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Lights, Camera, Culture: Examining the Laws of Global Storytelling

“They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” 


Filmmaker with camera films two people in traditional attire under studio lighting. Microphone visible. Beige background, calm setting.
Illustration by Sanigdhaya Mahajan

This impactful saying has been heard in innumerable Indigenous movements across all continents. One consistently common element found in Indigenous movements everywhere is a subdued yet powerful resistance to protect their intangible heritage, such as languages, rituals, oral histories, and spiritual lifeways, which have been on the verge of annihilation by colonialism and modernisation.


From the revitalisation of endangered languages in the Americas and Australia to objections to land grabs for infrastructure at sites of great cultural importance in the Amazon and Arctic, Indigenous peoples are asserting that their culture does not belong as a relic in a museum. They challenge the hegemonic narratives of uninhibited progress, demanding a future predicated on the co-existence of tradition and their self-determination. Such struggles are most visible in the entertainment industry, specifically in films, where non-Indigenous filmmakers paradoxically conflate and exploit minority cultures for profit. 


Within the last few months, Disney’s live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, formerly beloved for its heartwarming portrayal of Hawaiian ohana, has sparked a heated debate regarding this topic. Critics have accused it of viewing indigenous values through a colonial lens, of whitewashing characters, and of ignoring the queer-coded alien Pleakley. These are neither PR blunders nor fleeting social media backlash. They are indicators of a question far deeper and concerning: What happens when stories made for everyone fail the people they purport to represent? 


Now that films and television series aim increasingly for a global reach, new and heightened standards of cultural responsibility are cast upon them, and, of course, most are found not to be up to par. Allegations of cultural appropriation, stereotyping, and erasure are no longer neatly confined to social media debates. They have crossed into the more contentious terrain of intellectual property law and the lofty ideals of free expression enshrined in international treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Given the numerous allegations these filmmakers face, it is essential to recognise that the legal framework governing film production is in disarray, underdeveloped, and worryingly outdated for regulating the film industry.


Overview of the Laws


As entertainment and the enterprises surrounding it have gradually become more globalised through the introduction of OTT platforms and streaming services, international laws have lagged behind. Consequently, creators may argue they are exercising their respective freedom of speech. Still, more and more audiences are becoming assertive, searching for some mechanism to protect their culture from being appropriated or misrepresented to the wider world. Patchy agreements and conventions give rise to more questions than answers, especially when freedom of expression seemingly bends towards aggressive and disrespectful cultural representation that is not necessarily truthful. 


The core of this intersection is found in the ICCPR. Article 19 of this treaty institutes the right to freedom of expression, which covers artistic and creative expression as well. However, the right is qualified by restrictions to protect against "the rights or reputations of others" and "public morals." Article 27 states even further: it requires respectful treatment of the minority culture, especially where the majority presence and authority might overwrite minority oral traditions and views of indigenous or weak voices. The question arises when these two articles drag in opposite directions, such as in cases where a particular ethnic group's expression is perceived as misrepresentation by the community.


The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) attempts to further this balance in Article 15, safeguarding the right of all persons to participate in cultural life through artistic and creative expression. However, the covenant falls short of explicitly defining the distinction between cultural appreciation and appropriation. Thus, while cultural rights are recognised, communities are not fully equipped to defend these rights from being exploited. 


At the same time, regional frameworks such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) serve as another firewall against discrimination (including cultural misrepresentation) and protection for freedom of expression (particularly ECHR Article 10). Nonetheless, these instruments have largely left it to national courts to interpret them, resulting in varied enforcement mechanisms, ranging from permissive to prohibitive. Access, however, is not automatic. Communities often face obstructions like standing requirements, exhaustion of domestic remedies, or huge financial and legal hurdles before even reaching these forums. There’s no solid answer.


Together, these legal instruments create a framework that recognises the right to communicate and to receive appropriate cultural recognition. However, they rarely provide an answer in cases where the two rights conflict. Who has the right to tell a story? Is their ownership a myth, symbol, or worldview? Is it a fair homage, or is it appropriation? 


The legal interaction between freedom of expression and the protection of culture essentially represents the conflict between liberal individualism and communitarian values. Liberal theories, rooted in the heritage of the Enlightenment and further developed by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty (1859), grant individuals significant rights, with freedom of expression being seen as the foundation of autonomy and a democratic society. This bent is also evident in international instruments such as the ICCPR, wherein freedom of artistic and creative speech is treated as paramount. Yet, post-colonial and communitarian theorists do not simply accept these universalist constructs. They claim that this would not account for the cultural asymmetries and life experiences of communities that have been marginalised in history.


