SOMBREROS, QIPAOS, AND CATHOLIC COSPLAY, OH MY!

To review the misappropriation mandates so far: teenage white girls in Utah can’t wear Chinese dresses to prom. Non-Mexicans can’t wear sombreros on Cinco de Mayo. Wearing other groups’ attire as costumes is insensitive. Re-appropriating phrases deemed inappropriate is inappropriate, even if done by a member of the aggrieved minority victimized by inappropriate appropriation. History shall not be trivialized. Identity must be respected.

So it is with extreme befuddlement and bewilderment that I sifted through pages and pages of photos from this week’s Met Gala, whose theme was “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.”

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Now, this is the point at which I might cry out indignantly: My religion is not your costume! But the Vatican actually collaborated with the Met Gala on the event, donating prized vestments, cassocks and other relics. No, I’m not offended. I’m just queasy and exhausted from trying to keep track of what we’re supposed to wear and not wear, say and not say, eat or drink and not eat or drink, and who all is allowed to dictate what to whom and when.

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.