hey, I’m just like you!”

But in the attempt to create something “authentic” by embracing “realness,” Kardashian and her peers have created an incongruity that’s difficult to witness. It’s a modern absurdist art form in which the counterintuitive goal is self-aggrandizing through the craven mirroring of “humble” subjects.

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