In The Politics of Recognition (1994), Charles Taylor insists that cultural identity is not a matter of autonomy but one of communal recognition and respect, in order to survive in plural societies. On the other hand, scholars such as Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak have critiqued and argued that global cultural flows tend to homogenise and commodify non-Western discourses, often reducing native representations and labels into mere stereotypes within dominant hegemonic media structures. 


This also explains why, while the ICESCR and ICCPR are supposedly protective, they continue to remain structurally limited. They interact through a rights-based approach without building in a relational or restorative justice framework. Naomi Mezey in 2007 also observed that entertainment and media law frequently considers culture to be stagnant while ignoring its contested, negotiated and changing nature. From this perspective, the current legal framework reveals a more fundamental philosophical issue. There is no intercultural legal epistemology that merges creative liberty with the collective right of cultural integrity in a globalised media landscape. These principles can be explored by looking at various cases where they have been questioned.


Film and Cultural Pushback


In recent years, creative choices within films have provoked deep legal and ethical questions. For instance, controversy surrounding the film Semkhor in India. The film, supposedly an authentic depiction of tribal life, was subject to stiff backlash from the very community it claimed to depict. Activists alleged the filmmakers perpetuated harmful stereotypes about those affected and did so without their full consultation. These representation debates are alive and thriving in Northeast India, just as in California. 


Following protests from the Dimasa tribal groups, the film was banned in 2022 by the Assam State Film Finance and Development Corporation. Although it did not result in litigation at the national level, the controversy raised jurisprudential questions about whether there was a moral obligation on filmmakers to seek free and informed consent before production. This was based on laws such as UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples),  a non-binding yet unique legal framework that explicitly affirms collective rights and the principle of free, prior, and informed consent. These features are largely absent from other human rights treaties and act as a defining characteristic of UNDRIP. However, these principles are usually absent from most national-level entertainment laws. This reflects Iris Marion Young's view on communicative justice, where she asserts that those affected by representation must be involved in decision-making about it.


Similar tensions were showcased in the controversy surrounding Pixar's Elio (2025), a film that had originally been developed as featuring the story of a queer, Latinx child lost in the universe. It had been reported that during production, significant themes of identity, as they pertained to the queer coded elements of the film, were quietly stripped away, with the creator being removed as well. Once conceived as a step toward inclusive storytelling, Elio reminds those who stand for representation what happens when it is considered expendable. 


These removals were never argued in court, but the sidelining of the queer, Latinx narrative mid-way through production and the silencing of the creator ahead of production are fine examples of how corporate creative control can prioritise market acceptability over minority-centric narratives. This implicit jurisprudence exists in the economic and institutional logic that governs media production. As Duncan Kennedy might call it, the "legal consciousness" embedded in corporate decision-making marginalises subversive and minoritised voices without any overt legal actions.


Woodall v. Disney (2024–ongoing) is a continuation of a claim of infringement brought by an American animator who alleges that Disney used Polynesian stories and symbolism in Moana without credit or other compensation. The suit blends the usual copyright claims with the much graver consideration of the exploitation of Indigenous creativity by outside interests, an issue that copyright law simply never bothers to address. 


Copyright protects originality, not community-held traditions or oral histories; hence, Indigenous cultural knowledge stands beyond the scope of copyright. Such a case calls to mind James Boyle's argument in The Public Domain (2008) that intellectual property law is structurally biased against collective and culturally embedded forms of creativity. Woodall's legal argument takes this further by trying to take copyright logic into moral rights territory, asking the courts to contemplate cultural exploitation as a form of unjust enrichment, an ambitious jurisprudential leap.


Meanwhile, European human rights courts have struggled to strike a balance. In Otto-Preminger-Institut v. Austria (1994) and Akdaş v. Turkey (2010), the European Court of Human Rights also examined whether banning artistic content by the state (because they deem it offensive to religious or moral sentiments) infringed upon free expression under Article 10 of the ECHR. 


