The politics of representation is defined as “The competition over meaning among groups…” (Wenden). Different cultures are essentially represented in a certain way, either in language, in print, and electronic and of late social media. Pennington’s article addresses this by using a modern-day example of Katy Perry’s music video of her song Dark Horse. Pennington argues that the music video is full of racial overtones in idealizing Oriental Egyptian culture. Pennington’s argument is that Perry’s video frames men of color with a wide audience and causes “cultural appropriation,” among other things (Pennington). This is in tying with the idea of the politics of representation because, according to Pennington, Katy Perry’s video misrepresents Oriental culture to fit western stereotypes.
Pennington takes note of several things in the video, which is at least mildly problematic. In the video, the men of color are represented in various ways as hypersexualized beasts who are objectified and destroyed when they have served their purpose. She (Perry) is also symbolized as a goddess, which Pennington argues is a subliminal glorification of the white colonizer who knows better than women of color but especially in taming the unrestrained sexual desires of the man of color. These problems would be fixed by the artist or the production company coming clear and saying precisely the symbolism in the video.
The politics of representation in Pennington’s article, unlike the other readings, is viewed as more subtle, perhaps inadvertent. Most of the interpretations Pennington has made on the Dark Horse video may be farfetched. That being said, Katy Perry did herself no favors by choosing such questionable symbols for her video.