"Cultural appropriation" is yet another one of those buzzwords that feminist social justice academics have come up with in order to blame white people, control western society, and gain power over people's behavior and thinking.
However, an actual genuine case could be made for the concept of "cultural appropriation": When a culture or society takes something from the culture of another country (like for example a work of art or fiction), and changes it somehow for political purposes and political activism, ie. propaganda, without respecting the source material nor where it comes from.
In general, so-called localization does not fit into this definition. In some cases localization might go too far, and even be in some ways disrespectful to the original source material and its culture, but seldom can it be considered "cultural appropriation" in the above sense, if it's not done for political propaganda purposes.
("Localization" means that the original work is translated to another language and modified in some way in order to be better understood, or fit better, into the culture of the target audience of the translation. For example the name of a food that's very local to the original country, and unknown in the target language, might be changed in a translation to a more well-known food instead, rather than use the original. Localization, especially of Japanese animation, sometimes going even to absolute extremes, removing all references to the original culture, was extremely common in the 80's and 90's, but has become less and less popular, acceptable or even needed, as public consciousness and knowledge has become more and more international.)
What Netflix is doing with their upcoming The Witcher series, however, could be considered a genuine case of cultural appropriation.
The Witcher is a book series by a Polish author, and one of the most popular modern works of literature in Poland. Netflix is creating a TV series out of it, and making "diverse" and "inclusive" casting decisions on it. One of the main characters will be cast as a black woman, and in general they are looking for "minorities" for the other roles.
Quite clearly they are doing this for political purposes, with no respect to the original work. In other words, they are culturally appropriating a Polish work of art, and changing it for their own political agenda, with complete disregard to the ideas of the original author or the Polish people.
However, an actual genuine case could be made for the concept of "cultural appropriation": When a culture or society takes something from the culture of another country (like for example a work of art or fiction), and changes it somehow for political purposes and political activism, ie. propaganda, without respecting the source material nor where it comes from.
In general, so-called localization does not fit into this definition. In some cases localization might go too far, and even be in some ways disrespectful to the original source material and its culture, but seldom can it be considered "cultural appropriation" in the above sense, if it's not done for political propaganda purposes.
("Localization" means that the original work is translated to another language and modified in some way in order to be better understood, or fit better, into the culture of the target audience of the translation. For example the name of a food that's very local to the original country, and unknown in the target language, might be changed in a translation to a more well-known food instead, rather than use the original. Localization, especially of Japanese animation, sometimes going even to absolute extremes, removing all references to the original culture, was extremely common in the 80's and 90's, but has become less and less popular, acceptable or even needed, as public consciousness and knowledge has become more and more international.)
What Netflix is doing with their upcoming The Witcher series, however, could be considered a genuine case of cultural appropriation.
The Witcher is a book series by a Polish author, and one of the most popular modern works of literature in Poland. Netflix is creating a TV series out of it, and making "diverse" and "inclusive" casting decisions on it. One of the main characters will be cast as a black woman, and in general they are looking for "minorities" for the other roles.
Quite clearly they are doing this for political purposes, with no respect to the original work. In other words, they are culturally appropriating a Polish work of art, and changing it for their own political agenda, with complete disregard to the ideas of the original author or the Polish people.
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