THERE should have been a prize for best hat at the Met Gala last week – though it would have been a struggle to pick between "Pope" Rihanna in the papal mitre, and Sarah Jessica Parker with a nativity scene on her head. But, of course, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which hosts the gala every year in honour of its Costume’s Institute doesn’t award prizes. It’s the media that does that, as it does every time there’s a red carpet. Probably, this year it actually awarded its top gong to Katy Perry, not in a hat, but a set of angel wings that looked like they would have used an entire flock of birds in the making.
Whether it is possible to hold a party with a fancy dress theme at all seems to have been in question for some months, as the twittersphere has been awash with debate on cultural appropriation. But, if the Met Gala, with its Catholic inspired fashion event, taught us anything it’s that fancy dress is still possible even in 2018. Come back dressing up box, all is forgiven. Or not quite all. For of course there were plenty of people who didn’t like the theme, said it was sacrilegious, or “borderline blasphemous”, or even called it cultural appropriation.
In pictures: Vogue chief Anna Wintour opens heavenly Met Gala
Now, I can imagine that there are Catholics who really do have an instinctive gut reaction that there is something mildly sacrilegious in Kim Kardashian dressing in a perfect goblet of shimmering gold decorated with crosses. They’re entitled to that feeling.
But isn’t the real source of their discomfort mostly the fact that these symbols which have mostly belonged to male power, have been adopted here by women – and overtly sexy women at that? Isn’t it to do with the fact that Rihanna didn’t just dress like a Bishop, but did so in a short skirt? As Madonna did with the crucifix back in the 1980s, she made the mitre all about sex.
That, of course, is going to create difficult feelings. But that doesn’t mean that those feelings are the same as cultural appropriation. Those that accused the Gala of being a parade of such appropriation, almost wilfully ignored the idea that to appropriate you have to steal from a culture with less power than your own. Either that or they believe that this is exactly what’s happening. For Christians are aware that in certain countries their religion is waning in power, and therefore prone to thinking that they belong to an impotent minority. They feel this even though the Catholic Church remains the largest organisation in the world, with over a billion followers.
Among those getting het up about cultural appropriation was Piers Morgan, whose pique at the whole thing came out in a column. Morgan did make a valid point. He was right to argue that there is little chance of us seeing an Islam or Judaism theme next year. But he misses the fact that, actually. one of moderate, contemporary Christianity’s great strengths is that it has been mostly tolerant of the ways in which its iconography has been borrowed and manipulated in art, fashion and literature for centuries.
Brian Beacom: Catholic fashion ball is tasteless and tacky but it's not blasphemous
Some of the costumes seemed quite clever as well as shockingly kitsch. Yes, Rihanna wearing a bishop’s costume in a time when we have yet to see a woman priest said something. We could also imagine that some of the stars were reminding us that they were our gods and goddesses. But none of this is new and fresh. Artists and designers have made these comments before. None of this is going to change the way the Catholic church operates.
So, let’s be real about the Met Gala – and confess that what it has given us is a bit of light entertainment. Following the sobriety of the #TimesUp black dress protest, the celebrity world has come back with a big bang of bling. And, while their costumes may make some small comment, they’re mostly there to gawp at.
A SISTERHOOD THAT HOUNDS WOMEN IS NOT MY SISTERHOOD
THERE’s a bit of me wishes that Georgina Chapman, wife of Harvey Weinstein, had never broken her silence – had never felt the need, whether for her own self-image, or promotion of her fashion line, Marchesa, to tell her side of things to the press. For, in giving an American Vogue interview it feels as if she is somehow being asked to grovel. Worse still, the reaction across social media is gloating and voyeuristic. Among the things we learn about is her suffering, and that in the interview she cried. “It is almost unbearable to witness this broken person in front of me,” writer Jonathan van Meter commented.
In pictures: Vogue chief Anna Wintour opens heavenly Met Gala
Do we have to have this? I don’t want Chapman to have to explain how raw it is for her. Nor do I want her to tell people how she worries for her children who do love their father. The alleged crimes, after all, are not hers. Did she know what her husband was doing? That is, of course, the big question, the issue the interview revolves around. She says she did not. Twitter, however, is afire with those who assume she did. It’s this that worries me. A #MeToo sisterhood that would damn her with her husband, is not my kind of sisterhood. So, let Marchesa glide up the catwalks again, as it did a few weeks ago, worn by Scarlet Johansson. There is no stain on those gowns. Only on Weinstein himself.
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