Is Mao really in good taste?
Seems like Prince Harry's fashion faux-pas tweaked some editors at the Toronto Star. The Star ran a piece yesterday about how easy it was to get clothing with that other symbol of totalitarianism the hammer and sickle! This was followed up by a piece on how those no- good kids today are wearing t-shirts that include racial slurs, messages advocating violence towards women and more!
A while back a designer in Vancouver got in a bit of trouble with his "Chink" T-shirts. And Asian groups were pretty damned pissed off at Abercrombie and Fitch over a couple of shirts they put out last year. But I digress.
I think Prince Harry was pretty boneheaded for wearing a swastika to a party considering his Great-Grandma was getting bombed by swastika wearing Germans not that long ago. But the Star got me thinking about the hammer and sickle and other questionable images. Che shirts have a certain chic, especially when there's a film with Latin hottie Gael Garcia Bernal in theatres! But lotsa folks wear Mao shirts (including me). I'm fully aware of the terrible terrible things that Mao did in his lifetime. While he started as a freedom fighter (there really was no good side in China during the '30s and '40s) he did become a power hungry maniac that manipulated young Chinese people to turn on their friends and families. So is it ok for me to wear Mao shirts or is it the same as wearing a shirt with Hitler (or for the sake of argument a Stalin shirt!).
What about more esoteric figures that are no less questionable? Kissinger shirts for wannabe neo-cons? Or figures from a little further back in history.... Genghis Khan shirts for those despots, generals and business leaders?
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