my culture is not your costume essay

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My Culture is Not Your Costume

With halloween just around the corner, i urge you to think twice about your costume choice..

Halloween is just around the corner, and you know what that means!

It’s time for you to bust out your best costume. And no, I don’t mean the basic sexy nurse or the overused frat boy costume. I want you to get creative this year and to think outside of the box.

But, wait! Before you get too crazy, there’s one thing I’d like for you to keep in mind this Halloween when you’re out shopping for your costume.

Yes, Halloween is a magical time where you get to be someone you’re not for a night, but there are just some things you should not pretend to be. Here’s a quick example. Though you may have watched “Moana” and absolutely loved the characters of Moana and Maui — you should probably not dress up as either one of them.

“But, what’s so wrong with dressing up as one of them? They sailed across the Pacific and saved Motunui — they’re total badasses! I want to be just like them, even if just for a night, so why would it be so bad to dress up as one of them for Halloween?”

Yes, I understand that you love them — hell, I do too. When “Moana” was released back home in 2016, I watched crowds of little Samoan girls flood the theaters to see themselves portrayed in mainstream media for the very first time. I teared up as I witnessed them finally being reaffirmed as the beautiful, capable Pasefika girls that they have often been told that they are not. But it wasn’t just little Samoan girls that flocked to the theaters — it was the entire Samoan community. Because for the first time, the mainstream media was finally representing us as the strong, resilient people that we are, and not just the horrible, stereotypical image of oversized, lazy people that we are often showcased to be.

So you have to understand that figures like Moana or Maui are not just fun cartoon characters — they are representations of Pasefika people, our cultures, our histories, and our heritages. So when you dress up as one of them for Halloween, you are essentially dressing up as us. You are minimizing our cultures, our heritages, and our histories as nothing more than just a fun mask - one that you can put on and take off when it is convenient for you.

But, for us, these things are not just a mask, and they are not removable. We take pride in our cultures, our heritages, and our histories, even when they bring along with them histories of trauma and discrimination, and we don’t have the option of leaving them at home when it’s inconvenient for us. So when you put on that tapa cloth to be Moana or get a fake body tattoo to be Maui for Halloween, you get to have the cool, “exotic” costume that your friends admire. But you never have to suffer, or even understand, the histories of imperialistic thinking that categorized and continue to categorize us as “ savage ” and “primitive” because of our traditions and cultural wear. Because at the end of the night, after you’ve won a prize for “best” or even “most exotic” costume, you get to take it off and hang it back up in your closet. But we can’t.

But cultural appropriation rears its ugly head both outside of Halloween season and outside of Pasefika communities as well. We see it at “island” themed parties with grass skirts and cheap “lei’s.” We see it in costumes that mock indigenous peoples and in sombreros that make fun of Mexican culture. And we see it in the multitude of horrible cases of blackface, not only at college parties, but even amongst some of the most powerful people in government today.

Often times, I hear that when it comes to cultural appropriation, ethnic groups are too sensitive. Or that these attempts to dress up in our traditional wear are not supposed to be interpreted as appropriation but rather as appreciation. But when you make our traditional wear into costumes, you are not celebrating us — you are making our histories into myths to tell around the campfire, our cultures into popular trends in the media.

So while we invite you to celebrate our cultures, there are a lot of other ways to appreciate a culture that’s not your own than by dressing up as them for Halloween. And we challenge you to think outside of the box and get creative for figuring out better ways for doing that.

Gabrielle T. Langkilde ’21, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a joint concentrator in Sociology and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Eliot House. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.

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Insensitive costumes remain an important topic of conversation

By Kaitlin Dunn Lifestyle Editor

For the last few years, there has been considerable discussion regarding Halloween costumes — particularly those that utilize offensive humor. Costumes such as culturally insensitive Native American outfits, homophobic costumes, or other stereotypical garb have been the topic of controversy in recent years.

For some, the issue seems easily dismissible. People argue that costumes are only costumes, so there is no harm done. Others claim that censoring outfits defeats the point of Halloween.

However, for many, the issue of offensive Halloween costumes isn’t simply a matter of censorship. Rather, offensive costumes disrespect individuals and groups, and lead to trivialization and mockery.

The phrase “my culture is not a costume” has come out in response to offensive Halloween costumes each year. This argument emphasizes the fact that one’s cultural background or identity is not something for others to wear.

Larger campaigns were created to combat the usage of culturally insensitive costumes. In 2012, Ohio University launched a poster campaign called “We’re a Culture, not a Costume: You think it’s harmless but you’re not the target.”

There are more recent pushes to stop the promotion of culturally insensitive Halloween costumes as well. In a 2020 video for Teen Vogue, people of different ethnic, cultural, and racial backgrounds came together to discuss how people using and mocking aspects of their background for the sake of Halloween affected them.

“One of the things about Hawaiian culture that not a lot of people know is that historically it was illegal to practice anything that had to do with native Hawaiian culture. My grandmother is currently in her 70s, and she’s finally learning how to dance hula…this costume is extremely hurtful, not only for myself but the generations that had to go through this erasure,” Cashman Aiu said in Teen Vogue.

All arguments for wearing offensive Halloween costumes can be used to argue against them as well. Yes, Halloween is one night a year, but it is simple not to mock cultures for the sake of wearing a costume that you likely will never wear again. For you, it is one night, but for others it’s a hurtful display of disrespect towards them and their cultural background.

Wearing Native American costumes or donning blackface for a costume does not make you look cool or edgy — it shows a lack of regard for others and is a blatant display of ignorance.

The issue with these costumes is not only the way they disrespect and trivialize other cultures, but also the way they contribute to harmful stereotypes.

Dressing up as a “sexy Native American” only further contributes to the sexualization of the Native American people. Your costume choice has effects on the lives of real people.

“These costumes aren’t funny and harmless; cultural appropriation isn’t senseless outrage. It’s a painful, dehumanizing attack on their culture, their history, their very existence,” Teen Vogue writer Jessica Andrews said in the video.

There are so many options to choose from for Halloween. Instead of potentially harming someone, stick with space cowboys and renditions of sexy ghosts this October.

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'My Culture is Not a Costume’ campaign sparks awareness, appropriate decisions

The brainstorming process for Halloween costumes is intense for some students at Ohio University and last minute for others. Whether people buy a random costume online or dedicate hours of planning to find the perfect pieces to their festive ensemble, there are ways people can make choices that offend or mock cultures they aren’t part of. 

The Educational Service Center of Central Ohio , or ESC, defines cultural appropriation as “the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of costumes, practices, ideas, etc. of a social group by members of another and typically more dominant social group.”  

