And The Pussification Of America Continues---MFA Changes Monet Exhibition Because Of Three Protestors, Visitors Can No Longer Wear Kimonos In Front Of Monet Painting
Globe–In an episode that speaks volumes about cultural institutions, ethnic sensitivity, and the power of protest in the digital age, the Museum of Fine Arts is hastily pulling back on an event that protesters labeled a latter-day form of racist minstrelsy.
MFA officials announced Tuesday they would recast “Kimono Wednesdays,” an attraction scheduled to run throughout July. It is extremely rare for the MFA to change exhibition plans in the wake of protests; it appears such action had not been taken for decades.
Created as a light summer distraction, “Kimono Wednesdays” invited visitors to “channel your inner Camille Monet” by donning museum-provided kimonos and posing for photos in front of Claude Monet’s “La Japonaise,” a painting of the artist’s wife wearing a kimono.
But the event quickly raised the hackles of protesters, who charged that the museum was perpetuating racist stereotypes by presenting Asian culture as quintessentially exotic.
At a celebration for departing MFA director Malcolm Rogers on June 24, a small group of protesters stood vigil. “This is appropriation, this is Orientalism,” read one sign. Rogers himself didn’t seem fazed, telling the Globe, “A little controversy never did any harm.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the MFA issued a statement that read in part, “We apologize for offending any visitors.” Starting Wednesday, visitors will be able to touch, but not to wear, the kimonos, which will be presented with an educational talk until the event ends on July 29.
“It’s fair to say we were all quite surprised by the response,” said MFA deputy director Katie Getchell. “We thought it would be an educational opportunity for people to have direct encounters with works of art and understand different cultures and times better.”
Protesters in the museum decried the program.
The kimonos, which are replicas of the garment in the painting, were commissioned by the Japanese broadcaster NHK to accompany “La Japonaise” for the recent traveling exhibit “Looking East”; visitors to museums in Tokyo, Kyoto, and the MFA’s sister museum in Nagoya could try them on as part of the exhibit.
“It was very successful in Japan, and we wanted to provide an opportunity to further the visitor experience in Boston,” said Getchell, who added that the MFA presented an educational talk on the event’s inaugural night. “People really appreciated the opportunity to see the kimonos, to try it on, to feel it, to appreciate its craftsmanship, and to think about what it would be like for a Parisian woman to have worn that at the time for her husband to paint her.”
The protests have been small by almost any standard, with only two protesters showing up last Wednesday (and one person “in support”) to hold signs as patrons tried on the kimonos and posed for pictures. (Suggested hashtag: #mfaBoston.).
In this protest and Internet “outrage” era we now live in, every day we’re treated to some other business or dickhead school administrator bowing to supposed pressure and accommodating the whims of a tiny few (the three in pic above) at the expense of the many (rich white ladies not being able to try on a kimono in front of a Monet painting). And this is one of those ones you just have to laugh at. Can’t even get mad.
An art exhibit that was a great success in Japan, created by Japanese people, and intentionally included Japanese kimonos for visitors to don for photos in front of a painting comes to the United States is altered because of three American protestors. It’s amazing, really. You just start to run out of things to say at this point.
The MFA had a backbone for about a day and then crumbled to the white noise of the Internet (if you just ignore it, it’s not there!) and three people. Not, “This is the exhibit that the Japanese artists gave us. They included the kimonos so visitors can try them on and get the full immersive experience. We don’t want to alter the exhibition of the artist. If you have a complaint, sayonara, bitches! here is how you can reach the artists…”. And that’s that.
But not in this day in age. Now, visitors can touch but not wear the kimonos for photos in front of the famous Monet work. Because three people showed up at the museum to complain. Yeah, I know this is what KFC would rightfully call a “bougie problem”. Still makes it no less ridiculous. Pussification in full effect.
Kimonos, or at least a Victoria’s Secret bastardization of them, have been American bedroom staples ever since a dashing Dick Chamberlain moistened panties from here to Osaka in the epic 1980 mini-series “Shogun”. Everything Japanese was all the rage until cocaine came along a few minutes later then Americans had a bunch of Samurai Swords and headbands they didn’t need anymore and would eventually sell for cocaine.
But the (sexy) kimono stuck. I mean, is there anything better than a lady you’re hooking up with stepping out then coming back in just a skimpy, silky kimono? Hot as fuck. Just because there’s a dragon on the back doesn’t make us these people.
Wait a goddam minute…”minstrelsy”?
“Who’s appropriating who now, Willis?”
Here’s a a very politically incorrect song to wash that taste out of your mouth (NSFW)…
Photo by AP
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