Dress Not Quite PC

Left: Photo - JULIO NEVERO/Milenio Diario de Tampico

Caption: Rosa Maria Ojeda models her Miss Universe pageant dress, accented with bullets and crosses and portraying scenes from the 1920s religious rebellion against Mexico's secular government. After an outcry that the gown glorified violence, Ms. Ojeda's representatives said the dress would be modified. The floor-length dress is accented with crosses, scapulars and a sketch of a man facing a firing squad. Designers who helped select the dress from among 30 entries argued it represented the nation's culture and history. Mexico City will host the pageant in May.




The dress arouses controversy - and attention. No wonder she wants to wear it. But my understanding of the Cristero revolt was that millions, not thousands, died (Wikipedia says 90,000). It's still a source of great pain.:

MEXICO CITY – Miss Mexico is toning down her Miss Universe pageant dress – not because it's too slinky or low-cut, but because its bullet-studded belt and images of hangings from a 1920s uprising have outraged Mexicans.

Cut from a traditional natural cotton called manta, the dress depicts scenes from the 1926-1929 Cristero war, an uprising by Roman Catholic rebels against Mexico's secular government, which was imposing fiercely anti-clerical laws. Thousands of people died.

"We wanted a dress that made you think of Mexico," Hector Terrones, who served on the selection committee, told La Jornada newspaper.

...La Jornada columnist Jorge Camil said a dress was not the place to recount the event. "It would be like Miss USA wearing a dress showing images of the Ku Klux Klan in the Deep South, with their hoods, their burning crosses and beer cans," he wrote.