Sunday, October 31, 2010

Your Halloween costume is offensive

Halloween should be fun, but I am kind of frustrated by all these awful costumes. They're so offensive, cheesy and expensive that I would rather make my own costumes. I've griped before about an insensitive Halloween costume, but I feel the need to to complain again in a comprehensive manner.

Here are two awful trends that I find in costumes:

1. Your costume is racially insensitive.

Dressing up as another race is offensive. It is the same as walking around on Halloween in Blackface.

If you're trying to dress up as Pocahontas, it's fine as long as your costume is accurate enough. However, dressing up as a different race is not fine.

Don't call Inuits Eskimos! It's like calling an Asian person Oriental or a Black person Negro. I'm going to ignore the "Cutie Pie" part. If I try to explain why I hate it, I think I won't be able to finish writing the rest of this post. As for the costume itself, it looks nothing like the traditional clothing. It's a mockery.

Now some may say that I am being ridiculous. No intelligent adult would take these stereotypes seriously. It's all for fun, right?

Wrong. Kids might not fully understand these things, yet we have no problem dressing them up in these costumes. We are propagating insensitivity to oblivious children who want to imitate the adults.


2. Your costume is sexist.

These girl costumes are all pretty and cute. The models are in twisted unnatural poses.


Look at the range in these boy costumes. They can be scary or funny. Boys have the option of dressing up as an action character or as a police officer.

This costume was actually in the girls' section, not even in the teen girls' section. Why would anyone want to dress their 10-year-old into a pedophile's fantasy? Note that unnatural pose that suggests that girls are passive and meant to be pretty.

It's not funny. Don't dress up your little boy into a pimp. He probably doesn't understand what a pimp is. If he does, don't let it seem fine to exploit women by letting him dress up as one. Either way, he will hate you when he realizes what you did to him.


Compare boy pirates and girl pirates.



Boys pirates are described as "cutthroat" and "king." Girl pirates aren't actually pirates. They're just pretty pirates. See words like "pink", "cutie", and "Beauty" being passed around. God forbid that these girls should wear pants when they pillage. The point here is that girls can be tough, as long as they are pretty and girly.



These were found in the boys' section.
I see that the doctor costume is supposed to be unisex, but why is it in the boys' section?

These are all pretty respectable jobs.




There aren't that many real jobs in the girls' section.
I think that this is supposed to be the girl version of the military officer costume. It seems more like some sort of sexual role playing costume. ugh.


Oh wait! Here's a costume that portrays a successful young woman that's not very sexualized.
In my opinion, Miley Cyrus sort of ruins it. Besides, Hannah Montana isn't a career path that many girls can take.


I think this "Shipmate Cutie" is more reminiscent of a pin-up girl than an actual sailor.
I just wish adults would stop dressing up children like this. They don't understand that these costumes limit them. A little girl wont be able to find a FBI Agent costume in the girls' section and she will start to believe that girls can't be FBI agents.
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I'm sorry if I just took all the fun out of your Halloween with all this preaching. I had to get that off my chest. Here is a K-pop video to get you excited again.



I hope you have fun tonight. Don't offend anyone and stay safe! I have to go find a costume in my closet now.

4 comments:

  1. Your post reminds me of this: http://i.imgur.com/tGYvS.gif

    And I totally agree.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Actually, one of the second graders I teach at Sunday School dressed up as Mac Daddy...

    So wtf.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Em:haha, that comic basically conveys what I feel.

    Jeff: oh, wow. yuck. Did he understand what he dressed up as?

    ReplyDelete
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