Drawing the Line Between Creative Inspiration and Cultural Theft

However, taken to its logical extreme, the idea that no one should create outside their culture of origin would mean that everyone, non-white people included, would be limited to a very narrow scope. Then the topic becomes more slippery, especially when you take into account gender, sexual identity, age, and class. Is it wrong, for instance, that Black-British author Zadie Smith writes from the perspective of a white male professor in On Beauty? And why is that some films, like Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, which dealt with impoverished, elderly, white Americans, are celebrated? Why was Matt Ruff, a white man, not taken down for writing Lovecraft Country, a book that featured all Black main characters and dealt head-on with racism in America? Why was this book chosen to be adapted into an HBO series that counted Jordan Peele among its executive producers?

I’m hardly the first person to ask these questions. What’s amazing is just how many people have—yet without reaching any kind of broad consensus. Back in 2016, The New Yorker ran a piece by George Packer which argued that the implication that one’s race gives them a special insight into the work of people of that race is “so radically limiting that what looks like a compliment is more of a pander concealing an insult.” He concludes by saying, “no one owns anyone’s culture, and […] to believe otherwise is to deprive us of the human fullness and richness we all deserve.”

The essay makes a solid case. Still, I admit that I can’t quite get over the fact that Packer is, himself, a white man. I’m not sure how much my view is tainted by having seen others make similar arguments in far less respectful terms. See: A 2022 New York Post essay, "Woke food lovers have lost their minds over ‘cultural appropriation.’" Its author (also a white man), writes, “In today’s unforgiving and witless world of Indigenous-Cuisine Purity, good-natured jokes are strictly verboten. Worse, just about any dish not from Western Europe that isn’t cooked by a native-born chef is either a fake version of the cuisine or a wicked ripoff of it—or both.” These kinds of sentences make me want to swing hard in the other direction because the delivery is so dismissive of the valid concerns around respecting the many cultures that have been violently exploited throughout history. We’re not talking about an equal playing field. The fact that American fast food chains have made millions from “ethnic” cuisine while people from these backgrounds suffer from rampant discrimination in the United States is not something to shrug off.

We’re not talking about an equal playing field. The fact that American fast food chains have made millions from “ethnic” cuisine while people from these backgrounds suffer from rampant discrimination in the United States is not something to shrug off.

Yet, it is not only white people who’ve defended their right to draw from other cultures or demographics. A few years ago, Vulture ran a story featuring thoughts from 10 different fiction authors about how and why they write about characters outside their identities. It quotes a Black writer, Kaitlyn Greenidge, who explains why she feels okay writing white characters: “The thing about whiteness is, of course, if you’re not white, you know whiteness and the rules of whiteness better than white people do, because you have to to survive.” That said, she confesses to feeling “very worried” about a story she’s setting in another country, that takes place in the 19th Century: “Even doing research on it, it’s difficult to find emotional and historical truths.” Still, she says, “That’s why I’m doing it—because it’s a challenge.”

Do non-white people deserve an easier pass when writing about white people? As Greenidge alludes to, many people, regardless of race, have adopted white culture to a degree because it is the prevailing and dominant one. Or, is it that certain creators simply pull off drawing from other cultures because they’ve approached their subjects with sufficient sensitivity, knowledge, and respect? Nomadland, for instance, was based on a nonfiction book that the author researched rigorously, traveling off and on for three years to meet and spend time with the people she was writing about. Zhao also traveled around, connecting with the communities they wanted to feature in the film. But what if authenticity isn’t even the goal? What if you want to blend traditions, write a sci-fiction, for instance, with both Japanese and Kenyan-inspired elements? It’s easy to see how you could veer into disrespectful territory. It’s also easy to see how easily the rules could become inconsistent.

The problem reminds me of the recently published book Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, in which author Claire Dederer unpacks her discomfort with liking art created by people who’ve been accused of assault and other deplorable acts. Some would argue that the answer is unequivocally to swear off their work. But this is easier said than done. I loved the show Beef, for instance, and was especially thrilled about its Asian representation, so hearing the accusations about David Choe was deeply upsetting. Plus, many people work on the production of a show, many more on a feature length film—by condemning their projects, we’re punishing all of them, too. And should we react differently to accusations versus proven crimes? Perhaps, this issue, like cultural appropriation, is just hopelessly subjective. In either case, I don’t think we should throw up our hands and not care at all, as the New York Post writer seems to suggest. It just means the task won’t be easy, and we’ll probably disagree.

What is more clear, at least to me, is the economic argument. There is no denying that certain types of people have been systematically given short shrift when it comes to exposure and attention. When people in positions of privilege draw from another culture, they’re effectively siphoning opportunity from people in that culture. When a white author pens a popular book about a particular time in Indigenous history, they may be taking the limelight from an Indigenous author who might have otherwise gotten the chance to tell that story. That diversity is lacking in the publishing industry is well-known; it’s mentioned in nearly every review of Yellowface. In order to rectify this, we need to publish more work by diverse authors.

So, while the issue of who can create what may be shaky, what we can—and should—go out of our way to do is feature and listen to voices that have historically been ignored. To buy their art, eat their food. Those who work in areas like publishing, production, or financing, have the power and responsibility to do so, but so do those of us who only read, watch, or patronize businesses. It may always be hard to draw clean philosophical or moral lines around cultural ownership, but it is not hard to buy a book by someone from an underrepresented background. The rationale for that is pretty clear-cut to me.

Ultimately, the protagonist of Yellowface pays a high price for her creative theft. Meanwhile, her mentee, an aspiring young Asian American writer, is beginning to be recognized for her talent. Perhaps this is what matters most in the end—not who is taken down, but who is given the chance to succeed.