Cultural Appropriation or Harmless Costume?

Another year, another time to consider how Halloween costumes aren't just "Halloween costumes" anymore.

I feel like I write this post -- or a version of it -- every year. And I grapple with the same questions -- where is the line? When is a costume just a costume? -- and I haven't figured out an answer.

But this post popped up on my newsfeed a few days ago and...yeah.

via Distractify

Okay, fine. I'm on board with this. Cultural progress where we're "increasingly exposed to diverse narratives" which means "we look up to and admire cultures that are different from our own" -- yes. This is unequivocally a good thing.

But here's where it gets tricky:

What I take issue with here -- or, rather, what I struggle with -- is the part about how "it might not be your kid's place to honor them with a disguise."

While this article is, most likely, click-bait, it still raises an interesting question -- one I'm still grappling with.

First--let me offer this disclaimer: some most of these costumes are truly offensive and inappropriate, given their adult target audience. Yes, it is inappropriate for an adult woman to don a geisha costume. Yes, it is inappropriate for an adult woman to don a "sexy Pocahontas" costume. Yes, it is inappropriate for a company to even market an Anne Frank historical 1940's costume and then invoke The Chronicles of Narnia.

But the very first costume on the list is Moana -- a Disney character costume marketed towards kids.

Here's what the site offered as far as a caption:

What bothers me here is not the fact that a mother is talking with her child about cultures and cultural appropriation. (Lord knows, I'm already That Mom when it comes to watching Disney movies, emphasizing Elsa's point that you can't marry a man you just met, etc.) What bothers me is her claim that it "feels like we are laughing at her culture by making it a costume."

As a parent (<--that still feels weird to say/type!), I don't know...I staunchly disagree with this. (I mean, I guess it depends on how her old daughter is. If she's north of 10, sure.) But if my 2.5 year old (who doesn't really know what Halloween is, but let's pretend she does for the sake of this hypothetical) came to me and said she wanted to "be Moana" for Halloween, I wouldn't hesitate. Because I know that she's not motivated by malice or spite nor she does have a desire to mock or laugh at her culture. It's because Moana is a person she admires and wants to be like her. I don't even know what a conversation about cultural appropriation would look like with a 2.5 year old.

But is it cultural appropriation?

OED recently added the term to their dictionary defining it as:

the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.

The key component seems to be the power dynamic -- specifically the imbalance of power between the marginalized and dominant group.  And, look: my daughter's a white female. She, through no fault of her own, was born into a place of privilege and power, based simply on the color of her skin. But she doesn't know that. Not yet. And I don't know when she will know that. Probably much earlier than I would want or than I learned it.

Once again, I don't have an answer to this question. And it feels very reductive to say that "under the age of X you get a pass," because that's not what I'm advocating for. I just think that the situation is much more complicated for a 3-year-old wanting to be like her favorite fictional character than it is for an adult who, even as a teenager, would have experienced enough of the world to know about power dynamics.

The window of time where a kid can want to dress up like Moana, or Mulan, or Belle, or Hermione Granger, or Darth Vader, or Cookie Monster, is so short as it is -- why would I want to make it any shorter?

Moana Halloween Costume Controversy: Cultural Appropriation or Cosplay?

Yesterday, I read an article on io9 about a new Disney Halloween costume from the upcoming Moana:

PC @ io9

Basically, kids can dress-up like The Rock's character, Maui, from the film:

PC @ DisneyStore Online

The costume allows the wearer to don the "signature tattoos" as well as the rope necklace and the island-style skirt.

The controversy, however, comes from the fact that the "skin" of the costume is brown, leading many (but not all!) online to descry the costume as "cultural appropriation" and allowing children to blatantly practice brownface. The Buzzfeed article, "People Are Angry About This Disney Costume," captures some of the Twitter reactions.)

Before I go any further, let me make this clear:

I do not condone brownface or blackface or cultural appropriation. 

We good? 

Okay.

