In My Day, We Called It “Dressing Up”

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The picture just above these words was taken almost three years ago. It’s amazing how time flies. Regardless of that, you’ll see that my blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter was incredibly excited to dress up as Mulan for Halloween. At the time, I thought that was a pretty cool choice.

You see, Frozen had come out just a little bit earlier in the year, and almost every little girl in the world wanted to be Queen Elsa for Halloween. There were even people making drinking games out of it (every time that Elsa rings your doorbell, drink!). But not my Reg-Reg. She wanted to be a tough, warrior princess. She wanted to be Mulan.

Technically, Mulan isn’t even a princess, although she is often included in the Disney Princess (TM) universe. She’s based on a real woman who was a war hero in ancient China. And although I didn’t put a black wig on Regan or draw exaggerated epicanthic folds on her face, I encouraged her to learn more about China and to be whomever/whatever she wanted to be.

Well, folks, that’s now called racism.

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Disney is releasing its latest princess film, Moana, (a name sure to spawn a thousand pornographic titles) on November 23rd. In advance of this, Disney decided to make a Halloween costume that allowed children to look as though they had tattoos like the male lead, Maui.

This was apparently very offensive thing to do. 

In modern America, you’re not allowed to pretend to be somebody who’s a different race than you are. Nope, you have to “understand the experience of brown people” in order to wear a costume. How far will this go, I wonder? Will I need to understand the experience of brown people to wear my favorite basketball player’s jersey? What if my daughter becomes an X-Men fan? Is she allowed to be Storm for Halloween? Should brown people be allowed to wear this He-Man Costume without understanding the experience of white people? Or this Bane costume? Or this Bamm-Bamm costume?That’s so “whiteface.” What about green people? Or blue people? Aren’t we minimizing them?

Shouldn’t we be celebrating the fact that little kids think it would be cool to be a Pacific Islander? That Disney went to extraordinary lengths to try to ensure that the movie was culturally accurate? Nah, it’s easier to be outraged.

If Regan sees Moana and decides that she wants to be a Pacific Islander for Halloween, I’ll do two things:

  1. Be super pissed because I already spent a ton of money on her Captain Phasma costume
  2. Buy her a Moana costume—assuming that there are any left on the shelves

Which is more damaging—to allow the costumes and help some kids learn about a new culture, or to yank them and protect the feelings of the hyper-sensitive?

 

 

25 Replies to “In My Day, We Called It “Dressing Up””

  1. Ryan

    What amazes me about these sorts of situations is that the people who are a member of that “minority” group are always the most apathetic to the situation.

    As I learned during a team-building exercise back in March, the fact that we referred to my now-deceased great grandmother as “Mamie” made me racist. At least to the doe-eyed 23 year old girl I worked with. The older black women in the office were in hysterics.

    Reply
    • everybodyhatesscott

      Ugh, it’s basically virtue signalling by whites for other whites. In 20 years when all the indian team names have changed whites will be accused of whitewashing history. Well, if we’re not in a giant civil war by then.

      Cute kids bark

      Reply
      • jz78817

        it’s basically a youthful need to feel “important.” there’s a reason the loudest ones are usually white college kids. They haven’t learned that “being offended on someone else’s behalf” isn’t going to fix whatever problem they perceive. They want to believe that if they get up in your business about something, you’ll change your mind and they can walk away patting themselves on the back for having “done something.”

        Reply
  2. DirtRoads

    I’ve always said that if we are to “Embrace Diversity” then you need to embrace this redneck.

    Hey.

    I’m people too.

    But no, that well-worn bumper sticker phrase doesn’t apply to white folks. White folks put it on their cars or slap it on their guitar cases to show that they “embrace diversity,” which means anyone who is not white.

    Makes white folks feel less guilty about all their white privilege.

    God forbid that a nonwhite embrace a white person.

    Total hypocrisy. [/rant]

    Now for sure someone will call me a redneck racist and I’ll be run out of town on a pole. Tarred and feathered.

