Because they are not changing their skin color to play them. Did you not read the article? The costume isn’t just polynesian clothing; it changes the children’s skin color.
I dunno about it being “easier” to apply multiple temporary tattoos (including to the back - getting “dressed” would require parental help), it will likely be impractical for someone to wear just a fake-grass skirt in October in a temperate zone, and the “skinless” costume will not be able to suggest the exaggerated musculature of the character.
What other cartoon human–not superhuman–needs to have its body shape emphasized? Again, do you think it’d be a good idea to include a girdle in a costume for a girl playing Cinderella? What about a padded bra, to emphasize her exaggerated figure?
Or should we just let kids play human characters by putting on the clothes that suggest the character, not suggesting that you’d need to change your body in order to play a human from a different culture?
It’s an abbreviation for “white Anglo Saxon protestant”, historically the dominant culture in the US.
So, may this isn’t the right place to ask, but what, exactly, is “cultural appropriation”, and why is it wrong?
I get that it’s rude to make fun of or grossly misuse other people’s religious symbols. And hey, I’m a carnivore, but I often avoid eating meat in front of vegetarian friends, especially cuts off meat that look very obviously like they were removed from a live creature (whole lobster, say). And that costume sounds horrible.
But would it have been horrible if it came with temporary tattoos, instead of a printed fat suit?
And I’ve seen someone complain of cultural appropriation in the case of a fusion restaurant. As best as I could tell, the restaurant was preparing food inspired by some culture other than that of the chef or the owner, and it was attractive, tasty food intended to be eaten and enjoyed. That doesn’t feel to me like doing something wrong with food.
I’m not trying to be snarky. I’m trying to understand this issue.
Tia
Let’s try putting the shoe on the other foot. What would cultural appropriation of “white” culture look like? It seems like two elements being discussed include using things another culture holds sacred in an offensive way or mixing random things that really wouldn’t make sense in the native culture. The first example that popped into my head is the urban legend about department stores in Japan celebrating Christmas by displaying Santa Claus being crucified. What might be some other possible examples? If you consider your culture to be “white” culture or Christian culture or American culture, would you be offended if someone from another culture did these things? I’ll come up with some examples below. My guess is most of them will seem silly because western culture ended up being historically dominant. I don’t think any of these things have actually ever been done, but they are might guesses as to what the shoe being on the other foot might look like.
- An Aboriginal Australian decides to snack on Catholic communion wafers and wine from chalices while sitting at home watching TV.
- A Chinese person has the same meal at a Catholic themed restaurant where the waiters are dressed as priests and nuns. Some of the male waiters are dressed as nuns and some of the female waiters are dressed as priests.
- A Sikh from India going to a costume party decides to dress up as a traditional Scottish person and wears a kilt decorated with Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. He wears his traditional turban with the kilt instead of traditional Scottish headwear. He wears both the bagpipes and his kirpan.
- A Kenyan opens up a restaurant with an American military theme. The uniforms worn by the waiters are not properly arranged, with medals, ribbons, etc. not displayed correctly. Maybe the waiter dressed as Eisenhower has Air Force regalia.
Would any of these cause you to feel offended? Again these are silly examples, but the best I could come up with. What else might cultural appropriation of western culture look like?
And?
If I want to look old, I’ll have to change my body appearance too. Same if I want to look like a woman, like a zombie, like a cat…
Let’s assume that I want to dress up as Ella Fitzgerald for a show. What’s the most obvious and less contrived way of doing so? Wouldn’t it be to change my appearance so that I will look like a black woman? Wearing make-up, a wig, fake breasts, etc…What exactly is inherently racist in doing so? Would it be sexist too, and if not, why not? Once again, what is inherently wrong, outside of a cultural context, in putting on dark make up to look like someone else?
Responding to flik:
- It’s in the privacy of their own home. Weird, but i wouldn’t ask them to stop it.
2 does seem a bit offensive. We tolerate stuff like that in an open society, but I don’t think I’d go there.
3 sounds amusing. Of course, I’m not Scottish, but I’d think that was more funny than offensive.
4 I probably wouldn’t notice this one. I’m not close enough to the military to be sensitive to that.
Isn’t the character of Maui superhuman? He’s described as a demigod. I don’t get your point. He’s certainly drawn in an exaggerated fashion (I didn’t understand the people who were upset because he supposedly looked fat - to me he looks powerful).
I can’t say I see the harm in someone choosing to sell such a costume and someone else choosing to buy it.
Same thing - I don’t see the harm in selling or buying (or wearing) such a costume if that’s what everyone involved has chosen to do. Polynesians aren’t being ridiculed or denigrated in any manner that I can see (it may turn out in the film itself that Maui is played for buffoonish laughs, but the trailer doesn’t suggest such). I don’t get why skin colour in and of itself is of such paramount importance to both racists and some people who claim to be fighting racism.
