Claire Flynn/FacebookA mum is facing serious criticism after dressing her daughter up in black face-paint in imitation of a Benidorm beach trader.
Claire Flynn, a 26-year-old nursery nurse, posted a picture of her daughter on Facebook, with the caption: ‘Happy Halloween from Benidrorms finest……lookie lookie’. [sic]
Her daughter was painted head to toe in black face-paint, and can be seen holding a board full of sunglasses which were ‘for sale’ for ’20 euros’.
The costume was apparently made to imitate beach traders who work at popular holiday destinations, like Benidorm.
Claire, from Motherwell, told the Daily Record:
I’m not going to apologise for this or delete my post. If people want to be all PC about it they need to take a look at themselves. It’s really not an issue.
We were in Magaluf on holiday in September and Sienna got a toy monkey from the ‘Lookie Lookie’ men. She loved them and wanted to go back and see them every day.
That’s when I had the idea. I’m just a creative person and that’s what Halloween is all about.
It’s a kid in a costume wearing facepaint. People need to get a grip.
I’m not going to bow down to anyone that has an issue with this. I’m not a racist and I’ve not seen anyone calling me a racist and I’m definitely not one.
People dress up as Jimmy Saville and and no one calls them a paedophile and the people who dress up as Hitler don’t get called supporters of Nazi propaganda either.
Here’s the picture:
Claire Flynn/FacebookClaire added how she dressed her daughter in the costume in her staffroom at work, and none of her colleagues had a problem with her choice of fancy dress.
She said:
My boss at work is absolutely fine about it. She thinks the complaints are ridiculous. I’ve worked as a nursery nurse for 10 years, with people of all different races and cultures, so I don’t have to defend myself.
Parents from the nursery have been sharing it online too and everyone says it’s brilliant.
No one cared when we went guising round the doors either.
The young mum added how she thinks the world has ‘gone PC mad’, saying people should ‘calm down and stop being so sensitive’.
Claire’s boss also stuck up for her choice of outfit, saying:
Claire is always empathetic towards the children, she isn’t racist in any way. It was just a fun Halloween costume.
Halloween is, of course, fancy dress season. Though Claire wasn’t the only one to raise a few eyebrows with their costume.
One man was caught on camera on the London Underground who had apparently recreated the look of Samuel L. Jackson’s Pulp Fiction character, Jules Winnfield, for his fancy dress outfit.
When other passengers confronted the man, saying his choice of outfit was racist, he simply shrugged, didn’t acknowledge the issue with wearing black face paint, and said ‘why not?’.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.