He says it’s “just for fun”.
Zac Efron has come under heavy criticism this week after he debuted a new hairdo on social media.
The Greatest Showman actor shared a black-and-white Instagram photo on Thursday that showed him with a dreadlocked hairstyle.
In the caption of the photo, he said that it was “just for fun.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk27cIxn7JH/?utm_source=ig_embed
However, the photo ended up sparking a huge debate within the comments. Some people loved his new hairstyle, while many of the Baywatch actor’s 35.9 million followers accused him of cultural appropriation.
One person said:
“Cultural appropriation is a serious thing. It shouldn’t be taken as a joke.”
Someone else wrote:
“It’s not the dreads that offend me it’s the caption! Nothing about my culture is ‘fun’…”
Others said that it made them “uncomfortable”, while someone else asked the actor to “take [the photo] down”.
Some people argued that the actor “can have his hair however he wants” and that “hairstyles don’t belong to any culture”.
One social media user wrote:
“He can have his hair however he wants, for fun… It doesn’t need to become something about races and ethnicities. He wants dreads? Leave him be.”
Another person pointed out:
“Dreadlocks span a lot of cultures. Vikings, Indians, Egyptians and more.”
