Singing Redface: The Misappropriation of American Indian Culture in Popular Music

Abstract

This project examines the role of cultural appropriation in the creation of Native American stereotypes that are present in Western popular music in post-colonial America through the completion of an in-progress book. Similar to how minstrel blackface performances developed racial archetypes by “displaying blackness,” singing redface occurs when a non-Native person takes on the racial archetype of a Native American character through song. This research not only analyzes the use of singing redface in popular music, but also examines how these songs lead to cultural confusion, cultural misappropriation, racial antipathy, and idealized sympathy towards Native Americans and their culture.