Beyoncé and Coldplay are under fire for cultural appropriation less than a week before their anticipated Super Bowl performance.
Last week Coldplay released the video to their song “Hymn for the Weekend” featuring Beyoncé. Immediately after its release people took to social media to combat the video’s theme and visuals, claiming that it was appropriating Indian and Hindu culture.
The colorful video has everything from priests in saffron to a child painted and dressed as Lord Shiva and kids celebrating Hindu festival Holi and people are not happy. In stories and opinion pieces floating around the internet, people are saying that the video shows only a small part of the culture that exists in India and this tends to be the only part of the culture that America shows and appreciates. Commenters on YouTube say that the video doesn’t show how India is becoming modern and doesn’t all look the way the video shows.
Neither Beyoncé or Coldplay have spoke out to apologize for the interpretation of their video which has close to 16 million views on YouTube. We can imagine that the same theme won’t be used at the Super Bowl halftime show when this track is performed.
Source: Teen Vogue, http://www.teenvogue.com/story/hymn-for-the-weekend-cultural-appropriation
TSR Intern: Jalen Mosby @jalenmosby
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