Katy Perry at Coachella: "A sight for Squaw Eyes"

In coachella, katy perry, racism, The Sun by Adrienne K.5 Comments

I thought this one deserved its own post outside of the hipster headdresses. Observe the outright ignorant racism of The Sun in the UK:

(original post: here)

Notice 4 things:

1. The headline: Katy’s “Poca face”?

2. The text: “Katy Perry looks a sight for squaw eyes”? and she could have “doubled for Pocahontas”?

3. Her pose: please tell me she’s acting demure and not war-whooping?

4. The photo caption: “How girl”?

The Sun managed to wrap four of the most egregious and horrible stereotypes into one little post. So, first of all, of course there’s the mention of Pocahontas, the only female Indian that anyone seems to know. Then, the use of the absolutely demeaning and offensive word “squaw” (read this article if you want/need more background on the term). Then, her pose, doing the stereotypical war whoop that is characteristic of almost any bad western movie or any non-Native attempting to do an “Indian dance”. Finally, the caption. Because we all know that every Native in the US greets each other with a solemn face and says “How.” Sigh. This is just a mess.

Can we play a little imagination game and think of this with Katy in an African-inspired dress? would that fly at all?

Here’s the article: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2937413/Katys-wearing-her-Poca-face.html

(Thanks Lisa!)

Comments

  3. Reply
    Anonymous

    “Can we play a little imagination game and think of this with Katy in an African-inspired dress?”

    We don’t really need to use our imaginations for that – the Sun was full of racist portrayals of Africans back in the eighties. There’s a book from that decade called “Your Daily Dose”, which exposed all the bigoted drivel peddled by the paper.

  4. Reply
    jean

    I saw bits of this on a TV music channel covering Coachella & altho the segment went by very fast I do believe Katy was indeed acting demure & doing little jigs of coy flapper girl poses.I didn’t detect a war whoop.JMHO.
    The Sun is TRASH.

  5. Reply
    Anonymous

    Just in case you didn’t know, The Sun makes a habit of using word twists and dodgy puns – often very, very forced ones- in its headlines, with crappy humour, on all subjects – so it’s not quite so exceptional or shocking as you imagine.

    I am surprised they didn’t manage to come up with anything on Katy’s own songs and had to refer to “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga, though.

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