During the Otto-Preminger case, the Court held that Austria's ban on a film perceived to be offensive to Catholics was justified, with reference to Article 10(2), which permits restrictions to protect "public morals." Conversely, in Akdaş, the Court found the Turkish ban on a translation of an erotic novel to be in breach of freedom of expression. These divergent rulings confirm the Court's respect for the national context in interpreting offence and morality, with an implied conclusion that any attempt to put together universal human rights frameworks can never escape being filtered through culturally contingent standards.


What unites these stories is a deeper pattern of artistic freedom frequently confronting demands for authenticity, dignity, and respect from the communities represented. They demand the formation of an entirely rethought legal philosophy, one that merges postcolonial theory, moral rights traditions, and indigenous jurisprudence, attempting thereby to address the colonial imprint that dominates entertainment law. As philosophers such as Frantz Fanon argue, taking back one's narrative is resistance.


There is growing momentum within legal academia for reform. The article Fair Use as Cultural Appropriation in the California Law Review (2021) maintained that the American doctrine of fair use, originally intended to promote advancement, has been turned into an instrument by which culturally significant material is appropriated without credit. The author looks to a more open and context-sensitive copyright law, seeing economic rights as only half the story. They should also take into consideration the cultural and moral ramifications of the borrowing. 


Current copyright laws prioritise commercial ownership over communal or cultural integrity. They provide protective rights to individual creators and corporations, but are at times incapable of recognising the collective rights, intergenerational narratives, and intangible cultural heritage. These are, in brief, expressions that need protection the most from misuse. Hence, the law must be tailored in a way to benefit not only the storytellers but also the individuals living that story.


The Law Must Catch Up


The global entertainment industry exists as a contiguous conveyor of meaning, identity, and narrative authority. With great power comes great responsibility, and as such, creators across the world must ask themselves what they owe to the cultures they depict. Cultural representation has consequently also become a strategic concern of reputation and regulation.


Directors themselves have spoken about this change. In an unusual instance of public self-reflection, Danny Boyle, director of the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, said that in today’s age, he would not direct that film. Although he worked with Indian crews and tried his hardest to be authentic, Boyle acknowledged that by today’s standards, his work would likely be attacked for cultural appropriation, being the story of an outsider being repackaged for global acclaim. Considering the discourse of today, such a film may never get funded unless a local filmmaker leads the funding.


Far too often, the response has been to retreat behind the shield of freedom of expression. But expression, while sacred, cannot be accepted in a vacuum. Just as speech can cause harm, so can distorted representations in stories. Just as symbols can inspire, they can also misrepresent. These ethical considerations have always been held as norms for conscientious creators to spur them into working with communities, engaging in research, and portraying the truth. However, today, where stakes include dignity, visibility, and even economic survival, ethical considerations are not enough. Legal ones are now required.


This starts with the concept of narrative sovereignty, as proposed by Jesse Wentz, an Ojibwe writer and podcaster. That is to say that cultures, especially historically marginalised or colonised cultures, have collective rights over the telling of their stories. This does not imply censorship, nor does it imply that only insiders can speak. However, this does assert that stories should not be extracted, commodified or reduced to caricatures. The notion stresses that there should be consent, context, and consideration in telling stories. 


Though not formally recognised in international law, the concept points to a lacuna in existing frameworks: treaties such as the ICCPR or ICESCR concern individual rights, whereas narrative sovereignty involves collective cultural control over stories. Even though they do lightly brush against issues like cultural representation, which are collective in nature, they stop short of granting full collective cultural control. The omission of these rights in international legal doctrine can be historically tied to the hegemony of liberal, individualist traditions within human rights law that have had difficulty in accommodating communitarian or intergenerational rights.


Just like states protect their natural resources, communities should also be able to protect their intangible heritage, including myths, rituals, worldviews, and lived experience. Parallel to all this is the belief that cultural guardianship is a shared responsibility among creators, studios, funders, platforms, and audiences. It acknowledges that culture is not raw material; it is memory, meaning, and morals. 


Incorrect representation, appropriation, or erasure can severely diminish a project's credibility and, by extension, its eventual earning potential. Activist investors, corporate departments for social responsibility, and offices for content regulation are all watching. These blunders risk legal and financial threats ranging from lost distribution deals to lawsuits and investigations.


In light of this increasing scrutiny, some soft law proposals have emerged. These are still not binding treaties, but rather evolving norms and instruments that indicate channels into which international law might head soon.


