Why Are People So Offended By Charlize Theron’s Son Dressing Like A Disney Princess?

As a child of the ‘90s, I remember watching The Little Mermaid and feeling utterly captivated by Ariel. I was fascinated by her gravity-defying, fiery hair, her seashell bra, and her gorgeous, green, mermaid fin. I fantasized about what it would be like to not only be a mermaid, but a girl. I can still see myself at the age of 7, turning red bath towels into 28-inch weaves, my legs crossed as I sang “Part of Your World.” This was a part of myself I knew not to share with my family or friends — as far as I knew, Black boys weren’t allowed to be feminine. Flash-forward to today, and the internet is freaking out over an image of Charlize Theron’s adopted Black son, Jackson, wearing a dress and a hat with a braid, to look like Elsa from Frozen. And people aren’t upset simply because of the unconventional gender play, but at the fact that Theron, a South African white woman, was "feminizing" a young Black male.

I don’t know how Theron’s son identifies in terms of gender or sexuality (and frankly, I don’t think that matters), but these reactions, many of which are from people of color, are all too familiar to me. This is an issue I’ve dealt with my entire life: There’s a reason why the Black community has so much trouble looking at an image of a Black boy expressing femininity, especially under the guidance of a white woman. As a Black queer man, I’ve known from a young age that gender boundaries were not things that could be easily transgressed, which is why I kept my Disney princess obsession to myself. There’s something about a young Black male in drag that makes some people uncomfortable, and that uneasiness is the direct result of a problematic tie between notions of Black manhood and toxic masculinity. For Black men in particular, performative manliness is a survival mechanism in response to centuries of slavery, decades of Jim Crow laws, and white supremacist systems of inequality that still affect Black people. In this way, Black men in America have always been afraid that their manhood is under siege, which seemingly leads many of them to display a hyper-masculine attitude of anger, sexual bravado, and emotional numbness.

This fear is embedded in many Black communities, but it plays out on the public stage in Hollywood, which is perhaps why Jackson’s costume of choice sparked so much backlash on Twitter. Jackson isn't just any boy playing dress-up; he’s a Black male child, and therefore his perceived manliness means much more than how he may identify as an individual. For years, there’s been speculation about a Hollywood conspiracy to emasculate Black men on TV, in film, and in pop culture in general. (These theories, of course, are as unbelievable as the internet plots that link Jay-Z and Beyonce to the illuminati.) In 2010, comedian Dave Chappelle called out Hollywood for using Black men in drag as a punchline during an interview with Oprah. “All the comics that I’ve seen, men, you know, strong brothers, why are they putting us in these dresses?” Chappelle asks, referring to actors like Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. More recently, Nate Parker, director, star, producer, and writer of The Birth of a Nation, told BET that he would never play a gay man because he felt a duty to “preserve the Black man.” Although the video of the interview was subsequently removed from BET’s site, journalist Michael Arceneaux called out Parker on his homophobia, noting that being gay and Black doesn’t make you any less of a man. (It’s worth noting that Parker has also been under scrutiny for a 1999 rape charge that has resurfaced in light of his film’s press coverage.) But the thing is, Parker’s comments don’t exist in a vacuum — they are a symptom of a culturally specific toxic masculinity that has plagued the Black community for decades, which is partly the result of racism, but also a result of the homophobia of Black churches. As in many Christian institutions, homophobia runs rampant in Black churches. But for many Black people, myself included, the church provides our first sense of community outside the home. Speaking from personal experience, I know just how hard it is to come to terms with sexuality and gender identity while being part of a religious community. Growing up in the church, I learned values and gained a sense of cultural belonging, all the while hiding an essential part of who I was in fear of rejection from my church family. This meant that I was always hyper-aware of my gender performance (what I said, how I walked, etc.) and was careful to not accidentally do something "too feminine" that would out me — and shame me and my family. Of course, it’s not as simple as the church perpetuating toxic masculinity, either. As Clay Cane, producer of the BET documentary Holler If You Hear Me, told me last year: “The intersection of the church and of Black masculinity and of racism creates a pot of complicated reasons why there’s this misperception of Black folks being more homophobic.” The backlash against Theron’s son — and the many other instances of intolerance of Black males expressing femininity — are examples of misplaced frustration with the racism that persists in our society. Everything from the coverage of Ryan Lochte’s incident at the Rio Olympics (which highlighted the power of white male privilege) to the continued violence against people of color at the hands of law enforcement makes Black men feel disempowered in a more complicated way than most of us are able to consciously process.

This may be why the image of Theron, a white authority figure, with her feminized Black son, may be so offensive to Black people: It provokes emotions around oppression, social inequality, and misplaced toxic masculinity. In this way, Theron appears to be a projection of real systemic racism affecting people of color, but we can't make that mistake. Toxic masculinity deprives all men of our humanity by prohibiting us from showing our vulnerabilities, expressing our emotions, or having interests in anything deemed “feminine.” And it hurts both men and women, not to mention interracial families (in this particular instance). Despite strong resistance, things are moving in the right direction. We are now entering the era of the carefree Black boy, in which Jaden Smith can be the face of Louis Vuitton's women's wear, Donald Glover can make it cool to be a geek, and Frank Ocean can openly talk about relationships with men and women without feeling afraid. These may seem like small steps compared to systemic racism, but these examples mark significant progress. People are finally beginning to accept the diversity of Black manhood. As Lindsay Johns recently wrote in The New Black magazine: “There are as many manifestations of Black masculinity as there are shades of black.” Which brings me back to Theron, and Jackson’s Elsa costume. Theron has given her son the opportunity to explore gender beyond the binary that society has set for boys and girls. This is not only an example of loving parenting; it’s an example of freedom. Theron is allowing Jackson to be the young Black boy he wants to be. When I look back on myself as a first-grader, doing Disney drag in the bathroom, I think about how much I would have benefitted from seeing representations of alternate Black masculine identities; I think about how different my future would have been if I knew boys were allowed to cry or wear dresses if they wanted, and that the world wouldn’t stop if they did. My only hope is that Jackson and all other Black sons don’t take as long as I did to learn that there isn’t a singular form of Black manhood; the only type of man we have to be is ourselves.