Cultural appropriation during Halloween is common because costumes typically mock or resemble another person or thing. Blackface, brownface, yellowface and redface are also common and occur when a person changes their skin tone and/or physical features to match that of another race. According to Pew Research Center, 53% of Americans believe it’s unacceptable for a white person to use makeup to darken their skin tone for a Halloween costume. Only 37% of Americans said it’s “never acceptable.” 

But the harm done by cultural appropriation is a lot. The ESC said cultural appropriation is problematic because “it reduces traditional clothing, customs and practices to a joke or simply an aesthetic.” Costumes that culturally appropriate often use stereotypes, “which perpetuate harmful ideas and ideologies rooted in hate.” 

In 2011, an organization at OU, Students Teaching Against Racism in Society, or STARS, formed the “My Culture is Not a Costume” campaign, which was meant to bring awareness and education surrounding cultural appropriation and its harm. 

The campaign was revitalized for this school year by Duane Bruce, the executive director of diversity and inclusion, and OU Communications and Marketing. The Division of Diversity and Inclusion has peer educators called diversity leadership ambassadors, or DLAs, who take on a different topic each month to educate others about. 

“We get requests all the time all the time around October outside of the university to use the ‘My Culture is Not a Costume’ campaign,” Bruce said. “And this year when we started getting the requests, I talked with my colleagues, and I was like ‘We should put this back up.'” 

Although the campaign was revitalized, the message remains just as valuable and educational as it was in 2011. Bruce said some students may not be aware that certain costumes are harmful and fall into the category of cultural appropriation. 

“I think the important message of this particular campaign is that we want our students to be mindful that there are some harmful realities of cultural appropriation,” Bruce said. “It’s not just Halloween, but this is particularly salient whenever you’re thinking about costumes for Halloween because people dress up as something that’s different from themselves.” 

The Division of Diversity and Inclusion’s website for the campaign details some culturally inappropriate costumes. These include “anything representing Blackface, brownface, or yellowface,” “costumes that represent harmful racial or ethnic stereotypes,” making a mockery of mental illness,” “wearing hairstyles of people of color” and “transphobic/homophobic costumes.” 

Students can choose other costumes that are creative and sensitive. Hadley Alford, a senior studying nursing, said she will be wearing a traffic cone costume for Halloween this year. Alford’s boyfriend is a heavy equipment operator and she said he’s going as himself on the job. 

“I looked up some stuff on Pinterest and then I ended up actually just raiding his closet and found an orange reflective long sleeve shirt,” Alford said. “And I’m just gonna wear my leggings and try to find a little cone to put on my head.” 

Alford also said it’s important for people to be aware of how their Halloween costume may affect others. 

Sophie Neilson, a junior studying communications, said she is going as Kang Sae-byeok from the South Korean drama series, “Squid Games.”

“I basically chose her because I’m Korean, so I felt like it was appropriate for me to dress up as her,” Neilson said. “I wouldn’t be offended if I saw someone wearing a ‘Squid Games’ costume, but it really just depends on how they act in the costume.” 

There would also be a problem, Neilson said, if people were to mock Asian languages or physical features of, for example, the South Korean actress who plays Kang Sae-byeok.

Jazmine Amoako, a junior studying economics, said she agrees with Neilson and said that if people are going as a fictional character who isn’t the same race or ethnicity, there is no reason for people to alter their skin tone or features. 

“Say you do choose to do something that’s outside of your race and culture, you don’t have to make yourself look like it,” Amoako said. “Outside of the clothing, you can still be white.” 

The campaign, Bruce hopes, will open more dialogues between students and other people on campus about respecting and appreciating all cultures instead of mocking or stereotyping them. The My Culture is Not a Costume campaign is connected to the university’s Make Respect Visible campaign and Bruce said they have intentional ties to one another. 

“One of the things that we’re really hoping that takes on with Make Respect Visible is not just that we have these expectations and that they’re words, but that campus community members begin to engage with each other in these conversations,” Bruce said. “If we look forward, our goal is to make sure all members of our community know the expectations, and if they see something, they say something.” 

@McKennaChristy1

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Culture is Not a Costume: The Halloween Costume Industry and Cultural Appropriation

Chloe Stefani '24 , Fashion and News Editor | October 30, 2021

Credit: Jimmy Williams, Oakland Post

Fashion editor Chloe Stefani emphasizes that wearing a Halloween costume doesn’t need to mean marginalizing minorities and other cultures.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. All year, I look forward to the day that the weather gets colder and Spirit Halloween opens its doors. In addition to watching scary movies and stuffing your face with Reese’s Pumpkins, one of the many things that makes Halloween so exciting is how you can choose to be anything you want to be. But where is the right place to draw the line, and how is it that we have allowed these costume companies to sell offensive, culturally-appropriating costumes to clientele for so long?  

What is Cultural Appropriation?

Cultural appropriation is defined as: “The unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of customs, practices, ideas, etc, of one people or society, by members of another, and typically more dominant people or society.” To sum up, those in a more powerful position by ethnicity, race or economic status adopting the culture of the less powerful, without demonstrating respect for the other culture. An example of this, (and also the topic of this article), is demonstrated by the many Halloween costume brands who sell costumes with the intended purpose for a buyer from a different (and often more powerful culture) to dress up as another ethnicity for the night, and thereby reducing the culture to a symbolic costume. 

Now, what is the effect of dressing up as another culture when you yourself are not part of that same culture? One organization, committed to exposing the harmful effects of such blind practices emphasized: “ Using identities and cultures as costumes or jokes has become so normalized in our society that we see things like Indigenous folks being used as mascots, headdresses being worn en-mass by white folks at festivals, black and brown face still being prevalent.” The normalization they discuss had been put into our society in the early 19th century with the introduction of minstrel shows, or caricatured performances done by white performers in blackface or brownface, in order to reenact racial stereotypes with “comical” intentions. With this in mind, dressing up as another culture for Halloween, whether it is intended or not, risks perpetuating stereotypes.

