TWICE’s Jihyo Criticized For Wearing Stereotypical “Native American” Costume On Stage

She introduced herself as “Indian Jihyo”.
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Koreaboo

TWICE recently celebrated Halloween and their 3rd anniversary with ONCE at their ONCE Halloween fan meeting.

 

Each of the members showed up wearing a Halloween costume for the exciting event.

 

Jihyo’s costume in particular has been heavily debated by fans, as she wore a long brown dress with fringe and with a matching brown fur coat.

 

She also had her face painted with various marks that she paired with a set of pigtail braids and feathered head ornament.

 

Some say that she intended to look like Princess Mononoke and the stylist got her costume wrong.

 

Other fans believe that her costume was meant to be a stereotypical “Native American” or “First Nation” person.

 

The “Princess Mononoke” theory was refuted with a video of Jihyo introducing herself as “Indian Jihyo”.

“As you can see, I am Indian Jihyo in charge of MC’ing!” — Jihyo

 

These type of “Indian” or “Native” costumes are offensive as they treat the heavily stigmatized culture and history of oppressed people as a prop or aesthetic. First Nations women have been disproportionately used and abused throughout history, thus wearing their cultural garb with a slash on the chest as a costume can become a sensitive topic.

 

Fans have identified that Jihyo and her Korean stylist team may be unaware of this issue, which can be seen as just a “North American” problem.

 

They have started an e-mail campaign in English and Korean to inform JYP Entertainment about the harmful costume and ask for a formal apology.

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