Delicate but heartfelt..

[Tim P]

I had a nice indulgent saturday afternoon yesterday where it was back to back Scottish themed programmes on 'blighty' channel.

Anyway, among the clan histories and geology based programmes, one showed a new york based pageant in which people took to the streets in a celebration of their Scottishness.
Never have I seen such a lurid, tasteless parody of the essence of tartan wearing.

I can accept the fun aspect of it and the tartan viking hats with ginger hair poking out from underneath them are amusing here and there but it seems that for every tasteful acknowledgement of ones heritage was overshadowed by five examples of utter p*** taking.
It dropped my jaw.
Now I am sure that no-one on here is guilty of such crassness but I still felt moved to comment..
It is, to me at least, in the same vein as celebrating ones ethnic German-ness
by parading the streets dressed as hermann goering. or a sausage.

Now I completely get the idea of freedom of expression or 'each to his own' and I embrace it fully .....but what underpins this tackiness? Faced with an opportunity to demonstrate ones lineage, the default setting seems to be throw some lurid tartan on to show just how scotch you are (intentional)


hope everyone sees this in the spirit it is written. Leaving myself wide open I know but I felt the need to express it here..
Hugs to all.
Tim.

[Nighthawk]

Tim, man, I agree with you completely. You ever see a St. Patric's Day parade from the States? It's even worse... I think Americans do that because we honestly believe that's what our ancestors did, and we honestly believe that's what you all do in Scotland and Ireland. It's simply much easier to make crap up than it is to do a little actual research.

[Tim P]

I don't want to sound critical but this just seemed to me to be a wasted opportunity to properly display ones heritage. Now I speak as an Englisman (possibly 3rd generation welsh...)who has married into a Scottish family so I have no birthright myself. I do however don scottish attire tastefully as an acknowledgement of them. They would lynch me if I dressed up like coco the clown in a skirt..

[Jock Scot]

Whilst I am all for people having a good time, I think that you now can see my--other Scots too, no dout---frustrations!

[Tobus]

Hollywood is to blame for much of the ridiculous stereotypes that people think is accurate. And I daresay that many of these people could probably not even point to Scotland on a map, much less tell you anything about its history besides what they saw in movies like Braveheart, which as we know is utter rubbish.

But gosh darn it, these people are proud of their heritage!

Sadly, such blatant mocking of foreign cultures is not intentional, but comes from ignorance and a sheer lack of willingness to put forth any effort into researching history. I will even admit that my own knowledge of Scottish history and culture was embarrassingly thin and wrong until I myself started reading and researching. It's just an unfortunate product of American popular culture that takes effort to overcome.

When I see such awful displays of culture-mocking, it makes me cringe. And if I'm honest, it makes me embarrassed to be American at times. We should be better than that, but many choose not to be.

[Tim P]

By the way... I am NOT Yank bashing.... I am sure everyone realises that.

[Pleater]

I see a similar thing in folk music and dance - where the traditional aspects are lost and it becomes a performance, often with lewd and suggestive movements or gestures, or the words and figures altered to the same effect.

However, there are many back rooms where you can wander in and find a circle of people listening to something so old that it is barely understandable English, or learning to dance the basic figures of a May morning ritual which was performed for two hundred years until the Great War wiped out the side that knew it from their fathers.

Over the years I have seen several youngsters who started out with the intention of showing the old foggies how to go on, and who came to realise that they were the ones needing instruction.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Cowher]

In my experience this a strictly United States thing. Americans are told in school and in the media that their culture or family history is meaningless they are American. Act American, think American, speak American (not English but American). If you legally come from another country and intend on living in the US you are expected to forsake you culture and embrace you new culture of being American.
But people want to remember their old culture they want to honor their family history. They try to do SOMETHING to show that they still remember. But because of this ultra-American mindset of USA is better that everything they celebrate their heritage in a mocking way. They wear a tartanish cloth wrapped around their waist and don a red wig and big goofy hat bordering on clown wear, and claim their Scottishness. But they do it in a mocking unkind way.

Here is a example. Last year I went to tartan day in NYC. I dressed somewhat well. I certainly didn't dress like a fool. I had more strange looks than the guy wearing a tartan wrap tucked into his shorts and a green balmoral with red hair and a red beard attached to it swinging a foam long sword.
People actually told him that he looked great.

The contrast is that they look at us who actually honor and take pride by educating ourselves as being odd because we have taken time and effort to study something un-American.
This is my observation.

[gary meakin]

So what do we expect when we tell everyone they can do what they want and wear what they want as long as it makes them happy?

[Tim P]

That does explain it well.

My time with the US forces surprised me in that people were very ready to proclaim that they were this-American or that-American. Friends I have seem very ready to do likewise. Odd (to me) then that come the day this deliberate sending up of their heritage seems to be the way. Of course the generic 'American way or the highway' culture in schools seems to make sense of the overly frivolous practices seen.

But honestly, and being deliberately controversial here but without prejudice or malice... Were someone to celebrate African American heritage at such an event with a bone through their nose as occasionally seen in some tribes, the crassness of that would not go unnoticed would it?

Now, in raising this I know I can't change it but I am bemused by it I guess.

Thank goodness for the considered way on this forum in which Traditional highland attire is used or adapted for contemporary ideas tastefully.