Racist or sexy? Which one this Halloween? Pick your costume and get your offensive stereotype on: Mexicans, Native Americans, "Arabs" and more. And did you know you can be a sexy skunk? Or a sexy Nemo? You can even be a sexy Phantom of the Opera. Can't decide? How about both racist and sexy?
Students at Ohio University are taking a stand with a poster campaign called "We're a culture, not a costume."
And a group called the Real History Project has created a guide for alternatives to the "sexy" costume.
We think it’s cool that there’s one day a year when people can dress up as anything they want. What we don’t think is cool is that increasingly women are only supposed to dress up as one thing: “Sexy _____” (fill in the blank). Sexy Nurse, Sexy Cowgirl, Sexy whatever...There’s nothing wrong with sexy (for adults), and if you want to go that route, fine. Have fun! We just want there to be other options as well.
Take Back Halloween
Guide to dressing as Emma Goldman
There aren't many other costume guides out there with tips on how to dress as anarchist icon Emma Goldman or abolitionist and feminist Sojourner Truth. Personally, I'm going as the classic jack-o-lantern.
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Of the alternative costumes I like Pele best, but I think in this year of OWS, etc. going as Marianne would be good and she is not included.
Uhhh OK, I understand the need for cultural sensitivity, but really can we give it just a tiny bit of a rest on Holloween? I get not wanting classic, overtly racist stuff like Goliwogg, and I can understand how the "Arab" thing could be seen as offensive, but the Native American guy? Really what's the problem?
"We're a culture, not a costume" Why the hell does it have to be a choice? I live in Spain and I can't think of any Spaniard who would be offended by the idea of someone dressing up in a flamenco outfit for Holloween. Is it also offensive to go in a kimono? A sari? Should the German community be up in arms if you dress as a yodeler?
If a costume seems obviously directed at being insulting and reinforcing negative stereotypes, I totally understand being upset. But saying that its "racist" to dress up as any cultural archetype is ridiculous and only serves to delegitimize the accusation for when its actually needed.
Really, what's the problem? Nothing really. Just a little genocide. NBD.
And thirteen upvotes. BFS.
If:
Culture is marginalized
Then:
Don't dress up as a stereotype of that culture.
Else:
It's probably okay.
If that test doesn't work, you could always imagine going to a costume party where half the attendees are of that culture you're wanting to dress up as. Would you enjoy yourself, or do you think you'd end up spending the whole time getting disapproving looks and having to defend your choice of costume?
Native Americans actually exist. They still have tribes even. I honestly don't understand how you can't see that the Indian costume mocks them, poor English and all. Seriously, how do you not get that?
The very best Halloween party I ever attended was a literary themed one - everyone was supposed to dress as a character from literature. I went as Hester Prynne...quite modestly attired and accessorized with my scarlet A.
We all enjoy what the English call "fancy dress" but don't overdo it, folks. Halloween is basically a children's holiday; we do need to grow up some time. Sensitivity regarding our costumes seems in order.
I've always found it fascinating how the people who complain about too much political correctness want us to be politically correct towards their non-politically correct terms. Anyone else notice that blatant contradiction?
@Caralinalady- That actually sounds like fun. Did ya'll act out scenes from the book or?
@Mouzer, no, we just had a wonderful time figuring out who each other was (well, I know that's grammatically incorrect but for the illiteratti at the party, it was a hoot).
Yesterday there was a Halloween party at work with a group and individual costume contest categories. The Man in the Iron Mask won best individual. The group winner? .... The cast of Monty Python and the Holy Grail! One of members had her 2 year old son in a python costume. His actual name is Monty. Is that great or what?!
while we're at it, how about stopping the nun, priest and Catholic schoolgirl costumes exploiting the sexual abuse crisis. Every one hurts the victims and the clergy who are not abusers.
And hockey goalies everywhere are miffed about their axe-wielding stereo-type too.
Thank you! I am so over the "sexy _______" costumes - and frankly any other costume that comes pre-assembled in a bag. Where's the creativity, people?
Part of the fun of Halloween is that you can be whatever you want to be. This year I chose to dress as a viking... does this mean that I believe everyone from Norway wants to raid and pillage small towns? Now granted... I keep my soap box on overdrive throughout most of the year. I love me some activism... but Halloween? I say give it a rest. It just seems to me that people are just looking for reasons to be offended. My father's from Indonesia... if you want to go out dressed like a shadow puppet, feel free. I don't think wearing a slightly racist Halloween costume necessarily indicates actual racism. I've dressed as Bob Marley for Halloween many times... you know with the fake dreadlocks coming out of a kufi... no black face of course because that's just disrespectful... but I did have the big fake joint. That's a stereotype, ganja smoking Rastafarian. Nobody had a problem with it, including actual Jamaicans from Jamaica.