What I'm interested in is the line between cultural appropriation and, say, something like cosplay. or even the fact that we live in a melting pot of cultures and the blurring of cultural lines is going to happen. And, as Jenni Avins put it in a piece for The Atlantic, "No matter how much I love cable-knit sweaters and Gruyere cheese, I don’t want to live in a world where the only cultural inspiration I’m entitled to comes from my roots in Ireland, Switzerland, and Eastern Europe." 

I'd like to think that I'm not the only one to struggle with this question--and I'd also like to think that my struggle, at the very least, means that I'm not blind to the issue and am aware that it exists. 

But when something like this Moana costume incident happens, I don't quite know what to think. My knee-jerk reaction is to say, "It's just a kid's costume," but I realize that that knee-jerk reaction is part of the problem.

Also part of the problem: the fact that the film hasn't been released yet, and therefore, I don't know how Moana portrays Polynesian culture. 

The way I understand it, from Nadra Kareem Nittle's helpful article, "cultural appropriation" happens when there's the "unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc." -- and usually involves a dominant culture exploiting a minority culture. Nittle identifies cultural appropriation as problematic because it (1) "robs minority groups of the credit they deserve" (due to association with the majority group) and (2) reinforces stereotypes about the minority groups. Nittle also points out that cultural appropriation is particularly egregious around Halloween, when people don stereotyped costumes without knowing the "roots of such dress and the challenges those who originated it have faced in Western society."

The last part is particularly troubling about the Maui costume. 

A quick Google search reveals more information on what the Buzzfeed article touches on at the end: that while Disney is being praised for it's diversity with Moana as well as for it's progressive portrayal of a female action hero (no love story!), people still believe that Disney is being offensive and racist by reinforcing stereotypes of obese Samoans. (See also: this article from The Washington Post.)

My first thought was that his size was to help portray him as a demi-god -- as larger than life. That being said, I fully realize that I'm saying this from a position of relative privilege as a white woman and not as a member of the culture being stereotyped. If the people from the Polynesian/Pacific Islander culture think it's offensive, end-stop. 

So obviously the accusations of Disney using another culture's dress/folklore with authorization have some merit but again, the issue of the Halloween costumes makes me think -- especially the issue of kids' costumes. 

I'm not sure what the right answer is -- or if there even is a right answer. But here are some of the things marinating in my mind:

• If the costume is offensive, is there an alternative? 
• What if Disney didn't have a Maui costume? Would they get accusations of being racist for not offering a Halloween costume for a minority character while you can buy costumes for Snow White and Cinderella? 
• The brown skin sleeves of the costume are a vehicle for the tattoos -- is the answer to offer the costume in different sleeve colors (e.g. a Maui with white sleeves, black sleeves, etc.)?
• Would a "white Maui" costume then be subject to accusations of white-washing? 
• Could they have made the costume sleeves "sheer" so that a child's natural skin color showed?
• I have to believe that if a child wants to dress up as Maui or Moana for Halloween, it's because they like the character right and want to emulate him/her? And not because they want to appropriate a culture? But is that how cultural appropriation starts? 
• When we see little girls dressed as their favorite princess at Disney World, do we call it cultural appropriation? 
• What if my daughter wants to dress up as Jasmine or Tiana because they're her favorite princess? What do I do then? (I'm assuming we can't have a super detailed conversation about cultural appropriation at three years old, although I have no doubt I will be more "academic" about the Disney films than most parents....)
• How is cultural appropriation different from cosplay (which is defined as "the art or practice of wearing costumes to portray characters from fiction, especially from manga, animation, and science fiction")?
• Does the "fiction" qualification excuse cultural appropriation? Surely not. After all, fiction and culture are intimately connected so...if an American cosplays as a character from Japanese anime, is it cultural appropriation? 

I would honestly love some insight on this topic: what if my daughter, exposed as she will be to the full canon of Disney movies, wants to wear a Tiana dress when we go to Disney World? Or a Jasmine outfit? (Assuming, of course, that my daughter is one who likes princesses and wearing dresses...I didn't when I was 4.) What's the right way to handle that situation?