Why is it that every Halloween Americans of varying degrees of ethnicity dress up in the stereotypical garb of the “ethnic other” other than themselves? This year, of course, no exception.
Exhibit A:
Actress Liv Tyler as Land o Lakes girl? Her husband, Royston Langdon of Spacehog, as Emiliano Zapata?
In case you’re unawares he’s a prop Brit and she’s an ethno-nebulous concotion spawned from the genetic detritus of Bebe Buell and Steven Tyler. One thing is certain-she’s not native!
Back to my point. Technically they are ethnic “others” in that both Tyler and Langdon are foreigners living in a foreign land which has been adotpted as their own. That land being the West Village New York. A foreign land indeed! As a Brit, Langdon is most certainly “other” than those who normally reside in the W.V. but not so “other” that he can claim ties to Mexican heritage which would truly be “other” than those who can afford to live in that sanctimonious enclave. She, on the other hand, can blend right in what with her baby soft voice and 70’s rocker/model pedigree. But a born and bred West Villager she is not. You’d have to be Jewish and/or gay I believe to fit that bill.
So my question is why can’t those who obviously do not fit the “typical” American profile dress up in “costumes” from their own ethnic background? For example, Langdon could have been King George before he went totally fucking insane and Tyler could have dressed up like her father in drag-both would have been more appealing than these two obnoxious stereotypes. But ethnicity-deprived people dressed up in cultural representations from their own background just wouldn’t be as fun now would it?
I am not Native nor am I Mexican, but it’s just as infuriating for me to see two seemingly intelligent people cave to blatant ignorance as it was to witness the blonde white girl at a Halloween party at the University of Florida in 2002 who was dressed up as “Sexy Latina.”
Her idea of a sexy Latina: a bulbous prosthetic ass, spandex mini-dress, a ratty brunette wig, rope chains and big hoop earrings. She got lots of feel ups on that fake ass.
As if Bitch!
No self-respecting Latina I know would ever let random men touch her that way, but it was o.k. for this girl because she was not herself that night. She was “Rosie the Latina,” and as we all know the Latin Rosies of the world love for strange men to rub their asses in public. Right. It was a performance and as such it was o.k. Right.
No doubt Halloween is fun, but not when you see people dressed in crass ass representations of your culture, or rather, when you see people totally fucking pervert even the most superficial aspects of your culture thus reinforcing negative attitudes about people of color.
Anyway for white people dressing up as stereotypes of other white people just isn’t as fun, is it?