Harmful Cultural Inaccuracy

Jessica Hickam from makeitgrateful.com in her article Culturally Appropriating Costumes You Should Avoid This Halloween stated: “ To dress up as Pocahontas or any Native American princess ignores the history of oppression and minimizes the ceremonial significance of their wardrobe, which has ultimately marginalized and stereotyped this culture.” Valerie Reynoso of Teen Vogue , a woman of  Indigenous culture herself, said: “ every time I see a Native costume, it makes me feel disrespected and devalued. Native peoples have suffered through centuries of colonialism , exploitation , erasure , and condemnation — to then be romanticized and whitewashed in mainstream Western culture adds insult to enduring injury.” And Valerie is just one of many individuals of  Indigenous cultures who feel this way. Writer Star Diavolikis of The Observer , in her article My Culture is Not Your Costume , said: “ To see my culture being dismissed enough to the point of just being a Halloween costume is harmful to not only Native Americans, but also those who are uneducated on how this is cultural appropriation and inappropriate.” She added: “Nobody ever hears or knows about these facts when a girl is pretending to do a rain dance at a college dorm party. This is because our regalia is treated as a costume instead of what it actually is: part of a fully fledged culture…(not) a costume that portrays the Native American culture in a sexualized manner while also portraying us as silly, dumb or as savages.” These costumes serve as an unfortunate reminder of how prominent Indigenous stereotypes are in Western culture, even today. If you don’t believe that statement, take a look at this Adult Native American Costume for sale on Amazon to anybody with one quick internet search. But be warned, the costume is extremely sexualized, inaccurate, and insensitive to a beautiful culture that has been disrespected and Westernized for the sake of a Halloween costume. 

Sadly, you can basically find inaccurate and offensive costumes for most other non-white cultures as well. (**I’m going to include images for these costumes too, so again if you think this is something that will upset you, I do not recommend clicking**). Take this Geisha Costume on PartyCity.com, for (a very sad) example. Unsurprisingly, the costume is worn by a caucasian model, is (again) portrayed inaccurately and is sexualized. Sabrina Barr of Independent.co.uk , while describing a similar costume in her article Fashion Nova Sparks Controversy With Racially Insensitive Geisha Costume , writes, “ What makes Fashion Nova’s costume so racially insensitive is that it feeds into a stereotype of Asian women being sexual objects and temptresses for men’s (almost always white men) desires,” a spokesperson told Metro.co.uk .” Like the costume we discussed previously, this costume inaccurately portrays Japanese culture and professions ( a geisha or, “giegi” in western Japan, is an entertainer) and contributes to the harmful sexualization so many Asian Americans have to face. Barr then goes on to describe how the weight of cultural appropriation is especially important to understand in the US, “ considering the way in which Japanese people have been treated in the country in the past.” And, when you take a second to think about her reasoning, it makes perfect sense. Marginalizing a culture for so many years and then treating it like it’s just a silly, insignificant costume just seems like salt in the wound. 

Now, I think that there’s something to be said about American culture normalizing practices that are not okay for young kids. When you grow up with something that has never been questioned, you’re the first one to get defensive when you hear opposing ideas. Obviously, young kids aren’t at fault when they want to dress up as Princess Jasmine for Halloween. They just want to dress up as their favorite Disney princess. However, what messages do the costume companies that produce these costumes send to kids when they sell costumes that promote cultural stereotypes, inaccuracy, and even black and brownface? For example, a few years ago when Disney’s Moana first came out, every little girl wanted to be Moana for Halloween. Auli’i Carvalho, the Polynesian actress who voiced Moana, even came out publicly with a statement: “ I think it’s absolutely appropriate. It’s done in the spirit of love and for Disney and for the little ones who just want to dress up as their favorite heroine, I’m all for it. ” However, people had more to say about the Maui costume that also came out that year, and rightfully so. The costume featured a tattoo shirt, however it was tinted brown to darken the color of a white wearer’s skin. This sparked outrage because it arguably contributed to the normalization of brownface in American culture. When we think of how normalized these practices are, it becomes clear how we have allowed costume companies to get away with this for so long: familiarity. When you’ve been exposed for your entire life, starting at a very young age, to culturally appropriating costumes being worn by white people, you may think that it is okay, even though it isn’t. So, do we have to cancel every kid who dressed up as Maui that year? Not necessarily. Instead we should take a stand against the companies and adults who told them that it was okay in the first place. If we fail to do that, there could be another generation of people just like the ones who normalized these practices. 

I would like to reiterate that this article’s topic is not based on my own experience, but merely something I’ve observed about American culture, and the experiences of others. I know I will never understand what it feels like to have my whiteness appropriated, disrespected, and disregarded; however, I hope this article spreads awareness of this very concerning issue and helps amplify the voices of those who have spoken out about and been affected by cultural appropriation, especially because of Halloween. To finish this article, I leave you with probably the most obvious statement I have ever written: It’s possible to have a fun Halloween without borrowing from and appropriating cultures that are not your own. If you want more information on this topic, I strongly recommend articles by verywellmind.com , and usatoday.com , as well as the articles I provided links to above because they can help you if you are confused or, like me, want to educate yourself about this topic.

Chloe Stefani ’24, Fashion and News Editor

[email protected]

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My Culture is Not a Costume

Appropriation: .

the action of taking something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission

cultural appropriation: 

the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture

5 Questions to Consider: 

1. To What Ethnic/Racial/Cultural Group Does the Practice or Artifact Belong?

2. How Is the Group that the Practice or Artifact Belongs to Oppressed?

3. Do You Benefit from Doing This? How?

4. Why Might It Make Someone Uncomfortable?

5. What Makes It Possible for You to Engage with this Practice, Tradition, or Material?    (How did you come to acquire the artifact or elements of the practice?)

5 Simple Questions That’ll Help You Avoid Unintentional Cultural Appropriation by Kim Tran | May 2, 2016 

Images & Information for Reflection

During Halloween, people will often pick articles of clothing or jewelry, makeup styles, or artifacts from harmful and stereotypical depictions of a culture to wear as a costume for one day, without giving thought to the cultural significance of what they are portraying. We do not suggest that the items below are fully representative of any one culture, but they are cultural items that represent and communicate  something  based on how they are used or worn. These are only a few examples.

The images below name cultural appropriation for what it is. It's not a shock and awe tactic, but an opportunity to grow in our intercultural competence and move our community towards one that embodies cultural humility. 

Additional Resources & Articles: 

Race, Culture Expert Shares History and Why Blackface and Other Cultural Appropriation at Halloween Is Inappropriate   Advice from Mia Moody-Ramirez, Ph.D.

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“My culture is not a costume”

Halloween is a holiday I’ve always enjoyed. Not just because of the candy, but I like seeing the creative and very well thought out costumes people put so much time and effort into making.

With Halloween just behind us, you probably heard the term “cultural appropriation” at least once. If you’re not familiar with the term, the Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature defines cultural appropriation as the “taking over of creative forms, themes or practices by one cultural group from another” and is generally “used to describe Western appropriations of non-Western or non-white forms, and carries connotations of exploitation and dominance.” In short, it’s absorbing things such as ideas, practices and dress from a particular culture and incorporating them into your own culture.

Why does cultural appropriation pertain to Halloween? Because oftentimes, we see people dressed up as Native Americans or other racial and ethnic groups, and dressing up as a racial or ethnic group devalues them as a whole. They usually feel exploited, like their culture is a plaything or something exotic to marvel at.

