Scanner

Are you sure it's him? Sure doesn't look like him.

Point one: This picture is a couple years old.  Besides Reznor, none of the guys pictured here are still in the band.  (Nine Inch Nails IS Trent Reznor, after all.  The touring lineup changes all the time.)

Point two: Yeah, he's been known to do stupid shit like this every so often.  But then he makes up for it by playing the ReactNOW! benefit for Hurricane Katrina victims, doing a couple Bridge School Benefit sets, and giving away his music for free.

Oh, I think he's allowed to have a sense of humor once in a while.  A guy that releases five hundred songs with titles like "The Beginning of the End", "Love Is Not Enough" and "The Downward Spiral" has got to be allowed SOME silliness, right?

Speaking of song titles, the shirt is the translation to Spanish of a NIN song title, "Me, I'm not".  Some fan probably sent him the shirt they made themselves and the band ran with the idea.  

And he got "ripped" after getting sober a few years ago.  

Hi Colleen.  

I may be beating a dead horse here, but...

I think there are a couple differences between what's going on in these pictures and what happened in your example.  First of all, the Olympians chose to represent their countries in a hugely symbolic event.  Also, the Olympians made fun of an entire ethnicity, but Rez and Co. are making fun of a popular STYLE.  You can find a few different ethnicities here in Los Angeles sporting the 'stache, buttoned-up shirts, sunglasses, etc. that look just like the guys in this picture. So while we know it's a Latino thug stereotype that they're teasing because of the shirt, it's the THUG stereotype they're making fun of, not Latinos in general.  

To play devil's advocate...would you say it's never fair for a celebrity to tease a stereotype?  What if they're making fun of their own ethnic stereotypes?  What if it's Carlos Mencia making fun of everybody else?  Do you have to be a minorty to make fun of others?  Or is it just the celebrity factor?  If so...why?

Colleen, I realize this is a VERY slow news week, but please...

You could show us your nipples poking through a silk blouse or tell us if your vag has teeth instead of this crap next time.

Ok why is it every time someone wants to have fun and laugh they get criticized! also in the original picture Trents shirt is a plain white shirt it says nothing on it! i hate that just because some people are famous they get frowned upon because they do something politically incorrect! MAYBE IT WAS HALLOWEEN GUYS!!! and they thought it would be funny to dress up like those tiny HOMIES action figures you could get a the 25 cent machines outside the grocery store! I bet if one of your friends wanted to have fun and dress like that you'd all laugh your asses off! so what they wanted to have fun and be silly!

The point is why is it "fun" or "funny" to dress like someone of a different race or ethnic background? I'm not knocking the pic. To each his own,I guess. Nice try bobdolesviagra, it is obvious that this style of dress is and has always been associated with Mexicans otherwise there would be no discussion.

Yes, these pictures are fairly old.  They were first published on buddyhead.com after NIN's performance in Mexico City, Mexico.   Unfortunately that info is no longer on buddyhead.com itself so I will refer you to the cache on the Web Archive here:

web.archive.org/.../gossip

Scroll down to 'Tuesday, June 07, 2005' and near the end of that update.

And to the thread on one of the largest fan forum sites here:

www.echoingthesound.org/.../viewtopic.php

FYI, buddyhead.com is for Buddyhead Records which is co-owned by Aaron North, the guy with the beer in the photo.  

Hey, J.V., I'd say there's a discussion because it says something in Spanish on his shirt.  Honestly, there are guys of all ethnicities that wear this exact outfit.  I think it must be the universal thug uniform.  You can look to the film Gran Torino for an example in current pop culture of Asian "thugs" sporting this same style.  

At any rate, let's assume for a moment that they ARE making fun of Mexican thugs.  I'm still not convinced it's wrong to tease ethnic stereotypes.  You ask "why is it 'fun' or 'funny' to dress like someone of a different race of ethnic background?"  I guess I think it's the same reason it's fun to dress like anybody that isn't you.  Sometimes I put on a cowboy hat and boots for fun but I'm not a cowboy.  It makes my friends laugh, but it's not some dig on cowboys (or white people, for that matter, since your stereotypical cowboy in the US is white). If I wanted to dress up like a thug for fun, how else would I dress? And is it wrong to make fun of thugs, generally?  I don't think many people would say it is.  Why, then, is it bad to make fun of Mexican thugs?

His shirt is photoshoped. It's just an average white shirt.