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A new night is taking aim at the recent slew of culturally insensitive fancy dress parties.
There have been many instances lately where mis-using cultural outfits as part of fancy dress has been roundly seen as insensitive. Global club brand Elrow were recently forced to withdraw the poster for their February club night – subtitled ‘Bollywood-themed chaos’ – because it depicted the Hindu god Shiva enjoying a bottle of champagne and smoking a giant spliff. There was also that guy who dressed as Abu Hamza at the Oxford ‘Arabian Nights’ party, or that ill-thought out Mexican party at Princeton University.
In response to all this comes The Caucacity – a satirical celebration of Europe, inspired in part by Morning Gloryville’s clumsy foray into cultural appropriation with their ‘Motherland Africa’ breakfast rave earlier this month. Morning Gloryville drew criticism for crass stereotypes of an entire continent: the crowd dressed as animals, in leopard print, wore tribal headscarves, carried drums and dressed as ancient Egyptians.
The Caucasity's organisers – Ije Hadid and Lee Pinales – suggest people attend dressed as Margaret Thatcher or Donald Trump, wear lederhosen and generally dance – off-beat – to DJs like Gin and Shy-One from Radar Radio. There will also be a token white guy DJ, naturally.
According to the organisers ‘this event aims to “celebrate” white culture in a satirical fashion, in order to provoke a thought process and discussion on cultural appropriation. As it happens so often with “African” and “Asian” themed events, we want to homogenise European and North American countries and cultures for the night, play on perceived stereotypes and encourage our guests to participate by dressing up insouciantly according to the “white” theme.’
The brilliantly incendiary Facebook event post reads:
‘Be creative, but don’t bother to do any actual research on your costumes. White people wanting to attend this event are highly encouraged to dress as unicorns or other random mythological creatures. This is just our way to express admiration for Caucasian culture. Makes sense, no? And before y‘all get offended, relax guys! I've asked my white friend if this is racist and he said it’s okay.’
All proceeds from the night will be donated to human rights charity Sexual Minorities Uganda.