{"id":45633,"date":"2016-02-15T15:21:30","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T15:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45633"},"modified":"2016-02-15T15:21:30","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T15:21:30","slug":"arcade-fire-exploited-haiti-and-almost-no-one-noticed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45633","title":{"rendered":"Arcade Fire Exploited Haiti, and Almost No One Noticed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arcade Fire Exploited Haiti, and Almost No One Noticed<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Atlantic<\/a>
\n2013-11-12<\/p>\n

Hayden Higgins<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nArcade Fire<\/a> \/ JF Lalonde<\/small><\/p>\n

The band has a deep, sincere relationship with the Caribbean nation. But even so, <\/em>Reflektor’s<\/a> marketing campaign has perpetuated stereotypes.<\/em><\/p>\n

Months before Arcade Fire\u2019s<\/a> new album came out, I learned of its existence when social media pointed me to a website with some chalked, black and white patterns<\/a> spelling out \u201cReflektor<\/a>.\u201d The designs seemed strange and foreign, and I was intrigued about what the music might sound like\u2014not because I knew what the accompanying imagery meant, but precisely because I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

This, of course, was the intended effect. It turns out those designs were inspired by Haitian veve<\/a><\/em> graffiti, used in syncretistic Vodoun<\/a> practices to summon the Loa<\/a> (angels or spirits, messengers to the deity). But presented out of context, to the typically unknowing fan like me, they connoted something else: mystery, exoticness, esotericism.<\/p>\n

Reflektor<\/em> itself\u2014now released and at the top of the charts\u2014and the rest of its marketing campaign went all-in on the Haitian tropes. During some promotional concerts the band donned Kanaval masks, coopting a symbol that holds multifaceted, complex meaning for Haitians during Carnival<\/a> but that was reduced to flat shorthand for \u201cparty!\u201d during a raucous SNL<\/a> appearance. The music evokes similar stereotypes. In the song \u201cFlashbulb Eyes,\u201d glimmering marimbas will, for many listeners, conjure a specific idealization of the Caribbean (where Haiti<\/a> is located), while singer Win Butler<\/a> wails about cameras stealing souls. The band\u2019s music used to feel interesting by virtue of its heart-on-sleeve confrontation with mortality; now, it borrows its edginess by leaning on preconceptions about a foreign region….<\/p>\n