I've seen a lot movies that are about foreigners and islanders and I don’t see much problem in these movies until I saw a movie that Pohnpei was included and the movie really misrepresented our cultural ways. I really didn’t like the movie, infact it makes me upset. They really didn’t show any respect toward our culture. This is kind of action is called "Appropriation of Voice", which means taking a behaviors, styles, beliefs, human work and though characteristic of a community or population for their own use. (Stacy). Simplest way to say it is one culture writing about other cultures. Writers and filmmakers should show respect to other cultures by doing researches base on the culture they want to discuss about.
I cannot say that it’s wrong to write about other cultures because everyone wants to know about everyone and there’s no law that says no one can write about other culture. I really think it’s good that writers are writing about other culture cause it’s like their showing interest in other cultures beside their own. But the major effect is that writers are misrepresenting others cultural ways of living.
In a Book Principals Short Essay on Ethic by Thomas Hurka, in the article "Should Whites Write about Minorities?" There were three disagreements based upon this question. One argument is that whites should not write about minorities because whites are not experienced with the cultural lives of minorities and they don’t understand them. If they are not experienced with the minority’s ways of life, they might misrepresent it. Second argument is that whites make it harder for minority’s artist to find audiences. For instance, when white tries to write about minorities they didn’t care if their work is true, they even describe minorities as cannibals so this make it harder for minorities to have people who care. Third argument is about how whites steal stories from native people for their own purposes and one purpose is about the money. Writers and Filmmakers are making a lot of money from their stories in the other hand those cultures that had been misrepresented had felt that they are been criticized.