If you walk into a store like Party City or any seasonal Halloween warehouse, you’ll find an array of questionable costumes. In its online catalog , Party City has an international costumes tab, which is just as stereotypical as you’d think it would be. Take the “pleasing geisha” costume, for example. The female model, who is clearly not of East Asian descent, is wearing what is supposed to be a kimono, which comes maybe halfway down her thighs, and has a corset abdominal piece. The model is also wearing thigh-high tights, platform shoes and carrying a riding crop.

A simple dictionary search for “geisha” would tell you that a geisha is a traditional Japanese woman who is trained to entertain men with song, dance and conversation. These women go through apprenticeships and are trained professionals in a number of performing arts. The Halloween costume industry, and Hollywood, has exploited the profession and turned it into a highly sexualized and racially charged costume for anyone to don. Its display and marketing allow consumers to assume that geishas represent all East Asian cultures, which is clearly not the case. This can apply to any racial or ethnic group that has been turned into a costume.

I will leave you with my two cents: The next time Halloween or any costume party rolls around, put down that “Indian chief” costume, or tell your friends to do so if they’re considering a costume along those lines. Because my culture is not a costume — no culture is.

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My Culture Is Not A Costume

appropriation: 

the action of taking something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission

cultural appropriation: 

the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture

5 Questions to Consider: 

1. To What Ethnic/Racial/Cultural Group Does the Practice or Artifact Belong?

2. How Is the Group that the Practice or Artifact Belongs to Oppressed?

3. Do You Benefit from Doing This? How?

4. Why Might It Make Someone Uncomfortable?

5. What Makes It Possible for You to Engage with this Practice, Tradition, or Material?    (How did you come to acquire the artifact or elements of the practice?)

5 Simple Questions That’ll Help You Avoid Unintentional Cultural Appropriation   by Kim Tran  | May 2, 2016 

Images & Information for Reflection

During Halloween, people will often pick articles of clothing or jewelry, makeup styles, or artifacts from harmful and stereotypical depictions of a culture to wear as a costume for one day, without giving thought to the cultural significance of what they are portraying. We do not suggest that the items below are fully representative of any one culture, but they are cultural items that represent and communicate  something  based on how they are used or worn. These are only a few examples.

The images below name cultural appropriation for what it is. It's not a shock and awe tactic, but an opportunity to grow in our intercultural competence and move our community towards one that embodies cultural humility. 

Additional Resources & Articles: 

Race, Culture Expert Shares History and Why Blackface and Other Cultural Appropriation at Halloween Is Inappropriate   Advice from Mia Moody-Ramirez, Ph.D.

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My Culture is Not Your Costume

With halloween just around the corner, i urge you to think twice about your costume choice..

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Halloween is just around the corner, and you know what that means!

It’s time for you to bust out your best costume. And no, I don’t mean the basic sexy nurse or the overused frat boy costume. I want you to get creative this year and to think outside of the box.

But, wait! Before you get too crazy, there’s one thing I’d like for you to keep in mind this Halloween when you’re out shopping for your costume.

Yes, Halloween is a magical time where you get to be someone you’re not for a night, but there are just some things you should not pretend to be. Here’s a quick example. Though you may have watched “Moana” and absolutely loved the characters of Moana and Maui — you should probably not dress up as either one of them.

“But, what’s so wrong with dressing up as one of them? They sailed across the Pacific and saved Motunui — they’re total badasses! I want to be just like them, even if just for a night, so why would it be so bad to dress up as one of them for Halloween?”

Yes, I understand that you love them — hell, I do too. When “Moana” was released back home in 2016, I watched crowds of little Samoan girls flood the theaters to see themselves portrayed in mainstream media for the very first time. I teared up as I witnessed them finally being reaffirmed as the beautiful, capable Pasefika girls that they have often been told that they are not. But it wasn’t just little Samoan girls that flocked to the theaters — it was the entire Samoan community. Because for the first time, the mainstream media was finally representing us as the strong, resilient people that we are, and not just the horrible, stereotypical image of oversized, lazy people that we are often showcased to be.

So you have to understand that figures like Moana or Maui are not just fun cartoon characters — they are representations of Pasefika people, our cultures, our histories, and our heritages. So when you dress up as one of them for Halloween, you are essentially dressing up as us. You are minimizing our cultures, our heritages, and our histories as nothing more than just a fun mask - one that you can put on and take off when it is convenient for you.

But, for us, these things are not just a mask, and they are not removable. We take pride in our cultures, our heritages, and our histories, even when they bring along with them histories of trauma and discrimination, and we don’t have the option of leaving them at home when it’s inconvenient for us. So when you put on that tapa cloth to be Moana or get a fake body tattoo to be Maui for Halloween, you get to have the cool, “exotic” costume that your friends admire. But you never have to suffer, or even understand, the histories of imperialistic thinking that categorized and continue to categorize us as “ savage ” and “primitive” because of our traditions and cultural wear. Because at the end of the night, after you’ve won a prize for “best” or even “most exotic” costume, you get to take it off and hang it back up in your closet. But we can’t.

But cultural appropriation rears its ugly head both outside of Halloween season and outside of Pasefika communities as well. We see it at “island” themed parties with grass skirts and cheap “lei’s.” We see it in costumes that mock indigenous peoples and in sombreros that make fun of Mexican culture. And we see it in the multitude of horrible cases of blackface, not only at college parties, but even amongst some of the most powerful people in government today.

Often times, I hear that when it comes to cultural appropriation, ethnic groups are too sensitive. Or that these attempts to dress up in our traditional wear are not supposed to be interpreted as appropriation but rather as appreciation. But when you make our traditional wear into costumes, you are not celebrating us — you are making our histories into myths to tell around the campfire, our cultures into popular trends in the media.

So while we invite you to celebrate our cultures, there are a lot of other ways to appreciate a culture that’s not your own than by dressing up as them for Halloween. And we challenge you to think outside of the box and get creative for figuring out better ways for doing that.

Gabrielle T. Langkilde ’21, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a joint concentrator in Sociology and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Eliot House. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.

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A Culture, Not a Costume

The leaves are changing, and the temperatures are dropping as we officially enter fall. Pumpkin spice everything, scarves, and flannels are becoming the norm as we transition formally into October. 

October is full of many events, happenings, and holidays that are woven into our schools' fabric. Homecomings, spirit days, and Halloween festivities take shape and create a sense of camaraderie, connection, and even fun for students and the community. 

One tricky aspect of navigating dress-up days and even Halloween festivities: being aware, sensitive, and mindful of cultural appropriation. 

Cultural appropriation is  "Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc. It's most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g., sacred objects."  (From,  Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law , by Susan Scafidi).

