June Ambrose attended Diddy’s Emperor themed Halloween Party over the weekend, and for the occasion, slipped on a full Chinese Empress costume, equipped with a long train.
While we were blown away by her look, many of her Instagram followers accused her of ‘yellow face,’ which by definition is a form of theatrical makeup used by performers to represent an East Asian person.
A Chinese Empress Costume
@PaperMountainProjects wrote, “I say it is entirely inappropriate to dress as another culture PERIOD. If i wore black face and wore a beautiful dress and tried to be aretha franklin, it would still be incredibly offensive, even if I were “appreciating the beauty of the culture”. You can not say “dont appropriate my culture” then turn around and say it’s ok to appropriate another…Dressing up as a culture that has been/ is marginalized IS f*cked up.” Others wrote, “You are Reaching…it’s a costume and shows the beauty of Asian culture. RELAX ☺️”
We’ve had incidents of black face proliferate every Halloween, but accusations of yellow face is a new one. People have been dressing up as Native Americans every year, but I guess race relations are to the point where accusations of ‘cultural appropriation’ are being thrown around left and right.
There are ways to dress up as other cultures while being respectful. Instead of, say, a white person wearing black face to represent a rapper or a singer, they can just wear the clothes and accessories.
In June’s case, she didn’t really wear makeup that altered her skin tone. I’m no makeup guru, but it looks like the lighter tone could be attributed to a serious contour, powder, and a flash.
What do you think?