Mission Impossible 2 having a mixture of Fallas, Easter Processions and let’s not ask what else in Seville, which is kind of like having the White House celebrating Thanksgiving on October 12.
Fallas takes place in the Valencia region during the spring. The most famous ones are those of Valencia, where the burning down takes place on March 19th (feast of St Joseph). The things being burned are sarcastic scenes people have spent the whole year building. In some locations, one of the sculptures gets pardoned each year and taken to a museum. Link to the museums of Valencia and Alicante.
Easter Processions in Seville do not involve burning stuff down. They definitely do not involve burning down images of saints. In fact, people taking part in the processions would likely find it very inappropriate to burn down the images, both for religious and artistic reasons (several of the sculptures involved are from the Baroque period).
And I’m not even sure what the heck is it they’re singing. It sounds more like Christmas carols than saetas (that one is from Cádiz, but they’re what’s usually sung to the images in much of Andalusia).
If I have to take your word that you are offended at something I said/did, you have to take my word if I say offense/disrespect was not my intention. Your feelings are no more valid than mine and vice versa.
Most Disney characters are drawn in an exaggerated fashion. Maybe he’s a demigod–but unless his main power is his giant muscles, a la The Hulk, this seems weird to me.
Fair enough. Here’s the harm I see. It’s mostly a harm to white kids, but it’s also to nonwhite kids.
White kids want to put on costumes. They put on Ariel, Cinderella, Percy Jackson, Captain America, that’s fine. Whatever the kid’s body shape is stays the same. The kid’s skin tone stays the same. They put on The Tin Man, The Hulk, a vampire, a zombie, that’s fine. They change their skin tone to match the nonhuman critter.
They put on a Polynesian costume and change skin tone to do so? It’s gonna make the white kid categorize Polynesians incorrectly: instead of thinking of them as just another kind of human, they’re gonna start associating Polynesians with the second group, the group where you gotta change your body to play those characters. It’s not going to be a major change, it’s not gonna be a conscious change, but it’s a subtle thing that’s gonna confuse these kids, make them think of nonwhite people as slightly less than human.
Nonwhite kids? They see that when white kids play a nonwhite character, they get a costume to cover up their skin tone. Costumes to play white characters don’t have those skin-sleeves. Can a black kid play a white character? Or are they stuck with the much narrower range of black characters out there?
Again, this isn’t the end of the world. This isn’t burning a cross in someone’s yard, or denying them housing, or even shouting a racial epithet at them as they walk down the road. This is minor. But it’s an interesting look at how costume makers subconsciously make assumptions about what defines a character. A white character is defined by clothes. A nonwhite character is defined by race.
We shouldn’t make those assumptions.
Reminds me of an episode of Chappelle Show where they held a “racial draft” to allow different races to appropriate aspects of each other’s culture. Everything was fine until the Chinese appropriated the Wu-Tang Clan!
And you think getting into a full bodysuit doesn’t?
Dark make-up in-and-of itself isn’t blackface. Blackface is caricature.
If you read what people fighting cultural appropriation write, producing western art when you aren’t European would qualify (in the same way an European isn’t entitled to produce Aboriginal art). For instance a Japanese composing music according to classical western tradition or playing the piano is guilty of cultural appropriation.
A muslim kid dressing as a catholic cleric would qualify. So would a Londoner dressing up as a Scotsman.
Hindu Indians throwing a “Christmas” or “Thanksgiving” themed party would qualify.
People using common (and wrong) archetypes in advertisement, movies, youtube videos, etc… (like depicting a Frenchman with a beret) would qualify.
So, examples aren’t as outlandish as you seem to think. In fact “appropriation” of western culture is extremely common.
I’ll stop dressing in blackface on Martin Luther King Day if everyone else stops dressing up like grotesque Irish stereotypes on St Patrick’s Day.
Then I didn’t know what was blackface exactly. Still, if people take offense at a shirt with Polynesian tatoos, I strongly suspect they would take offense too at the kid wearing dark makeup.
Also, all dressup are caricatures. A real roman wouldn’t have looked anything like someone showing up as a “Roman” at a party.
OK, but only if I’m allowed to burn all copies of that stupid Kenneth Branagh movie where Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves play brothers. I mean, come on! Obviously, Keanu is not even a real American! Is Keanu even a real human name or is he an alien fish person?
I generally only see people who claim to be some part Irish doing that.
Also, leprechauns aren’t people.
On March 17, somehow everyone on the planet claims to be “part Irish”.
That’s racist.