The argument that the people whose cultural backgrounds are appropriated should understand it isn't meant as hurtful breaks down if you take seriously what anthropologists and other social scientists have demonstrated about the power of traditional dress as a means of self-identity, and the way that states use imposed signs of identity as control. It is not trivial, and as these wonderful students say, it is not OK. For more see
What Makes Us Human
Demanding that stereotypes be put in the closet only gives them more power. Can't a "racist costume" also just as easily be interpreted as a costume mocking racist stereotypes? I assume everyone supports openly heaping scorn upon actual bigots while also tearing down the very social constructs and ideas that we subconsciously all allow to prejudice our thoughts and color our actions, so why support a movement which will only serve to quell the very conversations which need to take place in order to confront actual bigotry head on? I suppose I just don't understand the mentality of deliberate actions which will only serve to spurn thought and discussion, rather than spur it.
The only sane conclusion to draw is that this mentality must be due entirely to the fact that Mexicans are clearly all very lazy, sombrero wearing, individuals with thick mustaches, whence we should all be terribly frightened of them (and also of the gays).
Really? You want to bring back blackface? You don't see any problem with that? Or white people dressing up as the people their ancestors murdered and forced onto reservations?
While you don't see the harm in it, many of those faced with institutionalized racism- those who are, as a culture, disenfranchised by those in power, having those with privilege mock their culture, and reinforce that privilege, is damaging.
Intent doesn't matter when it plays upon privilege and institutionalized disenfranchisement. Vikings and Catholics are not having their states pass measures to rob them of their vote, or invalidating their own travel documents.
How hard is that to comprehend?
I'm part Sauk and Fox native american. I never got upset at "the Tomahawk chop" or football teams wanting to have native american names. Its no big deal.
And my best friend got horribly offended by the blackface, and she's black.
Everyone's mileage may vary, but as my friend put it "Everyone hates it when someone treats a racial group as a singular hivemind, so why do some people think it's ok to speak for 'all of us'?"
Some colors are more difficult than others. Black is all colors, or is it white? I forget.
Depends if you're talking about light or pigments. White light is all colors, black is the absence of color. I think brown is what you get when mixing pigments. An interesting note about pigments is that the color you see is the light not absorbed by the pigment. So a red pigment absorbs all the blue and yellow light waves, but reflects the red. This is what I remember from high school.
I assume we realize, at least on an intellectual level, that "sexism" and "sexuality" are two different things.
Sometimes people take things a bit too far. When done in fun, with no harm behind it, OK. Once you put a negative twist that is where the problems begin. When dressing in Mexican attire - do it with class and do not portray negative stereotypes. The same with Hassidic garb, etc. Hey, its the one who is wearing the outfit that will look like the horses patoot, not the one they are inaccuratly portraying.
This whole discussion serves to show how ridiculous Halloween has become. We have forgotten the purpose of dressing up on this day. Samhain was a celebration of the New Year. A time to honor both life and death. A time to remember those who had passed on. Children dressed up as ghosts or skeletons to represent the spirits of the dead who could return on this one night to visit the living. Dressing as Princess Leia or sexy nurses is not what Halloween is meant to be. Halloween has lost its purpose and turned in to nothing more than a commercial enterprise for the candy makers.
I agree that it's for Halloween!!!! People need to relax and stop being so overly sensitive about a costume. It's mostly all in fun, and it gets tiring having to always worry about how everyone else is going to feel all the time!!!! I think many some groups take advantage of this country's mostly liberal attitude by taking offnese to nonsense. Get over it already. :-).
I do get tired of worrying about how people might feel about my racist and insensitive attitudes! Especially if those people are members of groups I'm being racist and insensitive towards. Exhausting, really.
We think it's gone too far! Have you seen this hilarious parody photo? haha
PHOTO: Comedian Takes A Stand Against Racist Costumes
I'm generally a fan of Maddow but this reads like a parody of PC joy killing.
Dressing up for Halloween is a form of play. Dressing up like a stereotype does not mean that you actually think that stereotype is valid. Honest.
If I saw a Mexican dressed up in a fat suit wearing a plaid shirt, cowboy boots and bib overalls while waving an American flag in one hand and a gun in the other, with a toy pig very strategically attached to the general location of his erogenous zone you can rest assured I'd bust a gut.
Also, Maddow has had Amanda Marcotte on as an honored guest on her show to talk about women and the political scene. This is, of course, the same Amanda Marcotte who, in the wake of the Duke Lacrosse case falling apart and not being able to accept the innocence of the falsely accused, infamously remarked "Can't a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore w/o people getting all wound up about it? So unfair." And Maddow is worried about stereotypes as they apply to Halloween costumes? Spare me the sanctimony.
