Music

Beyoncé And Coldplay Are Being Accused Of Appropriating And Exoticising Indian Culture In Their New Music Video

The clip for ‘Hymn for the Weekend’ is producing quite a bit of backlash.

by Hannah Hawkins  31 January 2016

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If the simple fact of Beyoncé featuring in a Coldplay song wasn’t already strange enough, now she’s coming under fire for pretending to be Indian. Coldplay’s video for their new single ‘Hymn for the Weekend’ dropped over the weekend, and while many fans are predictably going bonkers for it, it’s also being criticised for fetishising and appropriating Indian culture.

The clip was filmed in India, and if it didn’t include Beyoncé and Coldplay’s frontman Chris Martin, it would look like a tourism ad for the country. All of the better-known traditional Indian visuals are there, but there’s also a white guy swaying and singing in front of an ancient temple. It’s cheesy, but fairly predictable these days. Then there’s the more complicated aspect: Beyoncé plays a Bollywood actress, dressed head-to-toe in traditional Desi adornment, while Martin watches her latest production from a local cinema.

As the clip’s primarily a Coldplay creation, the backlash appears to be hitting them the hardest. The main criticism is that Coldplay’s exclusive use of stereotypical visuals — Holi festival, slums and poverty, Bollywood — is exoticising and fetishising the culture. People are particularly upset with how the band use slum kids and holy men as “props” while likely reaping huge profits from it.

The other thing people aren’t happy about is Beyoncé being decked out in Desi dress. Like Iggy Azalea and Selena Gomez before her, she’s being accused of cultural appropriation — and many people are wondering why Martin didn’t just give the role to an Indian woman. Real Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor also features in the clip — and is ultimately very supportive of the concept — but is only given a brief appearance.

There’s also the way less complicated issue of the video just being completely hackneyed. But we are talking about Coldplay; they’re kind of the music industry’s equivalent of a Hollywood romcom.

They don’t not have a point.