To use a nativity set that is not ethnically accurate?

[Yellownotblue]

Old fashioned nativity sets typically have the family as white, and the three kings as Asian/brown/black. The black wise man is literally black.

We are a mixed heritage household, but the nativity set doesn’t bother me as that’s what I grew up with. Would it make you wince, or am I okay to use it? Not that I’m planning to have any guests at Christmas, judgemental or otherwise - it just got me thinking.

YANBU: it’s okay to use the set
YABU: don’t use it

@CentrifugalBumblePuppy

I think Nativity sets tend to echo the region or culture you’ve purchased it in.

Mine is a pretty European-centric/CofE variant (white, brunette Mary, bearded Joseph, Wise Men are of African & Middle Eastern skin tones, no coal black Kings in sight. Camels, donkeys, sheep. And a few added characters from places I’ve worked around the World.

Ours also contains The Christmas Stegosaurus. He appeared over 20 years ago. It’s best not to ask.

I knew Mary could be a brunette! My primary school teachers always cast the prettiest blonde girls and I was always a sheep or some shitty role.

I can't help thinking of Viz and the Modern Parents cartoon series

Especially the one when the children are innocently playing with a toy sailing ship but the modern parents insist the ship is too reminiscent of a slaving vessel and so must be destroyed, while the children are given a stern lecture on colonialism.

Everyone except possibly the wise men (who travelled from afar) would be semitic in appearance.

This, although Semitic is a language group- it doesn't necessarily mean a specific skin colour. Joseph, Mary and Jesus Benheli were almost certainly some shades of brown/olive skin, brown eyes and brown hair.

That said, given how every culture sees itself in the person of Christ, I can't see it's a big deal.

I think there are some blonde haired blue eyed Jews?

Well yeah, there are black Jews too, just not many of either in Nazareth at that time.

God came to earth in flesh incarnate, as a human baby, in the most momentous event in history - and you seriously think the important bit is what colour His face was?!

God came to earth partly to let us humans know that God could be like us. For children in particular, it's hard to see someone as like you if they don't look much like you; even harder if every single figure in a story doesn't look like you.

Little Baby Cheesus?

aboutmanchester.co.uk/the-worlds-cheesiest-nativity-scene/

I also have 2 Jesuses (Jesi? Not sure of the plural)

Jesupodes

she was the angel Gabriel - which I'm sure should be male!

Also YABVU to assume Gabriel's gender identity. What if ze was non-binary.

God came to earth in flesh incarnate, as a human baby, in the most momentous event in history - and you seriously think the important bit is what colour His Her face was?

FTFY

In my nativity set the 3 kings are white, brown and yellow. The donkey is pink and there’s a reindeer at the birth of Jesus. I don’t think it’s intended to be representative of reality!

@drspouse

God came to earth in flesh incarnate, as a human baby, in the most momentous event in history - and you seriously think the important bit is what colour His face was?!

God came to earth partly to let us humans know that God could be like us. For children in particular, it's hard to see someone as like you if they don't look much like you; even harder if every single figure in a story doesn't look like you.

Right, and an olive-skinned, dark-haired Holy Family would not resemble the majority of British children. And the OP isn't actually worried about how her own children might feel about the Nativity set, but rather whether society in general (or persons unknown) might find it offensive in its "inaccuracy".

Regarding the OP's prediction that it will be seen as offensive in 20 years' time, I can only say I will be impressed if Nativity scenes are still seen, discussed and cared about to such an extent - though I'll also be depressed at the joyless literalism. Apparently it's quite a new way of approaching religion, very similar to the New Atheism.

I've got a willow set that has darker figures so it could be more ethnically correct.
It gets a bit fucked up explaining Chewbacca the wookies part in the nativity but as a young ds said. There are no photos so who said chewy wasn't there?

I don’t feel that the point of questioning the ethnicity of nativity scenes is served well by saying that the roman empire was multi ethnic, so blond haired and blue eyed for the central characters is fine.
The point is that black or ethnic minority people have been whitewashed out of our history. The nativity scene is an opportunity to have important people that are revered be represented in a more accurate way.

It doesn't really matter. It's a made up story anyway.

