I just feel like ancient egyptian pharaohs treated their legacies almost like a brand... it seems like if you'd asked them if they'd want people to be emulating them thousands of years later, they'd be into it?
i tried to look up why people were offended by the dark horse video and all i got was a bunch of internet commenters saying THATS CULTURAL APPROPRIATION and not necessarily like, if or why that inherently makes it problematic. i think someone else already said, everything is appropriation. dressing up as ANYONE ELSE is appropriating an image. sometimes it's fine and sometimes (often when cross-cultural lines are crossed) it's problematic. but i did find articles about when to know when cultural appropriation is less problematic (the example was that this white woman had bought some earrings from an indigenous artist who directly profited, and she was going to wear them with her same old white girl clothes and not as part of some sort of characterization of native american dress) but still, almost every article i read used native american or, less so, geishas, as examples. i feel like ancient egypt isn't in that ball park. is guess the answer to the original question is YES the costume is appropriation, but is cultural appropriation always inherently problematic?