Dear Drew Barrymore,
You know what? You’re a pretty cool chick. You were in ET back when you were little and adorable, and I respect that movie for scarring me for life when I was young and impressionable. You’re a female producer, which is bad-ass. You donate lots of money to good causes, and you seem kinda nice in your interviews and stuff. Despite your coolness, you did something totally uncool. And that something totally uncool was posting a picture of yourself in an “Indian headdress”–which is bad enough–but then you went even further and paired it with a Budweiser apron. An apron that has. to. do. with. alcohol.
So some of us are doing this thing where this week we document all the instances of “Stereotypical Indians” we come across in our daily lives, and I think yours might take the cake. For the whole week. And it’s only Tuesday. Cause not only do you give us the stereotypical war bonnet, you give us an association of Indians with alcohol, which is probably right up there with the worst possible stereotypes of Native people in the world ever. Nice work.
I know you probably didn’t think about it at all, in fact, I really hope you didn’t think about it, cause if it was intentional? That’s a whole other barrel of monkeys. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and think there was some context here we aren’t privileged to know about (like maybe you were shooting a PSA against Native stereotyping? Right?). But the fact that you (or your people, let’s be real) not only took this picture, but made it your PROFILE picture on The Facebook Dot Com, and have left it up ALL DAY despite a sh*t-ton of comments telling you it’s wrong? That’s more than uncool. That ish is straight up oppressive.
I’ve written a post that tells you exactly why wearing a headdress is wrong, so you should read it. You can read it here: But why can’t I wear a hipster headdress? My stats tell me that a whole lot of people have read that post, but apparently not you or your publicist. I guess I’m less cool than I thought. Shoot.
Yeah, I don’t really know what else to say, except that I am just tired of dealing with pretty white women in headdresses. Just tired. Just cause you’re all famous and stuff and donate lots of money to help hungry people doesn’t mean you can stomp all over Native cultures like that. WE ARE PEOPLE TOO.
So yeah. Thanks.
-Adrienne K.
Oh, and Facebook commenters? It’s not an effing “hat”. She is not wearing a cool “hat”. She is wearing a bastardized version of a sacred cultural object. Train conductors wear hats. Baseball players wear hats. That’s worse than calling powwow regalia a “costume”. Geez.
Drew Barrymore’s FB fan page: https://www.facebook.com/DrewBarrymore