If I was going out as a chick for Halloween, I think I'd pick Ann Coulter over Emma Goldman or Sojourner Truth though, now that I think of it, MLK might be more fun.
If you saw a Mexican dressed up as anything, you'd still see a Mexican. You'd bust a gut because you wouldn't feel threatened by it because you're not marginalized or oppressed by Mexicans.
Now imagine a white, well-to-do European dressed up that way. Hell, imagine someone from the top 1%, a wealthy Wall Street banker. Yeah, and he's going to some $10,000-a-plate Halloween dinner party dressed up as a rural, lower-class, pig @!$%#ing Hillbilly. Still funny?
Because "play" and joking never hurt anyone. It's all in good fun, after all. Right.
This thread is disgusting.
Agreed. Apparently privilege is a-ok when it's halloween. I honestly didn't think there would be this many Maddow fans supporting blackface.
What I find most disturbing - and instructive - is the pervasiveness of this casual racism in what I regard as the progressive corner of the internet.
This thread is getting tangled, or is it spelled "Rapunzel"?
Heck, why don't we just cancel Halloween? It would save a lot of headache, no? No offending cultures, or genders. You wouldn't have to inspect the candy, or stay up late on a school night, or have to answer your door all night to give away crap.
Just a thought.
Yeah, if I see another guy wearing a helmet with horns; hold me back. What nonsense.
Greetings! Rachel
Me personally I am against halloween due to the fact it glorifies evil doing, Satan his works of darkness. And I believe that no human being whether middle age, young or old should indulge in this wicked holiday.
Peace be unto you!
Marquest Burton
seriously? someone needs to go visit google and learn a thing or two.
It's also just not right to glorify eating me personal holiday candy, especially the darkness chocolate made in the middle ages.
Halloween is rubbish anyway, now its more about selling a bunch of temporary garbage that is considered decoration. On further note, I also don't think traditions that uphold superstition and nonsense is a good thing for society as a whole.
BTW There is no Satan evil or Jesus goodness either btw to my poster above, just rubbish made by dumb humans trying to cope with their reality.
But yeah totally peace. ;)
I don't see how you can dress up as a 'Mexican' (whatever that is) without stereotyping. No 2 Mexicans are exactly the same. Go ahead and say I have no sense of humor. There are so many other areas to find jokes-why mess with race.
Hate to say it, but there is nothing racist or sterotypical about the Arab costume. My husband, who is caucasian worked for the U.S. Army in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and still has the complete outfit with scimitar and short whip with stilleto in the handle.
If I'm not doing drag, and please forgive me.. its not a sexist thing.. I'll be a leprechaun, which hopefully won't offend any Irish Nationals.
Looking at other posts, above, this doesn't appear to be the hot topic you may have hoped for.
Love you dearly and will be enjoying festivities at our Maddow inspired Bar in the rec room.
Have a Blessed Samhain (Halloween)
Someone suggested I should write a sonnet for Halloween (You Know who you are, Pam52...) So, here goes...
If you really want scares, this All Hallow's Eve,
Don't worry about what goes bump in the night.
I'd worry of what the Conservatives believe;
Their plans for this country induce quite the fright!
Rick Perry would give all the treats to the rich,
While playing the tricks on the child at the door.
Ms. Bachmann is obviously playing the witch;
Except she's forgotten what Halloween's for.
Mr. Cain has his door bell fixed up for a shock
For any illegals who come seeking sweets.
And Romney is busy buying up comp'nies in hock,
Then throwing the workers out cold in the streets.
The most chilling nightmare that I could espouse
Is one of these monsters in the White House.
NYT: Top NY Foreclosure Law Firm Threw Homeless-Themed Halloween Party
Compare.
Loosen up people! Halloween is about fun and fantasy. It's not a holiday were you dress up with the purpose of offending people. When someone dresses up as Mexican they are not doing it to portray the bad stereotype as mentioned above. One year I dressed up as a mexican but when I looked in the mirror I was reminded of the rich heritage of the mexican people. Though I get that some people might try to be purposely offensive but it's in the signifigant minority. If you don't like halloween that's fine but please don't ruin it for the rest of us who really enjoy it.
Tell me, how are you supposed to tell the difference between those who mean it to be offensive and those who don't?
People can't magically guess your intent just by looking at you. And there in lies the reason why you can't just 'wave it away' for your privilege to dress up.
Intent! It's @!$%#ing ~Magic!~
Be a Pirate. Everyone loves the classic stereotypical Pirate.
I simply refuse to dress up as Rupert Murdoch
You mean racists don't dress up for Halloween?
That was meant for the Kevin Lowery thread.