There’s a tendency to misinterpret non-Western, non-white cultures or any culture not familiar even I myself am guilty of this practice on a few occasions. For instance, there’s a tendency for people to regard Africa as one culture, one country disregarding that Africa has several countries and many cultures as well as having had many kingdoms and empires before (Hausa, Coptic, Ghana, Mali, Yoruba, Akan/Ashanti and Igbo). Even attitudes to animals differ from culture to culture, some African countries and cultures tolerate cats some don’t.
This is also true for indigenous cultures the world over but especially in the New World where there’s a tendency to regard them as things of the past, sexualised, owners of casinos, living in the countryside or reservations and primitive. In actuality, there’s room for indigenous Americans (both North and South) who’re up to date with modern things (there’s one Cree athlete who sews clothes and I do know two Native Americans who are geeks), live in cities and stuff. And there’s the tendency to equate Native Americans with all things mystical, but this doesn’t just misinterpret their beliefs.
It also disregards Native Americans who aren’t into those things, in fact some of them are even Christians. One example of a pop culture artefact that misinterprets indigenous and tribal beliefs is The Sentinel; this programme has a cult following that was more prominent in the mid 1990s up to the early 2000s and it centres on a police officer with heightened senses and an anthropologist who points out that tribes believe in a sentinel or somebody with heightened senses. From what I remember reading, there’s not much of a conception of such.
From what I remember reading up on the various Amazonian communities and tribes, they don’t have much of a conception of it either. While I should forgive those fans and writers for not knowing any better, the fact that this misinterprets indigenous beliefs is telling. Not only do they not do the research, they also never encountered any indigenous person who believes in it. Yet this isn’t talked about that much, to the point where it may’ve been hand waved by fans.
Suspension of disbelief is one thing, misinterpreting a culture’s another matter. This is like thinking all Japanese like anime, but it disregards the Japanese who don’t like it and a larger number who simply don’t care anyways. (I went to Japanese language websites to look up on stray dogs, so this coloured my perception and made think realise not all Japanese care about anime.) This is racist in that it simplifies an entire culture to just a few parts which may not be a thing for all people.
Misinterpreting cultures is bad because while this is naive and uninformed at best, it risks misinforming people about what a country or culture is like and that some people of that community, country or culture may not necessarily do all things. That’s like saying all Chinese eat dogs when in fact there are Chinese who don’t and some who do care deeply about them. Or all black people listen to hip hop, disregarding those who don’t and that there are black people who play guitars.
There goes the problem with what I call cultural misinterpretation, which misinterprets what a culture does, what the people do and what they believe in.
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