I don’t know that we should make those kinds of assumptions. If I were to consider marketing a costume like that I’d probably try to find out if a significant number of POC found it offensive. If so, I wouldn’t sell it. If not, I’d go ahead.
This reminds me of the debate over sports teams like the Cleveland Indians, and why Chief Wahoo is more offensive that the Fighting Irish leprechaun. The reasons are complex but at the end of the day the only distinction that matters is many American Indians find Cleveland’s mascot offensive, while Irish Americans aren’t offended by Notre Dame’s.
I feel your pain. Just this morning I was thinking about how it’s gotten to the point where if you want interact with the world at all, especially in online communities, you have to just expect to get smacked down by someone no matter what you say.
So many people with pent-up white knight concern just waiting for any opportunity to unleash it.
My favorite is when I get slammed by people whose side I support because they either choose to misinterpret my statements/positions or somehow resent my support. It depresses me.
I’m speaking as an American, in a thread on a costume for a character in a film set in Hawaii. You might not be aware, but Hawaii is part of the US. Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders are not only a minority in the overall US population, but they’re a minority on the Hawaiian islands.
The same general issue of lack of a bullhorn/being muted is an issue for Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and others, and that’s what both I and the OP were speaking about. If some groups live in ethnic enclaves or territories in the US where they aren’t a minority for a small area in the greater US, that doesn’t diminish that issue.
Can I just say that as a parent, this idea was dumb, regardless to race?
Why on earth would I spend $40-50 bucks on an uber-creepy skin suit when I could just as easily spend $10 on body paint and print out stencils from the net?
I just cannot with the stupid inherent in this whole entire concept.
If I was Disney, I’d think about doing a new costume set that consisted of a loincloth (i.e. a pair of shorts with leafy bits around it), possibly a wig, and some makeup pencils and stencils so kids can be creative and design their own ‘tattoos’ to draw on themselves. Let kids have fake-tattoo parties. That way they’re not dressing up in brown skin, there’s no ‘cultural appropriation’, just kids drawing goofy designs on themselves.
My guess is that Disney was thinking that kids wouldn’t want to run around in late fall in nothing but a loincloth. A full body suit at least keeps them somewhat warm. Heck most of the kids dressed in store-bought superhero costumes that come to my door on the 31st are wearing winter coats over them anyway.
Yeah I was just saying that to someone else. Make the grass skirt and let the parents figure out the rest. If they put their white kid in brown sweats, then they’re the assholes and not Disney. In Southern California the grass skirt would probably be sufficient costume, October is hot.
OT but this reminds me of why I get annoyed with Disney Store costumes possibly disproportionately; when my kid was 4, she wanted to be Jane from Tarzan. The costume didn’t exist, so I handmade a teeny tiny elaborate Victorian dress (complete with bustle!). Justifiably proud of this, I entered her into a mall costume contest.
She came in third, after two kids whose parents had dropped $300 at the Disney Store. Entering costume contests with an off-the-rack costume is an ISSUE OF MINE.
They should have gone the mask + bib route. Okay, that’s not what Maui wears in the movie, but I’m pretty sure Muhammad Ali didn’t wear a plastic smock with his name and picture on it either.
The point remains, is that this issue is not a racist issue, only to those who perceive it as such (largely white, middle-class), which doesn’t necessarily make it so. So perhaps the white knights could put down their bullhorns and wait for a genuinely racist issue to use them on, or else we’re all in danger of having cried ‘wolf’.
We all know that story.
This was just a bad idea all around; I cannot fathom how it got green lighted.[quote=“manybellsdown, post:70, topic:85931”]
when my kid was 4, she wanted to be Jane from Tarzan.
[/quote]
Quick question;
Do you recall if any Tarzan costumes were available?
