In Chapter 6: Culture, Jeff Rice makes three key arguements. He wants the reader to understand that the word “cool” is a culturally constructed term, due largely to advertising. He begins the chapter by defining the term ”culturally constructed” as the numerous influences that shape ideas; advertising is one of those influences because it is a dominant discourse in constructing the public’s emotions and desires. Rice also asserts that cool has been appropriated through history, particularly from the African culture. Cool can be traced back as far as before the slave trade, and is still a dominant force in cultures across the globe. Finally, Rice focuses on the writer Amiri Baraka and his beliefs that the “cool” aspects of African-American culture are appropriated when white culture takes over those same African-American aspects (i.e. music). Rice points out that popular white culture such as jazz music were appropriated from the African-Americans of the early ’20s.
If the origins of cool in the United States can be traced back to the slave trade, then its entire foundation is based on oppression and empowerment. The slave trade empowered affluent white Americans, while it oppressed African individuals. Over the centuries, the culture continued to come up with original styles of music, dress and even language. Where the political lines of oppression blur in everday life, these cultural aspects cross the race barrier. White individuals began adopting styles of African-American dress, playing jazz and hip-hop music, and even emulating their speech patterns. Amiri Baraka asserts that as soon as that happened, the African-American origins are erased. While they may not try to be “cool” African-American culture is immediately labeled as such because they lost ownership to white culture.
While the discussion of appropriation in Chapter 6 focuses on historical and political contexts, Chapter 7: Popular Culture and Cool defines cool primarily through music . It also brings up the debate over plagiarism and sampling. Where is the line between appropriating for your own work and stealing others’? Songs defined as popular and cool often borrow lyrics from older songs, such as P. Diddy’s “Every Breath You Take.” In Will Smith’s “Getting Jiggy with It,” Smith made up his own lyrics, but appropriates the music of the 1979 Sister Sledge hit “He’s the Greatest Dancer.” Today’s youth see Smith’s song as innovative in popular, but actually it’s just borrowed from an earlier hit. Rice raises the question of whether or not this is fair to the original producer, in this case, Sister Sledge. And while this is an example of blatantly sampling and appropriating, Rice suggests that even our own ideas are often not our own. Instead, they are borrowed and formed based on other opinions and to which we are exposed.
I think that Rice’s questioning of our own thoughts and ideas is a very extreme way of looking at plagiarism and appropriation. But, I do believe that in pieces of writing or music, when an author borrows an idea, lyric or beat from another, the original person must be given credit for their work. I believe that if someone uses an original thought without giving the first person credit, it qualifies as plagiarism.