The costume or dress-up day is often not intended to cause harm, exploit a culture, or create pain for other students or community members. The impact, however, can create turbulence, harm, and create division amongst cultures, people, and communities within your school. 

An example is Hawaiian Day. A popular dress-up day that many schools participate in. The intent is for students and staff to wear aloha-style shirts filled with color, foliage, and even a lei. But, again, the impact is that the culture and people of Hawaii are not a "brand"; thus, their culture is not a costume. Shifts can be made to rethink how this dress-up can be altered. From "Summer Day" to "Beach Day," there are creative ways to move away from cultural appropriation. 

As you consider your school's community and cultural context, what shifts can be made to ensure dress-up days become opportunities for fun and unity rather than opportunities for pain and harm? 

Questions to consider:

• Does the costume portray a stereotype of a particular group of people?
• How would I feel if my culture was being represented in this way?
• Do people get discriminated against for the clothing or hairstyle I'm using as a costume?
• Does the costume exploit or make fun of a race, culture, religion, disability, gender, sexuality, or other identities?
• Have I done my research about the garment I'm wearing or the person I'm portraying?

As a school leader, navigating the discourse around these topics may feel complex. Some steps to consider: 

• Focus on the positive:  Instead of focusing on what students can't do, focus on what they can. For example, could the dress for Halloween be wearing orange and black? 
• Clear is Kind:  As Brené Brown has taught us, "Clear is kind." Be clear ahead of time on what is acceptable and what isn't. Clear and concise language regarding expectations is the way to go. 
• Favorites:  Favorites week is a wonderful opportunity to bring people together and still engage students. Favorite hooded sweatshirt day. Favorite pair of shoes day. Favorite flannel shirt day. Favorite color day. These are ways to engage students and staff still but do so in a way that allows more to participate and stay away from appropriation. 

The main thing is to know the main thing and keep the main thing, the main thing. The main thing is, has been, and should always be creating an environment where each and every student feels safe, valued, and free of harm. Shifting and rethinking our dress-up days allows schools to stay on track focusing on the main thing. 

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CULTURE NOT A COSTUME

Julie kinnaird | october 10, 2017.

On the evening of October 31 the streets will be filled with jack-o-lanterns, ghosts and goblins, but also Pikachus, Elsas, doctors, astronauts, and more. Costumes that may be fun and games to some, can be hurtful or offensive to others.

Dressing in costumes that represent an entire culture can lead to generalizations and stereotyping. It can alienate and disrespect members of a community. Talking with students about the history of Halloween and how to best pick a costume by looking at them critically is important. Are the costumes they see on the media, in big box stores or in large Halloween-themed stores perpetuating stereotype or bias? Does the costume mock an individual or a religion? Just a quick search on one large retailer’s website produced dozens of choices for Mexican, Native American and geisha. Many of them portray these cultures in negative stereotypes.

Many college and school campuses administrators have taken steps to create inclusive environments for people of all diverse backgrounds. In 2011 Ohio State University STARS student group started the “ We’re a Culture, Not a Costume ” campaign featuring posters that try to prevent cultures from being translated into stereotypical costumes during Halloween.

Last year, the University of Massachusetts created a  Simple Costume Racism Evaluation and Assessment Meter  (or SCREAM) for students to use when deciding on what to wear for Halloween. The SCREAM meter asks costume-related questions, the answers to which take one to various points on a “threat meter” that ranges from green (low) to red (severe).

Yale University challenged students in 2015 to answer these questions when deciding what costume to wear: • Wearing a funny costume? Is the humor based on “making fun” of real people, human traits or cultures? • Wearing a historical costume? If this costume is meant to be historical, does it further misinformation or historical and cultural inaccuracies? • Wearing a ‘cultural’ costume? Does this costume reduce cultural differences to jokes or stereotypes? • Wearing a ‘religious’ costume? Does this costume mock or belittle someone’s deeply held faith tradition?

These simple, yet important questions, can help any student dressing up for Halloween festivities to avoid wearing a costume that might offend another.

At the K-12 level there is an ongoing debate of whether or not schools should host Halloween festivities. One the one side, many parents view Halloween and Halloween school parties as a rite of passage. Others argue that festivities cut into instruction or argue that the costumes being worn are offensive or too scary. It should also be noted that many families don’t celebrate Halloween. To overcome these challenges, many elementary schools have adopted the practice of “book character day” where students may choose to dress up as a character from a favorite book. This practice encourages appropriate costumes while promoting literacy. Others schools are choosing to host fall celebrations, Day of the Dead celebrations, or harvest festivals.

Educator Resources Lesson Plan: What do Halloween costumes say ? Grades K-5 Lesson Plan: Tolerance: Comparing Cultural Holidays Grades 3-4 Lesson Plan: Compare and Contrast Day of the Dead and Halloween Grades 4-5 Day of the Dead Classroom Resources Video: Cultural Appropriation: Why Your Pocahontas Costume Isn’t Okay : Aaliyah Jihad at TEDxYouth@AnnArbor

• North America
• My Culture Is Not Your...

My Culture Is Not Your Costume

Fashion Editor

As people fall into autumn, and Halloween draws near, it’s apropos to wonder what constitutes a culturally insensitive Halloween costume ? Last Halloween, Mahala Herron caused a bit of controversy on Twitter when she posted a reminder to Halloween revelers everywhere to be culturally sensitive when it comes to dressing up. Her viral tweet about Halloween cultural appropriation pointed out that there are certain outfits that cross the line of cultural insensitivity. It’s an unsavory fact that many people practice cultural appropriation in their daily lives without even realizing it. On the other hand, cultural exchange is a valuable benefit of today’s global world.

So, what’s the difference between the two, and what makes cultural exchange different from cultural appropriation ? Simon Moya-Smith, citizen of Oglala Lakota nation and culture editor of Indian Country Today tells Culture Trip: “Cultural exchange requires both parties giving permission, whereas cultural appropriation is outright theft.”

It’s an issue that has been particularly in relevant in the fashion industry, where designers tow the line between exchange and appropriation all the time. This summer, Gucci was accused of copying Dapper Dan ‘s puffy shouldered fur bomber jacket, originally designed for Olympian Diane Dixon. A post shared by Diane Dixon (@dianedixon) on May 30, 2017 at 10:10am PDT However, Gucci’s Alessandro Michele insisted the 2017 bomber jacket was an homage to Dapper Dan. Indeed, the two are collaborating on capsule collection, and Dapper Dan was seated in the FROW of Gucci’s SS18 show this past September. Last fall, the industry agreed that white models wearing dreadlocks at the Marc Jacobs SS17 show was uncool. Why? It’s an example of cultural appropriation, not cultural exchange. This brings us back to the notion of being aware and sensitive about what might be considered cultural appropriation in our globally curious world. So bear in mind:

Halloween is coming up, so everyone please remember that my culture isn’t a costume 😊 Thank you pic.twitter.com/pL5QOAJCy7 — M (@queenmahala) October 3, 2016 But not everyone agrees with Herron’s statement.

