Avatar, Halloween

[glockgal]

RACEBENDING.COM - promo shirts!
Thanks to Mike and Dariane for setting this up - we have new OFFICIAL racebending.com t-shirts for sale at Blacklava! Our Zazzle store will still remain up to sell bumper stickers and postcards. But all t-shirts are now through Blacklava

Comments

[strippedhalo]

Oh my god, Halloween costumes. I was in a place the other day, and nearly every single costume for men was offensively racist (exception: pirates, vampires, and jailbirds). Sheiks! "Reggae"! Mexican!

Of coure, all of the costumes for women were variations on a theme, and that theme was "wench". Even the few that didn't actually include wench in the title (Snow White, jailbird, etc.) still meant wench. (Exception: disco, which was oddly demure.)

[simmysim]

I'm reminded of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4rUiV_Hh74

[glockgal]

OMG I forgot about the Sheik ones. *massive facepalm* I definitely didn't have to search past the first couple choices to find the links, like. Just. AUGH.

LOL costumes for women are a whole other bag o' laughs! I think pretty much every one I've seen is prefaced by 'sexy!'. Sexy!nurse, sexy!firefighter, sexy!vamprie, sexy!trundle bed distributor...it's ridiculous.

Disco? Demure? That's pretty awesome.

[fer_de_lance]

I was just observing the other day that it seems impossible to find a grownup-sized female costume that doesn't look like "stripper" was accidentally left off the description. Pirate Stripper, Schoolgirl Stripper, Fairy Stripper, Devil Stripper, Vampire Stripper, Nurse Stripper (I note there isn't a female Doctor costume... but if there were, it would probably feature the world's first low-cut labcoat)...

I think the most innocuous costumes I saw were the Hippies (male and female). They were practically the only innocuous costumes, actually.

I really want to know what's up with the Free Dose of Objectification With Every Female Costume! marketing strategy -- every costume company I encounter seems to think it's the ONLY way to go, judging by the offerings. (I particularly remember the seasonal Halloween Store in the last place I lived; they did have a small selection of non-sexualised costumes, but the "adult-themed" adult costumes outnumbered those by, I'd say, 10:1.)

[furiosity]

Ok, now I'm curious - what are your thoughts on cosplay? At SDCC, there was an amazing Avatar cosplay group, but only very few of them were Asian.

[simmysim]

*Butts in*

I might have this wrong, but I don't think Glock is calling out dressing up as a character that's a different race, but dressing as a race, or as a racial stereotype. Like, dressing up as Aang is just dressing up as Aang, for whatever reason, cosplaying or Halloween or because it's Wednesday. But dressing up as Geeky Japanese Math Nerd/Sexually Submissive and Available Chinese Girl/Native American Savage/Other stereotype is a completely different thing.

[furiosity]

No, I know she wasn't calling anyone out for cosplay, but I am just curious about what she thinks about cosplay. I have the same view of it as you do, generally speaking, because the cosplay idea is that dressing up as a character is done out of admiration for that character, to emulate/pay homage rather than to use a stereotype to gain attention when you're already in a position of privilege

[bookshop]

YES, thank you for all-important halloween reminders! <3

*goes to look at t-shirts*

[glockgal]

Man, I cannot wait for ironic hipster racism to become tacky and unfashionable, cause I anticipate a lot of fail this Halloween.

<3 <3 <3!

[noeon]

Man, I cannot wait for ironic hipster racism to become tacky and unfashionable

I love this statement. It's t-shirt worthy.

[kiri_moth]

I really hate those illegal alien masks. >:(

Someone needs to write a good guideline on costuming...because I would hope there is a difference in a costume that is a racist stereotype and a costume that is done in appreciation of a culture's traditional garb and dress.

[glockgal]

They're disgusting, I can't even. Target having the gall to be all "oops! it was a computer glitch!" when the costume appeared on their site? *kicks Target's PR department in its non-existent balls*

Someone needs to write a good guideline on costuming...because I would hope there is a difference in a costume that is a racist stereotype and a costume that is done in appreciation of a culture's traditional garb and dress.

I agree. There was a bit of a controversy around Heidi Klum's Halloween costume...a year back? Of her dressed up as Kali, the Hindu goddess. I am very much against cultural appropriation and I can totally understand why some people of Hindu faith got upset over this. For some reason it didn't bother me and I'm still trying to parse why.

[kiri_moth]

I am not 100% against cultural appropriation. I am against disrespectful cultural appropriation, which is why I've been making my own efforts to be less ignorant about it. I think if someone was born into one culture but wants to respectfully immerse themselves into another? Go for it! Our world is constantly shrinking and across the globe cultures are going to both bash heads and intermingle.

I don't have enough info on the Klum Kali thing to make a judgement call. It was probably just misguided and ignorant on her part. I guess Hindus don't like to make mockery of their deities. Buddy Jesus, anyone? ;)

[glockgal]

Yarrr, so then the debate becomes what is disrespectful cultural appropriation? Clearly it's different things to different people, and I can't fault someone for taking offense if they believe their culture is being appropriated disrespectfully.

Christians aren't too fond of deity mockery either, that's for sure. XD

On a tangent, I would love to see Buddy Jesus take on Kali-Ma. Now I want to draw this.

[entrenous88]

Ack, very timely reminder not just of the problem of people dressing up as "reggae" or something, but of all of us calling other people on it.

And if people could stop dressing up as gypsies, that would be great as well. A student of my friend told me he's planning to go as a gypsy "with a knapsack full of baby dolls, because you know how gypsies kidnap babies?" Good god. I told him it was a racist costume, and he was genuinely stumped as to why this would offend people who thought about it for more than a second.

[glockgal]

KJFHDFKJHJK the reggae one, man. It really pisses me off! Especially when people try to do idiotic Jamaican accents and think their gross stereotypical buffoonery is in any way clever.

A student of my friend told me he's planning to go as a gypsy "with a knapsack full of baby dolls, because you know how gypsies kidnap babies?"

*CHOKES* WHAT. LIKE. omggggggg you are so awesome for calling him out on that, because. WHAT. WHAT???????

[mamapear]

*bashes head on desk*

I'm so glad you called your friend out on the gypsy thing.

[lady_ganesh]

And I had completely forgotten until now that I'd dressed up as a gypsy when I was a kid. Ugh.