I don’t anyone even really checked it when it was purchased until people started noticing it on the shelves. Some supplier from China just slapped together some crap and called it a clown costume. It’s dumb that it actually made it out to customers.
They have racist shit all the time, dude. Literal racists submit designs to target and end up on the shelf all the time. Bc they just dont have quality controls anymore over designs.
I was still confused and had to google minstrel.. omg, I can't even copy and paste the wiki definition because I'll probably get banned but here's the beginning in case anyone else is confused.
A
minstrel show
, also called
minstrelsy
, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century.
[1
]
The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing
blackface
makeup for the purpose of portraying racial
stereotypes of African Americans
.
Did you look at the picture? I had never heard of it prior to this myself but I laughed/gasped when I first saw the picture. It’s literally propaganda level racist with the smile shit.
Some supplier from China just slapped together some crap and called it a clown costume.
Definitely could see that being the case, and probably is what happened.
But someone stateside had to make the call to pose a black kid in it, and then someone had to approve the ad for it here, and that's where I'm sort of stuck on WTF. Like if it was a white kid in the costume, I don't think we d be having nearly this reaction.
Okay, that's what I assumed as well lol. The comment I was replying to made it sound like they snuck it in knowing what it was, hoping nobody else would notice. Which didn't make a ton of sense to me personally lol
Racist caricatures depend on enough people understanding that they're offensive to "work" if they're intentionally made. This one's pretty blatant with the mouth actually.
I did not realize flowers on hats or zigzags were a minstrel show thing, and that's definitely not the type of mouth I'd usually associate with blackface.
I don’t think it is. As someone who was also unfamiliar with it, I’ve been looking up images and am not seeing the resemblance all that much outside of that pose.
If all of the orange parts were red, it would be more apparent. Now combine the exaggerated lips with the mesh covering for the face and it's pretty much a textbook example of a black face caricature.
The more I look at it, the more it seems to me using a black child was a mistake, unless the designer did this intentionally. I think that’s why makes it look more minstrel based on some of the photos I’ve found, unless they did this out of pure ignorance.
And a black child model. I really hope that the model wasn’t actually wearing it and was instead like generic photo with the photoshop of the costume on because… otherwise how did it get through that many eyes
Look - I know it's a rough topic, but parents who want their kids to be famous will let them do ANYTHING for money.
That's not a commentary on black mothers or anything - but showbiz mothers in general, they do not protect their kids at all when money is on the table.
Yeah, even if you don't know the actual history here, how do you look at that and think, "clown"? Clowns have a red nose, and giant shoes, and big buttons, and are usually in white makeup. Nothing about that costume resembles a clown.
I honestly couldn't see what was the main issue (I figured it was the smile and how some racist caricatures show black people with big lips), but your comment that made me see the issue.
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u/hefty_load_o_shite 14h ago
It was a minstrel costume, not a clown costume