    Reply
    • everybodyhatesscott

      I’ve been hanging out with a lot of rednecks lately. It’s refreshing not having to deal with the constant virtue signalling and pc language. Nice working class people who like to make jokes without having to look over their shoulders.

      Reply
  3. nici

    What can you do? You can’t reason with a group of idiots, or even have a rational discussion. In the real world they are usually alone and easy enough to ignore, but it’s impossible on the internet where they can instantly group up and make enough noise to drown out anyone trying to be rational. Can you still draw a line between the real world and the internet, or is it all just the same now? I guess the only thing you can do is whatever it is you were going to do, and hope you don’t get lynched by an angry mob. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kqLVeP7iHA

    Reply
    • everybodyhatesscott

      I’m tall and relatively big in real life. Shockingly, no one says crap to me about my ‘make america great again hat’

      Reply
    • jz78817

      it’s dangerous to go through life believing that the only reason someone might disagree with you on something is because they’re an idiot.

      Reply
      • nici

        I welcome disagreement, it can be eye opening. Opinions evolve, or at least they should. Someone raving on about how a kids party suit or candy of the wrong colour is racist is an idiot, or at the very least acting like one. It’s easy to get sucked into parroting opinions it if you are exclusively surrounded by like minded people.

        Reply
  4. jz78817

    yeah, the whole “cultural appropriation” bitching is something I can’t wrap my head around. Listening to these screeching kids (and let’s face it, most of them are probably 18-23 year old white people who are relatively well off) you’d think people were trying to bring back Blackface.

    Reply
  5. 2814V

    Devils advocate: your daughter wearing a Mulan costume, even wearing a black wig for the costume would not be racism. If you added Asian eyes and yellow tinged make up it would be.

    I don’t think the Moana costume is that bad; but I can certainly see why, and how it is construed as so: the entire conceit of the costume is that it is changing your skin tone via colour and cultural tattoo’s/imagery…in that sense it’s similarly analogous to blackface. The Mulan v Moana dress up analogy is not a good one.

    Reply
    • Tedward

      Nah, Robert Downey jr. blew that one out of the water. Everyone loves tropic thunder. Anyone who doesn’t should be put on an island.

      Reply
  6. Tedward

    I find appropriation complaints disgusting and contemptuous. I will respond with scorn and dole out humiliation to any hothouse flowers who voice those sentiments around me. Funny thing is, I only see it from my sisters Hampshire college crowd friends, never ever from anyone coming out of our project high school background. Funny thing.

    I think the Internet comment was spot on. Kids talking about these subjects don’t realize that they are being treated with kid gloves by their professors, allowed room to grow if you will. That would be great except instead of being set out into the world to immediately learn they aren’t housebroken yet they echo chamber themselves on the Internet. Then they realize that they can be bullies too.

    Reply
  7. -Nate

    My 3-1/2 year old Grand Daughter also loves being this Princess ~ I hope the professional butthurt crowd doesn’t ruin All Hallow’s Eve for her….

    Children are precious and shouldn’t be made to feel bad for being Children .

    -Nate

    Reply
  8. ArBee

    I’m a tall, blue eyed white man who has worked hard all his life, paid income tax for almost fifty years, and done no harm to anyone. I’ll be damned if I’m apologizing to anyone for anything. If the Social Justice Warriors can’t deal with that, then they need to find a hat and shit in it. Pardon my bluntness, but I’ve had enough of free American citizens having to walk on eggs because someone might be offended by their very existence. Offended, hell. As an Irish friend says, “Fook ’em all”.

    Reply
  9. Ronnie Schreiber

    I find it interesting the way the left wing intersectionalists eager to see oppression and bigotry everywhere make excuses for their own Jew hatred.

    Almost all learning and culture is appropriated from others. One of my favorite klezmer bands is a Dutch group called De Gojim.

    Should Scots and Jews be the only ones who benefit from the inventions and discoveries of those groups’ members?

    Reply
  10. Sobro

    If you’ll recall the California white kid with the dreads being berated by a black girl, my answer would have been:

    “You identify as African?”
    “Yes”
    “Then why am I not seeing your tits?”

    Reply

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