The first thing that comes to mind when hearing “Native American appropriation” is Halloween costumes. Every year there are sections in costume and party stores dedicated to Native American outfits and manufactured tribal wear. “Sexy Indian,” “Pocahontas,” “Native American Babe,” and “Indian Princess” are just a few of the costume names I came across after a quick Google search. Right away we can see a million different issues with this subject. Sexualizing cultures, combining the diverse array of tribes into a single cookie-cutter outfit, and simply appropriating Native culture are the most immediate problems that I noticed after looking into this.
One of the pieces of this week’s post was to connect the garment to a specific tribe or location. With Halloween costumes, I researched and looked into various articles to find a single tribe that inspired them, yet there was never a specific one that was agreed upon. There were mentions of Taino, Navajo, Powhatan, and Kalinga tribes being sources of inspiration, but the general census was that these costumes were attempting to be representative of all Native cultures, effectively erasing the diversity among the many tribes in the United States. This is problematic in and of itself, as it is reducing Native peoples into a single uniform culture, though, unfortunately, this is just one of the many issues that I came across for this post.
The image I chose for this post is a screenshot of the images that popped up after searching “Native American halloween costume.” There is a clear formula that these costumes follow and the only difference is that some are more conservative than others in terms of silhouette. I won’t dissect every costume, but the most shocking one was undoubtedly the white costume in the bottom right corner. Essentially a bra and shorts topped off with a headdress, this costume is one of the more extreme ones I’ve come across. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Karlie Kloss’s outfit for the 2012 Victoria’s Secret show which was not received well by the public (with good reason). Both are sexualizing entire cultures while inaccurately depicting them. The inspiration behind them is clear and the execution is extremely poor in terms of visuals and context. A culture shouldn’t be an aesthetic, theme, or costume, nor should it be represented without authenticity and appreciation. Without these key elements, it’s obvious that these cultures are being appropriated purely for the company’s gain with no regard to what they’re really doing to these cultures and their portrayal.
This article brought up a good point about the implications and importance of costumes for the Native American community. Native make-up artist, Dejecacion, said that “these costumes that are meant to show real, living people are still being sold. These costumes paint Native American history like it’s part of a fairy tale. But we’re real people. We’re still here.” Costumes like these go deeper than being offensive. They reduce cultures to costumes, negating any spiritual or legitimate meaning behind them. With many headdresses, each feather is blessed and holds special meaning to the wearer when donned at pow-wows. Selling off imitations of these garments for a low price of $22.99 not only perpetuates stereotypes and appropriates cultures, but also insinuates that Native cultures are worth a set price. Putting a label, whether a price tag or a questionable costume title, on something stolen from a distinct culture with its own history and traditions is an inexcusable and demeaning way to make a profit. It’s one thing to appreciate a culture and everything it has to offer, it’s another to throw on a manufactured costume for a day and appropriate a culture for the sake of the aesthetic.
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