TWICE’s Jihyo Criticized For Wearing Stereotypical “Native American” Costume On Stage
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.
My baby wanted to be Princess Mononoke … So I decided to draw her like that ^^ love you so much Jihyo ♥️ @JYPETWICE
Hope you like it guys ~ #OnceHalloween #지효 pic.twitter.com/KLTP8ONBaQ— コトン🎲 #YesOrYes (@moguriham) October 28, 2018
IT’S PRINCESS MONONOKE CHILL pic.twitter.com/yccuG5pYsD
— 𝙝𝙞𝙧𝙤; #YesOrYes #LaVieEnRose (@jyeonicorn) October 28, 2018
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”.
Ok no. We need to clear this up. Jihyo never called herself Princess Mononoke. In fact, she introduced her self as Indian Jihyo. She is clearly dressed up as an Native. She did the war cry. This was her intended costume. Jihyo is responsible. Don’t defend it. Hold her accountable pic.twitter.com/WdoHiztVHr
— ash (@seuIgioh) October 28, 2018
“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.
Now look I'm not getting mad at Jihyo nor @JYPETWICE , but somebody needs to apologize because as a native/once I don't know how to feel about this, look at the resemblance, I need to know the backstory of this. Note: I am a once and I will continue to stan/love Twice❤. pic.twitter.com/VIhW6Kh34g
— Ice (@Ice73604953) October 29, 2018
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.
Yes, Jihyo was not informed but she still needs to be held accountable for her ignorance regarding the issue.
— ash (@seuIgioh) October 30, 2018
i’d like to apologize to the people who were offended by my tweet. i didn’t see jihyo’s video when i tweeted this 👇🏻. i hope jihyo is going to apologize and i hope she won’t do the same error in the future. i know what she did was wrong but that’s NOT why i will put her down. ☹️ https://t.co/mgYnVTVkVN
— tzuyu pics 🎲 (@tzuyudotjpg) October 29, 2018
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.
Mass email jype regarding jihyo's issue. We need just 1 minute of your time 🙌🙌
Emails : fan@jype.com & business@jype.com
(Photo & trans by @PengMinari 🙆♀️🙆♀️)
🔸include this 👇 photo in your email
🔸Write TWICE as the subject pic.twitter.com/LAcvrofuxk— 예쁜 정연 🌺 트와이스 💙 (@jjodayeon) October 30, 2018
