Gwen Stefani: Childhood Idols and Cultural Appropriation

I grew up with an impassioned bond to Gwen Stefani and her music. Until recent years, I was unaware of the cultural implications of her projects.

Written by Laiken Neumann

Photo courtesy of James Devaney and WireImage

As a young child, Gwen Stefani was my idol. My first CD was her 2006 album The Sweet Escape. I could recite almost every song word-for-word and would blast it so loudly from the basement that my mom would have to ask me to turn it down repeatedly (I genuinely think my hearing is worse because of this.) The first concert I ever attended was a No Doubt show in 2008 with my family, and I still have the overpriced, now faded t-shirt. I had such faith in Gwen Stefani from a young age that I wasn’t even aware of what she was doing wrong until I was educated by the internet ten years later.

Stefani found success with her punk-ska band No Doubt in the ‘90s and her solo projects of the 2000s.  She also has a history of cultural appropriation, from the addition of a bindi to her outfit in a No Doubt music video to the Harajuku Girls, her infamous Japanese background dancers from promotion for her 2004 album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. While I was not alive for her career in the ‘90s, and I cannot blame my six-year-old self for being unaware of terms like cultural appropriation, the recent realization of my personal ignorance reflects the need for this to be discussed more publicly.

A Broadly article by Wanna Thompson from 2018 largely chronicles Stefani’s problematic behavior while describing a similar experience to my own. Thompson was unaware of her targeted use of marginalized people’s cultures while she was the height of her popularity.

Looking back, Gwen's earnest adaptations of cultures feel more like gimmicks made in an attempt to make her look more ‘cultured’ than the next pop girl. What Stefani failed to understand is that co-opting entire cultures — especially as a white woman of privilege — never was or will be OK. The crux of appropriation is not just in the stealing of one’s likeness, it’s also in profiting from a disenfranchised community with utter disregard.

While Thompson discusses the issue in retrospect, an article published on Salon in 2005 by Mihi Ahn addresses Stefani’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby. and  “Harajuku Girls” as they happened.

Stefani has taken the idea of Japanese street fashion and turned these women into modern-day geisha, contractually obligated to speak only Japanese in public, even though it's rumored they're just plain old Americans and their English is just fine.

Ahn’s article reveals that instances of cultural appropriation were occasionally called out in 2005, but still lacked the attention they needed to prevent Japanese street style from becoming a quick gimmick to be exploited by white American artists. In 2010, I received a set of Harajuku Girl-themed perfumes for Christmas, making it evident that briefly mentioning the capitalization of other cultures in popular culture had not changed much in five years time.

Gwen Stefani is not the only pop star guilty of this, and despite increased discussion of cultural appropriation on social media in recent years, it is still a prominent issue amongst American pop artists in 2019.

Newly-coined terms like “queerbaiting” and “blackfishing” have risen in significance, giving the term “cultural appropriation” more avenues for explanation. However, each of these terms are often written off as buzz words, discrediting the valid issues behind them. Ariana Grande has been accused of both of these, from the darkening of her skin tone over the years to her music video for “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” where she looks like she kisses a girl when the video turns to black.

As Jarune Uwujaren highlights in an Everyday Feminism article, cultural appropriation is an issue of education. In this situation, that means increasing the knowledge of our history and taking responsibility for it, even as it pertains to popular culture.  I can’t listen to “Cool” or “The Sweet Escape” without considering Stefani’s exploitation of other cultures — not in a mission to shatter the rose-colored glasses through which I view hits from my childhood, but to hold myself, American music culture, and its artists accountable.

Public conversation about cultural appropriation and its variants should be generated in more circles and more often, because it seems that we (and artists in the spotlight) have not learned much in the last twenty years.