Cultural appropriation is a phrase that a few years ago was not often heard. People have long stereotyped other nations' and religions' cultures and used them as fashion or as costume. Nowadays cultures across the world do not have to take appropration lying down, and it is often publicly called out. This, however, doesn't mean people have stopped wearing offensive costumes, but it does mean they'll receive the adequate backlash if they do.
Recently we have seen cases of celebrities wearing Native American headdresses despite knowing this is extremely offensive, and later issuing public apologies. Some examples are Hilary Duff who almost immediately after wearing a Pilgrim costume while her boyfriend dressed as a Native American wrote a quick apology, but also Chris Hemsworth who used his apology for good, drawing attention to the standing rock cause.
"I sincerely and unreservedly apologise to all First Nations people for this thoughtless action."
Another trend which has been been sparked in recent years is to wear make up akin to Calaveras, the sugar skulls most closely associated with the Mexican Day of the Dead festival. This trend has been used in music videos and James Bond films alike, and seems to be a go to Halloween look for men and women across the world. This year the lingerie company Ann Summers used a white model wearing sugar skull make up in their Halloween campaign, along with the tag line 'GET YOUR FREAK ON', and has even provided their instagram followers with a make up tutorial.
Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a holiday meant to honour and remember dead relatives, and to guide them in their afterlife. Appropriating this festival as fashion or costume is, of course, extremely offensive and has long been called out by Mexicans and other nationalities that celebrate the holiday, though the general world public and especially the world media do not seem to promote this calling out as much as they do with other cultures. It begs the question as to why this is the case.
There seems to be a case of not all cultural appropriation being perceived as severe as others, but as the Western world we cannot pick and choose what is and isn't offensive. Appropration is appropriation and we have to put it on eaqual footing.
Over this weekend, though, we have started to see this issue being picked up more and more in the media, so we can only hope that this will continue to happen and that people will be discouraged from appropriating this and other cultures in the future.
Thumbnail courtesy of Cody Garcia https://flic.kr/p/9k1wMh
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