No lie all races guilty of this shit , we just gotta let bygones be bygones .unless it’s blatantly racist.let it be,Y’all killing Halloween https://t.co/3kjxiLVN77 — #SpaceCityTogaParty (@ZaneTaughtMe) October 3, 2016 As these users claim, Halloween is about fashioning a ‘costume;’ in fact, another Twitter user took the liberty of posting a screen shot of the definition of the word ‘costume,’ in order to make this point. @queenmahala @sakisunflower This tweet is confusing pic.twitter.com/RmA7jU8wgC — Nick Nasty (@DamnDatz_NICKI) October 3, 2016 What defines cultural appropriation is the central dynamic between power and privilege. Using Marc Jacobs’ dreadlocks on white models as an example, what’s problematic here is that African hairstyles came to the United States by way of the African diaspora. In the centuries that followed, and even today, the relationship some black people have with hair is fraught. Some people are faced with what Mic writer, Erika Turner calls, the “highest degree of scrutiny — from assessments about your professionalism to comments from other black folks about your so-called lack of self-respect.”

In short, Turner points that that if you’re not black, you have the privilege of “not having to agonize over the message you’re sending” just by choosing how to wear your hair. When white people, like Marc Jacobs , decides to ‘normalize’ dreadlocks, or even call them ‘fashionable,’ he’s shifting the power dynamic to a position of privilege. That’s how cultural appropriation works. (For the record, Marc Jacobs issued an apology about using dreadlocks in his SS17 show.)

On the heels of the Herron tweet, a white Florida teen posted a picture of herself dressed as rapper Black Kodak (who is black), and caused even more Twitter controversy about cultural appropriation and Halloween costumes.

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Fair Or Foul: This White Florida Teen Got Dragged For Her ‘Racist’ Kodak Black Costume https://t.co/WeWF5Blmpa pic.twitter.com/eH0sfQL2lX — SocialPowerOne1 (@SocialPowerOne1) October 7, 2016 “People know that blackface is wrong, but many people don’t know about Navaho or Lakota,” says Moya-Smith. That’s problematic because on a large scale, Native Americans, according to Moya-Smith, “have been excluded from the American conversation. Some people are humble in their ignorance, because they just don’t know certain things about cultures that aren’t their own. For example, the headdress is more than a style of dress, it holds religious significance.” Moya-Smith explains, “In my culture, elders have to earn the right to wear a headdress. This type of cultural appropriation is a form of dehumanization. So when I see people dressed as Indians on Halloween, I can’t just have a good time. People are belittling and mocking my spirituality with their faux feather headdresses.”

However, cultural appropriation exists within a larger anthropological context. Veronica Davidov , Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Monmouth University explains. “Cultural appropriation is simultaneously easy and not easy to define. The simple definition is that cultural appropriation is inappropriate use of cultural symbols, items, and material in a context of historical inequalities .” As Davidov points out, context here is what’s salient. She elaborates, “Part of the same context that defines cultural appropriation, is that for people who are in positions of power, it can be hard to recognize that they’re doing it. It’s easier to see the mechanisms of cultural appropriation in consumption, from Halloween costumes to Urban Outfitters t-shirts with Aztec designs.” And, just because people are in power, doesn’t mean that they’re not well-meaning per se. “People can be well-meaning, but they end up taking symbols and practices out of context without understanding the history of how the United States has already profited so much from cultures they’ve appropriated.”

So, with these thoughts in mind, here are culturally insensitive Halloween costumes to avoid so that every American can enjoy an ethical celebration of this holiday.

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My culture is not your costume

Culture appropriation during Halloween

Sara Qalbani , Staff Writer | November 7, 2020

Celia Searles

Cultural appropriation, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, “is the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not one someone identifies as, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture .” Cultural appropriation, unfortunately, is present in everyday life.Even more unfortunately, the Halloween season is especially filled with cultural appropriation, as many people incorporate aspects of different cultures into their costumes, sparking a lot of recent controversy. 

To fully understand what cultural appropriation in Halloween costume looks like, there are a few simple guidelines to keep in mind when choosing a costume. First, any costume that reflects someone’s personal identity or culture. For example, in recent years Amazon had a costume of what was labeled as a “Mexican Man” on their website. After this sparked controversy, the costume was removed and similar ones were required to change their names and descriptions. 

Degrading someone’s culture and identity to a costume strips away the importance that it holds to someone who identifies as this culture and lives with it every single day of their life. Not to mention, most of these costumes continuously perpetuate racist stereotypes of the culture. With the “Mexican Man” costume, the use of a sombrero, a mustache and a traditional Mexican poncho directly assume that this is what a typical Mexican man looks like which is not the case. This qualifies for all cultures that are degraded to a costume, including but not limited to Native Americans, African Americans, or Asians. Whether it’s intentional or not, it’s important to be mindful and most importantly educated on what or rather who you are dressed up as and make sure it is not offensive. This may be your costume for one day of the year, but it is somebody else’s identity for a lifetime. 

Aside from educating yourself on what cultural appropriation is, you can also find ways to distinguish cultural appropriation from cultural appreciation. Cultural appreciation means to have true intentions when immersing yourself or educating yourself about another’s culture. It means being welcoming and understanding. The main difference between these two terms and distinguishing them is acknowledging what the intentions are between those who do this. Everyone has different opinions on what is and isn’t cultural appropriation but at the end of the day if you need to ask yourself “Is this cultural appropriation?” or “Will this offend somebody?”, then maybe that costume needs a second thought.

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My culture is not your costume

Posted on November 7, 2020

Originally Posted on The University News via UWIRE

Cultural appropriation, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, “is the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not one someone identifies as, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture .” Cultural appropriation, unfortunately, is present in everyday life.Even more unfortunately, the Halloween season is especially filled with cultural appropriation, as many people incorporate aspects of different cultures into their costumes, sparking a lot of recent controversy. 

To fully understand what cultural appropriation in Halloween costume looks like, there are a few simple guidelines to keep in mind when choosing a costume. First, any costume that reflects someone’s personal identity or culture. For example, in recent years Amazon had a costume of what was labeled as a “Mexican Man” on their website. After this sparked controversy, the costume was removed and similar ones were required to change their names and descriptions. 

