Fancy dress often has a toxic past

I was digging through old photos the other day when I came across a doozy from Halloween 2009, the year that Michael Jackson died. My son, then 11, had friends around for trick-or-treating, junk food, and scary movies.

In the spirit of the time, one of his friends dressed as Thriller-era Michael Jackson – before he turned white. The friend had the red leather jacket and the tangled curls. One problem – he’s a milkskinned Irish boy, and that is why he’d dipped heavily into his mother’s bronzer.

In the photo, he’s unmistakably Michael Jackson. He’s in blackface. If he ever goes into politics, I could jeopardise his career. Just ask Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, who has been exposed as a rabid racist posing as a liberal, based on his history of idiotically over-embracing fancy-dress, most recently by blacking-up as a sultan for an Arabian Nights themed party, in 2001.

But seriously, does anyone really believe Trudeau is a closet racist? Or simply guilty of gross misjudgment 18 years ago?

Yes, we knew blackface/brownface/yellowface was wrong even then. We had already condemned white actors for playing roles of colour, notably Alec Guinness – who coloured-up as an Arabian prince, a Japanese businessman and an Indian professor – and Mickey Rooney as the horrifically caricatured “Jap” in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, and all the white guys who ever played Othello.

And Liz Taylor as Cleopatra, and Sophia Loren, Billy Crystal, Ashton Kutcher, Ted Danson, Gigi Hadid, Leon Schuster… perhaps even Angelina Jolie at Mariane Pearl in 2008’s A Mighty Heart, because real-life Mariane is of Afro-Cuban descent, and Angie’s look was tweaked accordingly.

Then there’s one Jennie Ridyard, cast as a Japanese girl in a school concert in 1984, played Geisha-style – with a wig made of binbags, her mum’s Oriental dressing gown, and drawn-on eyes. Yes, fancy dress is always about becoming someone you’re not.

Like many before him, Justin Trudeau got over-excited dressing-up, won an enthusiastic response, so did it again, and again.

However, while the act itself may be simple cosplay, not intentional mockery, the truth is it’s loaded with toxic history. Think about it as Halloween approaches, as this former Geisha quietly sidelines her gypsy costume, and Cleopatra too.

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