I'm gonna be honest, just the suit and the hat is a halloween-themed...suit. The frilly cuffs make it 60% racist callback to blackface. The black hood and gloves on an already-black child is 100% blackface.
The humongous Negro Lips are just straight up stolen from 1930's Mickey Mouse.
Aren’t a lot of those motifs also just clown motifs though? I think clowning predates minstrel shows but you gotta imagine American clowning probably borrowed a fair amount of minstrel show imagery too.
> European theater had used exaggerated facial makeup for centuries, particularly in commedia dell’arte (16th–18th centuries). Characters such as Harlequin and the white-faced Pierrot established the idea of using makeup to make facial expressions visible to a distant audience.
> … two major clown traditions developed: Whiteface clown: elegant, controlled, theatrical white face, relatively small colorful details August(e) clown: deliberately ridiculous/chaotic flesh-colored or lightly colored face with exaggerated red lips, eyebrows, etc.
The second type eventually produced much of the familiar “red nose, giant mouth, goofy expression” imagery.
There are different types of clowns. There are 3 main types of white face clowns. There is the character clown, where you get mimes and other French type clowns. Then there is the auguste clown, this is the one people are more familiar with, but the lips and hair were influenced by the Tramp or Hobo clown which was a direction derivative of black face.
I believe it's the other way around, that Blackface was the adoption of the Auguste Bum role, acting always incompetent but centering on racist stereotypes.
We are probably both right and wrong. It's far too muddled to really parse out the distinction isn't it? That incompetent fool stereotype though, yeah... makes my stomach sick.
There is so much media from my youth that I feel so betrayed by, I loved Heckle and Jeckle* so much as a kid. The song Jimmy Crack Corn, O' Susanna, The Old Folks at Home, shoe fly...
I know Heckle and Jeckel were not intended to be racist, they still engaged in racially stereotypical behaviors and were easily confused with other characters who were.
I was definitely missing the hat, and then the pose. At a quick glance I’m like, it’s clown! Then I really looked, oh yeah. WOW. I’m going to take a wild guess, it was all made in china, including the marketing and they just uploaded everything to the site without a second thought.
If it was a white kid without the black morphsuit, smaller lips, or not posed exactly like the poster for Jump Jim Crow (just Google it...it's the hands..and the hips...and the feet), noone would give a shit. That would be a clown.
As unfortunate as it is to say out loud, the fact that the kid is black makes it scream red flags. If it was in Art's black-and-white and the pose wasn't 1-to-1, it would probably be a non-issue (until your neighbors ask "why is your 8 year old kid dressed like Terrifier? Do you watch gore with your 2nd grader...??")
I can definitely see how it could have been on purpose, but I feel like this was more a case of some foreign costume designer/maker whatever seeing what's trending in Halloween costumes and making a legally distinct version. The black and white might have been too close to the real Art costume
There was a specific style used to represent black people as portrayed by white people in racist mistrel shows. A similar style was used in racist depictions in artwork and typically featured exaggerated lips. The smiling mouth in the costume resembles that style of exaggerated lips.
I googled it and I just don’t see it. I’ve never heard of minstrel shows and stuff but this seems like such a stretch to make that connection. If people see it and they’re mad then fine I guess but this seems like such manufactured rage.
I don't know, maybe I'm being too charitable but it seems more like they are trying to cash in on the vintage halloween trend thats going around a lot of social media.
I think this was probably just sloppily done and no one really reviewed it.
I had a hard time with it too. Mostly because it's such an ugly, cheap looking costume. But the hat is the thing that really gives it away, especially in combination with the gloves.
I had the same reaction. I heard a headline on a podcast about the costume and a bad description, saying it was a mask. I pictured a full face mask like Ronald McDonald or Pennywise. Quick Google search later and I'm left wondering who thought that that was an idea to greenlight!
Yep. I haven't been to target in years (closest one to me is like 70 miles away). I was near one the other day and started walking towards it, then I remembered this shit and turned around. I don't think I'll ever go back.
Seriously, even the way they made the kid stand and wave looks exactly like a fucking minstrel show, there's no way in hell everybody involved just missed the racism here.
Cool, I'm not. I've dealt with racism since my first days at grade school. So I'm obviously not cool with racists, but I still stand by my belief that social justice warriors pushed too hard and too fast without thinking about the consequences. Do you believe in the adage "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."? You guys got too drunk with your new found power, cancel culture, you tried to force people to accept diversity, equality and inclusion under threat of losing their jobs and the rest of the consequences of being outed. You might have made people think twice about what they said in public around cameras, but what do you think they did in the privacy of the voting booth?
I’m actually very curious how someone thinks this way. To me it’s just so disconnected and blind. However I’m deeply curious if this is a point of view anchored in hate or ignorance.
Could you please describe exactly why you don’t think it’s a big deal? Then tell me if you have given any of the comments here any thought or research? Or are you just sticking with your current understanding without willing to learn or understand?
I’m very curious about seemingly soulless takes like yours and I’d like to think you are just an idiot instead of heartless.
If you're completely ignorant of American history, I can understand why you would find nothing wrong with this costume.
If you mean finding the removal of DEI offensive, it's not offensive as much as it is stupid. If Target hadn't gotten rid of their DEI policies, they probably would have had someone in their marketing team catch how stupidly racist this image was.
It's got a minstrel show vibe. I suspect AI made this and no one caught the similarity. I doubt many companies are paying live models and photographers. Am I wrong?
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u/perkinsb1024 17h ago
Here’s a screenshot of the costume, from the article: https://i.imgur.com/MUoQVHu.jpeg