Degrading someone’s culture and identity to a costume strips away the importance that it holds to someone who identifies as this culture and lives with it every single day of their life. Not to mention, most of these costumes continuously perpetuate racist stereotypes of the culture. With the “Mexican Man” costume, the use of a sombrero, a mustache and a traditional Mexican poncho directly assume that this is what a typical Mexican man looks like which is not the case. This qualifies for all cultures that are degraded to a costume, including but not limited to Native Americans, African Americans, or Asians. Whether it’s intentional or not, it’s important to be mindful and most importantly educated on what or rather who you are dressed up as and make sure it is not offensive. This may be your costume for one day of the year, but it is somebody else’s identity for a lifetime. 

Aside from educating yourself on what cultural appropriation is, you can also find ways to distinguish cultural appropriation from cultural appreciation. Cultural appreciation means to have true intentions when immersing yourself or educating yourself about another’s culture. It means being welcoming and understanding. The main difference between these two terms and distinguishing them is acknowledging what the intentions are between those who do this. Everyone has different opinions on what is and isn’t cultural appropriation but at the end of the day if you need to ask yourself “Is this cultural appropriation?” or “Will this offend somebody?”, then maybe that costume needs a second thought.

Read more here: https://unewsonline.com/2020/11/my-culture-is-not-your-costume/ Copyright 2024 The University News

My Culture Is Not A Costume

Released on 10/25/2017

My culture.

My culture is not a costume.

(serious music)

My name is Yasmin Younis.

I am a first-generation Iraqi-American Muslim.

I'm also student and an activist.

It sucks to see that, it's offensive, it's--

Like a butchering of my culture.

I didn't spend 23 years as a Chinese-born American

to live next to this.

I'm of multi-racial descent, including Taino Arawak,

which is the indigenous, First Nations people

for the Caribbean.

We're seen as just like TV characters, you know,

like the savage with the fringes and these boots

that, you know, aren't even accurate.

Even our body paint has meaning and then, you know,

you just put on this cheap paint that

you probably got at the Dollar Store for fun

because you thought it was funny,

like my existence is just comical or hilarious to you.

I'm Kanaka Maoli, native Hawaiian.

One of the things about Hawaiian culture

that not a lot of people know is that

historically it was illegal to practice anything

that had to do with native Hawaiian culture.

So my grandmother is currently in her 70s,

and she's finally learning how to dance hula.

She's been creating her hula skirt and her lei

for weeks now, and this is nothing what it looks like.

This costume is extremely hurtful,

not only for myself but for the generations

that had to go through this erasure.

My name is Gianna, and I am a 22-year old

recent graduate who's also African-American.

The pick in particular bothers me,

because our hair is stigmatized as being untidy,

and it's just incredibly insensitive

to the actual, real struggles that

African-Americans have wearing their natural hair.

I identify as a first-generation Latina.

Obvious examples of Cholla culture might be

hoop earrings, drawn-on eyebrows, or heavy lip liner.

When people appropriate Cholla culture

in Halloween costumes, it erases the stories

and narratives of people who identify with Cholla culture.

Halloween would be the worst time to co-opt

a person's culture, because it's a day of dressing up

as things that are completely out of the ordinary

or very old or very provocative.

So wearing someone else's culture on that day

is incredibly offensive, because you're basically saying

their culture is other in a way that is almost funny,

humorous, or, you know, scary.

When you see this costume, what do you think?

People tend to think terrorist or they tend to think

barbaric or they tend to think uncultured or uncivilized.

They make fun of that, that kind of just goes with

like what the media has kind of done with my identity

and my background, my religion.

You get a jacket, has a dragon on the back,

it's just that they think that it's cool

and nothing else, they don't find the significance of it.

They see it as exotic.

I feel like they're mocking me

and mocking my family, my history,

my attachment to these garments.

Cultural appropriation is theft.

Cultural appropriation is taking aspects

of another person's culture and using them,

mainly completely out of context.

Members of a dominant group borrow elements

from a marginalized group while actively erasing

the people of that culture and

diminishing the meanings of what we practice.

The majority of us know that blackface

is cultural appropriation, but that is how I view

and how my people in the indigenous community

view this costume.

We have endured a history of being pushed

into the background that, even in Hawaii where I'm from,

that we're still a minority

in what is and has been our homeland.

Those are aspects of our cultures and our identities

that we were told were wrong and we were told not to be

proud of and we were told to hide and to conform.

To see folks that don't have to conform, you know,

use those aspects of our identity and make it popular,

make it cool, or make fun of it,

that's just wrong.

(upbeat music)

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My Culture is Not Your Costume

With halloween just around the corner, i urge you to think twice about your costume choice..

Halloween is just around the corner, and you know what that means!

It’s time for you to bust out your best costume. And no, I don’t mean the basic sexy nurse or the overused frat boy costume. I want you to get creative this year and to think outside of the box.

But, wait! Before you get too crazy, there’s one thing I’d like for you to keep in mind this Halloween when you’re out shopping for your costume.

Yes, Halloween is a magical time where you get to be someone you’re not for a night, but there are just some things you should not pretend to be. Here’s a quick example. Though you may have watched “Moana” and absolutely loved the characters of Moana and Maui — you should probably not dress up as either one of them.

“But, what’s so wrong with dressing up as one of them? They sailed across the Pacific and saved Motunui — they’re total badasses! I want to be just like them, even if just for a night, so why would it be so bad to dress up as one of them for Halloween?”

Yes, I understand that you love them — hell, I do too. When “Moana” was released back home in 2016, I watched crowds of little Samoan girls flood the theaters to see themselves portrayed in mainstream media for the very first time. I teared up as I witnessed them finally being reaffirmed as the beautiful, capable Pasefika girls that they have often been told that they are not. But it wasn’t just little Samoan girls that flocked to the theaters — it was the entire Samoan community. Because for the first time, the mainstream media was finally representing us as the strong, resilient people that we are, and not just the horrible, stereotypical image of oversized, lazy people that we are often showcased to be.

So you have to understand that figures like Moana or Maui are not just fun cartoon characters — they are representations of Pasefika people, our cultures, our histories, and our heritages. So when you dress up as one of them for Halloween, you are essentially dressing up as us. You are minimizing our cultures, our heritages, and our histories as nothing more than just a fun mask - one that you can put on and take off when it is convenient for you.

But, for us, these things are not just a mask, and they are not removable. We take pride in our cultures, our heritages, and our histories, even when they bring along with them histories of trauma and discrimination, and we don’t have the option of leaving them at home when it’s inconvenient for us. So when you put on that tapa cloth to be Moana or get a fake body tattoo to be Maui for Halloween, you get to have the cool, “exotic” costume that your friends admire. But you never have to suffer, or even understand, the histories of imperialistic thinking that categorized and continue to categorize us as “ savage ” and “primitive” because of our traditions and cultural wear. Because at the end of the night, after you’ve won a prize for “best” or even “most exotic” costume, you get to take it off and hang it back up in your closet. But we can’t.