Firstly, there could be the introduction of cultural sensitivity codes, adopted by studios, streaming platforms, and festivals, to ensure an inclusive hiring process, respect for the narrative, and fair engagement with the community. These codes, while not mandatory, do increasingly come to influence production agency, eligibility for funding, and nomination for awards. They signify a rather informal but growing consensus that representation matters, and it must be done responsibly.


At the international level, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues opened formal discussions on the misappropriation of Indigenous cultural expressions in commercial media. The aim here is to protect folklore and affirm the control of Indigenous peoples over the usage, adaptation, and monetisation of their cultural knowledge. The legal instruments under consideration include new international instruments, an expansion of moral rights doctrines, and fortified community-based licensing systems.


Meanwhile, renewed efforts are being pushed by UNESCO to enforce cultural rights, arising from the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The groundbreaking treaty aims to encourage states to take local oral traditions seriously. It also addresses intangible cultural heritage, or rather, tries. A major organisation addressing the importance of Indigenous rights is still a huge milestone for activists fighting for these issues their whole lives. Recent policy documents have also attempted to provide mechanisms whereby film, television, and digital media respect the dignity of the communities they portray.


UNESCO’s power lies in shaping the discourse of legitimacy. Although UNESCO has not outlined a clear enforcement mechanism, its statute has significant influence in the international domain. As with international statutes concerning any other matter, these conventions create obligations that govern the conduct of state and non-state actors, establishing a form of worldwide standard.


Another issue which has arisen is whether a single set of guidelines can work across such dramatically varying cultural, legal, and political contexts. The global entertainment industry operates in an uneven terrain. What constitutes cultural dignity in New Zealand may be deemed censorship in France. What amounts to good inclusive storytelling in the U.S. might be termed blasphemy or foreign interference in another jurisdiction. All these complicated notions of legal pluralism, sovereignty, and identity politics hinder any attempt at codification of a single global standard.


This is why a monolithic solution cannot be sought that applies to all countries. Soft law is a better solution. Instruments, such as international advisory bodies, a certification system, or a due diligence framework, provide a way forward. These mechanisms would not enforce a regulation on the content but on the process: who was consulted, how profits were shared, and whether the representations were vetted and consensual.


Such instruments could be modelled after human rights due diligence processes used in business and technology sectors. A "cultural due diligence" model would be a project of accountability, along the same line as environmental impact assessments for construction projects. These should not be means to limit art but to enhance its integrity. 


The idea should be embedded within the heart of international law. Cultural representation cannot be a footnote in the idea of freedom of expression. It should also be its separate principle. One of the biggest issues that remains is that cultural appropriation is not properly defined. To be exact, even the discourse surrounding cultural appropriation among the general public confuses what it entails. Cultural appropriation must be explicitly defined in law as the adoption and exploitation of elements of a minority culture by a dominant culture. As cultural expression becomes global and commercialised, the law needs to work on catching up with it to protect creativity from being maligned.


Going forward, different stakeholders need to have different responsibilities. Legal scholars should investigate the possibilities of integrating the doctrine of moral rights, indigenous jurisprudence, and restorative justice into intellectual property and human rights law. The policy makers, for their part, must strive to develop flexible, yet enforceable frameworks, such as cultural due diligence processes that safeguard collective rights without undermining artistic freedom. 


Law will never have the full script. Inspiration can never be legislated, and equally, taste can never be dictated. The law can, however, provide the framework for credit, for instance, deciding who is named, who gets paid, and who is credited rightfully for their work. It can raise a framework on which fair, inclusive, and respectful stories can stand. 


International law must rise as an active agent of stewardship and our collective humanity expressed through forms of media. The future of filmmaking depends on whether people in the margins will finally be able to be heard and not simply serve as background characters in the portrayal of their own stories.


“There is no one representation of a culture or a people — every individual has their own story to tell.” - Mira Nair




Edited by Anish Paranjape and Thenthamizh SS


Eshal (she/her) is a student of law at the National Law University Odisha, and Senior Copyeditor at Political Pandora.



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Keywords: Cultural Appropriation In Film, Indigenous Rights In Media, Narrative Sovereignty Law, Freedom Of Expression And Culture, Intellectual Property And Storytelling, International Law On Cultural Rights, UNESCO Cultural Heritage Protection, Indigenous Storytelling In Cinema, Representation In Global Media, Cultural Misrepresentation In Hollywood, ICCPR, ICESCR, UN Declaration On Indigenous Peoples, Moral Rights In Copyright Law, Cultural Due Diligence In Entertainment

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