This thread is MENTAL

There is also the awkward question of whether we should be celebrating the consequences of a rape, given the power differential between a poor Nazarene girl and the creator of universes. Hard to imagine much concern for her consent, given his well known propensity to extreme violence when he doesn't get his way ie floods, pestilence etc.

I don’t feel that the point of questioning the ethnicity of nativity scenes is served well by saying that the roman empire was multi ethnic, so blond haired and blue eyed for the central characters is fine.

The point is that black or ethnic minority people have been whitewashed out of our history. The nativity scene is an opportunity to have important people that are revered be represented in a more accurate way

You might have a had a point 70 years ago, but according to academia ATM the Roman Empire was teeming with diversity, even at its extreme borders. Hadrian's Wall, according to the BBC, was "typically" manned by African Roman's.

Im pretty sure Palestine/the middle east, central to extensive trade routes, was more diverse than Hadrians wall. Either the RE was diverse or it wasn't. We can't have it both ways

But why does it matter what ethnicity someones personal family nativity scene is anyway. It isn't a history lecture to an Oxbridge debating society. It's a nativity scene in someone own home. Why do we have to get so po faced about these things

I'm not going to get hung up on the colours. It's not what matters. He came for us all and that's what any nativity represents.

I love this African one though. My own is this little boxed one from Ecuador, even though I'm not.

An elderly lady at my church kindly knitted one. Everyone in it is bright yellow.

They all tell the same story though

I'm in a mixed household and it doesn't enter my head because it's all a fictional story as far as I'm concerned anyway!

I'd just paint them rather than have the faux blonde haired blue eyed thing going on. You'd get realistic answers in the Black MNetters section. On AIBU it will mostly be deemed fine "tinkly laugh"...A bit like old biblical films where everyone of any status is White as the driven snow

At least it's got the main characters in it.

I bought a cheap little nativity set one year in a supermarket (can't remember which) because the figures looked cute & I was broke.

When I got it home, it turned out it was a single parent version as there was no Joseph.
He wasn't missing by accident, there was no space in the box for him & when I looked a little closer, he had never been in the picture on the back either.
Poor Mary had to go it alone that Christmas with just a shepherd, a sheep & some wise men to keep her company.

Nowadays I have a Willow Tree triptych & their big nativity set.
Joseph is in both.

@Yellownotblue

I remember reading many years ago, I think it was from Umberto Eco, that nativity sets were made to resemble the local culture. Italian ones look like old Naples figures, Provence ones look like Santons (local carvings), etc. and are dressed in the fashion of the time.

This is true, and if you go to China or Africa or many other places what you see is the artistic representations look like the people who made them, and so usually the clothing and other details reflect the local culture.

It's only relatively recently in Europe that people began to see these representations as needing to show some sort of serious historical and geographical accuracy, and that really reflects a wider exposure to different cultures, largely through education, and also to some extent a different way of thinking about history. I'd argue, not a better way of thinking about it - just different, seeing different things as important.

Now interestingly, recently from the second half of the 20th century you also start to see in some instances a conscious and deliberate depiction of Jess or other Biblical/Christian historical figures as a different ethnicity than we know they were. So in this kind of instance someone has usually decided to depict some personage as being from an unlikely or impossible ethnicity, in order to be inclusive or create a sense of identity or show diversity.

@Moonmelodies

There is also the awkward question of whether we should be celebrating the consequences of a rape, given the power differential between a poor Nazarene girl and the creator of universes. Hard to imagine much concern for her consent, given his well known propensity to extreme violence when he doesn't get his way ie floods, pestilence etc.

The text doesn't really support your perspective here, if you want a textual criticism perspective, and as for the religious tradition, there is a pretty significant and longstanding part of it dedicated to the exact nature and implications of Mary's agreement to be the mother of Jesus, which is characterised as a perfectly free choice.

@picklemewalnuts

Melisande it's more that Joseph mary and Jesus are blonde and blue eyed. Exceptionally unlikely!

They can be blond hair blue eye and have brown skin tone too

This has made me wonder what Father Christmas looks like in different countries.

Are there regional ones with local characteristics?

What happens in those places where they might not have a chimney on their dwelling. e.g. a hut in the Borneo jungle ?

I really, really wouldn’t care. I don’t think the Christmas story is about ethnicities.