But cultural appropriation rears its ugly head both outside of Halloween season and outside of Pasefika communities as well. We see it at “island” themed parties with grass skirts and cheap “lei’s.” We see it in costumes that mock indigenous peoples and in sombreros that make fun of Mexican culture. And we see it in the multitude of horrible cases of blackface, not only at college parties, but even amongst some of the most powerful people in government today.

Often times, I hear that when it comes to cultural appropriation, ethnic groups are too sensitive. Or that these attempts to dress up in our traditional wear are not supposed to be interpreted as appropriation but rather as appreciation. But when you make our traditional wear into costumes, you are not celebrating us — you are making our histories into myths to tell around the campfire, our cultures into popular trends in the media.

So while we invite you to celebrate our cultures, there are a lot of other ways to appreciate a culture that’s not your own than by dressing up as them for Halloween. And we challenge you to think outside of the box and get creative for figuring out better ways for doing that.

Gabrielle T. Langkilde ’21, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a joint concentrator in Sociology and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Eliot House. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.

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My culture is NOT your costume

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• Greek Beauty: Surprise, It’s Not What You Think

July 29, 2024 | Wehner, Elle | Ancient History , Excerpts , History , Philosophy

Tony Spawforth—

To call someone a ‘Greek god’ is to see them as ‘a paragon of male beauty’, or, more specifically, as having ‘a very well-built, athletic body’. Annually since 2001, French rugby stars have posed artfully naked in a Pirelli-style calendar (but male) calling itself ‘Les Dieux du Stade’ (‘The Gods of the Stadium’). The title’s underlying reference was made explicit in the 2019 calendar (cost: 24.90 euros). This themed the calendar boys as the Greek gods of Mount Olympus: the canonical twelve Olympians reimagined with a certain licence so as to admit Eros, god of erotic desire, and erm, Priapus. 

The muscled young originals of ancient Greek art are not always what we might expect. If you are a tourist on the little ferry boat which chugs across the shallow lagoon separating the island of Mozia from the mainland of south-west Sicily, you may not know of the surprise which awaits you in this archaeological site’s museum. Once admitted, you enter a darkened room where, to your left, unseen until this point, up rears an antique statue of stupendous Greek workmanship form maybe the 470s BC. It looks like nothing else the spectator will have seen in this line of ancient Greek artistry. 

Guiding on cultural tours here, I have heard a range of reactions to this marbled statue, from ‘I don’t like it: it’s effeminate’ to ‘A dead ringer for Freddy Mercury’, the late pop singer, who had an extravagantly strutting stage persona. Personally, I’m reminded of an exhibition at London’s Tate Gallery of so-called ‘swagger portraits’ by the likes of Van Dyck, portraitist to England’s Charles I: ‘The paintings. . . . do not, strictly speaking, depict those who sat for them. What they depict is, rather, those people’s fantasies of themselves.’

This Mozia figure, a now-mutilated youth without arms, feet or nose, stands with one hand on hip, one foot forward, the body in a ‘[swinging S-curve’, the pose an ‘exaggerated swagger’ on one critic’s view. Almost as unusual is the youth’s costume: an ankle-length number in the crinkliest of fabrics, resembling the dresses, with their hundreds of small pleats, created by the fashion designer Mariano Fortuny in the early twentieth century. With one big difference: the costume given this fantasy of a Greek male is skin-tight, a wet look, clinging to the body, revealing rather than concealing the powerful musculature and prominent genitalia beneath. He could almost be a “dieu du stade’. 

Experts hardly know what to make of this figure, a relatively recent find by archaeologists digging at Mozia (1979). The figure is stunningly off the message of days gone by, to judge from a book I have to hand,  Greek Sculpture , published with a hundred illustrations by an Edinburgh publisher in 1913. This offers its black-and-white photographs as ‘an art to be enjoyed’. Its introduction gives a typical flavour of the ideological pinnacle on which Europeans and their colonial cousins once placed antique statues of male and female nudes (of which more shortly):

On those marble brows, fronting the ages with the candour and modesty of a resolute race, on those eyes which look forth sure, and glad, and unafraid, there seems to fall the shining of some far-off celestial splendour. . . . Greek sculpture is the story, in bronze or in marble, of the victorious progress of the race. It is the exalting song of a glorious national destiny—the paean of the triumph of Greek culture over the crumbling civilisations of the East. But the supremacy of Greece was the supremacy not merely of a land, not merely even of a race; it was above all the supremacy of the Hellenic ideals.

It would be easy to poke fun at this purplish passage, were its ‘ancient Greek supremacism’ not these days an understandable hackle-raiser for many people. Looking back over the decades to when I was taught Greek sculpture as a university undergraduate, I’m not sure that I could claim with certainty that this utopian way of thinking about Greece had left no mark on my teachers, nor, come to that, on me, at least back then.

Going back to that Mozia figure, it singularly fails to emit the ‘Hellenic ideals’, at least as this passage imagines them. To a modern eye the statue may seem to ‘exalt’, but what? The eroticised fitness of a cocky young man, some might say. It recalls those portraits of sixteenth-century European dandies vaunting their codpieces as symbols of male virility and power. As for ‘candour and modesty: I think not. I start with this figure—depicting a victorious charioteer, most experts think—because it unsettles the traditional values which western culture has projected onto Greek sculptures of athletic males. 

Not that these values, a century on from the Edinburgh book, have withstood the buffeting of more recent cultural shifts. In the nineteenth and earlier twentieth century, collections of plaster casts from the Greek and Roman antique were a familiar teaching aid in western universities and art schools (see below). Less so now. In Australia, Sydney University’s stupendous collection, running into the hundreds, was put together in the late 1800s and the start of the twentieth century. It ‘fell out of academic favour in the mid—Sixties’. The university ended up giving much of it away to high schools, although the story that casts were ‘broken up and put in as roadbase around the campus’ is no more than an ‘urban legend’. At the university in north-east England where I taught, a few such casts survived the iconoclastic 1960s, to be subjected to periodic indignities by students, or else purloined, in the face of general indifference, to adorn the studies of members of staff.

From  What the Greeks Did for Us by Tony Spawforth. Published by Yale University Press in 2024. Reproduced with permission. 

Tony Spawforth  is emeritus professor of ancient history at Newcastle University. As well as leading cultural tours in Greece, he has presented eight documentaries for the BBC and has published thirteen books, including  The Story of Greece and Rome .

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