We are not your costumes
We are nearly at the end of October, which brings us closer to pop culture’s favourite time of the year – Halloween.
A time where boys, girls, men and women celebrate the idea of being anything and everything they want to be. It’s like being Cinderella only that you don’t have to return your costume when the clock strikes 12.
The issue with costume regalia is its problematic history of appropriation. Oh yes, the big a-word every socially privileged person cringes to like a nail on a chalkboard.
It comes as no surprise that the mother of all costume parties, The Met Gala, has announced that the theme for 2019 will be Camp: Notes on Fashion, which borders on appropriative.
So, here’s how the Met Gala works: American Vogue editor-inchief Anna Wintour selects the guest list of designers and celebrities to attend the annual fundraiser; once that is done, each designer creates a spectacular garment to be worn on the red carpet by the celebrities Wintour hand-picks.
What chaps my hide (no camp pun intended) is the idea that queer culture will be a costume for a number of cisgender folks to wear.
They will receive praise for embracing the queer culture and its contribution to pop culture yet a majority of these faces will not blink twice when they are gunned down and buried in their respective countries.
The same level of disenchantment can be found at the Feather Awards set to take place on November 15, which have, in its 10-year history, celebrated South African pop culture through the gaze of queer folk with a hefty dose of tongue-incheek humour.
In a world with a more vocal LGBTIQ+ community, the awards fail to represent the very people it sees the world through. Instead of celebrating pop culture it seems to prioritise its existence and narrative more than the queer folk who subscribe to it.
The blatant ignorance takes pages from Kardashian royals, Kylie and Kim, who casually cash in on ethnic culture as well as that unforgivable GQ cover that saw Lewis Hamilton apologise for homophobia by wearing a kilt.
However, celebrating queer culture through a curated exhibition is deeply worrying if a discriminated group of people are trivialised as a fashionable party trick.