Little girls dressed as Disney princesses are rubbing socio-economic class privilege in my face.
It’s Halloween, people should be able to dress up however they want to. Dressing up as Bill Cosby won’t impede upon someone’s day.
It is true you can dress up however you choose. And the rest of us can choose to think that you are hilarious, clever, or insensitive, racist… etc.
Halloween costumes tend to be reverent (Abe Lincoln) or irreverent (Robot, vampire). When a person is irreverent about another persons culture that is unkind and clueless. The original article does not show people being respectful of Mariachi culture rather people reducing and making fun of it- mustaches, hats and shakers does not make a Mariaichi.
It always seems to be marginalized cultures where people feel entitled to turn beloved customs into silly costumes
Other posters have commented that when they are in other countries that they have worn national dress. Context is everything. A borrowed salwar kameez in India, is hardly equivalent to a man wearing a niquab to the neighborhood halloween party.
An example of context: if your child had a kid in a wheelchair in their class you wouldn’t send your kid to school in a wheelchair for halloween. You probably wouldn’t even let them do it if they were portraying someone famous like FDR. Because the kid in the wheel chair can’t take the costume off on November 1st. That said if the kids got together and dressed up as some wheelchair army or something similar? That would be a sign of being an ally. A sign of solidarity. Context matters.
Anyway, if people in your community are asking you to take it easy on co-opting other people’s cultures as costumes- why is that a problem?
Just be a mensch.
raleighpuppy: no one dressed as transgender for Halloween. Members of a university gay/transgender group came to a Mexican Day of the Dead event where they lipsynced traditional Mexican love songs. My question is, when it’s a marginalized group doing the cultural appropriation, do people still say it’s wrong?
“A part of a person’s identity isn’t a costume.”
Sure it is. A part of my husband’s identity is being a doctor, and dressing up as a doctor is most certainly a costume.
It would be in poor taste to send your kid in a wheelchair if you knew there was a kid in a wheelchair in the class. There’s a difference between poor taste and offensive though.
There is a fine line between satire and offense. I usually find satire clever.
I would let my child use a wheelchair to portray FDR even in that instance mentioned above. We’re going to ignore that he was in a wheelchair? It could help the child who actually has to use the wheelchair to know that a President was in one, also! To not use one as FDR or to not even bother dressing up as him because of a wheelchair seems more insensitive to me.
I think that having people experience life in a wheelchair, helps them empathize with those who are wheelchair-bound. Health and science museums often have a section where one can try walkers, wheelchairs, and crutches, etc., not to make fun of people who must use them, but to promote empathy and understanding.
A way to be less marginalized and more empowered is to stop giving other people’s opinions so much importance and stop playing victim cards.
My uncle was in a wheelchair his entire life - he wouldn’t have minded at all - i just know this because I knew him - if another kid dressed up like FDR in the wheelchair. Because FDR was in a wheelchair! It might even be more hurtful to leave the wheelchair out, like you thought something was wrong with being in a wheelchair…
Maybe you should take your own advice? Why do you care so much that some people have different standards for offensiveness than you do? Judging by the responses in this thread, most people agree with you.
How about nudity? Is showing up for Halloween in birthday suit or with basic body paint considered politically correct? It’s hard to see how what you were born with could be offensive to any rational person.
Yes, some people are oversensitive and are offended by really benign stuff. But that doesn’t mean that nothing is actually offensive, or that sensible people will not realize that some costumes would be in bad taste and would hurt the feelings of other people. For example, I don’t think I’d be too offended if a person dressed as Jesus, but I would be offended if his friends carried him around tied to a cross. You might draw the line somewhere else.
“For example, I don’t think I’d be too offended if a person dressed as Jesus, but I would be offended if his friends carried him around tied to a cross. You might draw the line somewhere else.”
That’s exactly the kind of distinction I was getting at in terms of - dressing up as a nun / priest / pope, and dressing up as a priest molesting a child. Or dressing up as an antebellum southern woman (which I myself dressed up as one year, many years ago) and dressing up as that with another person in blackface attached via a ball and chain.
The pregnant nun costume is kind of on the line, I think.
I think that what may offend is often unclear. One branch of my family thinks that dressing up as ghosts, zombies, or the like is offensive because to them it symbolizes the occult.
I suppose that a significant majority of the costumes out there may offend someone. Some of them do seem like the are legitimate objections, but others make me think that people are too quick to assume the worst in others and need to chill out.
“One branch of my family thinks that dressing up as ghosts, zombies, or the like is offensive because to them it symbolizes the occult.”
But is that offensive to them, or just something they care not to think about? There’s a difference, to me.
Considering that a group of local high schoolers here dressed up in blackface as criminals with the girl playing the role of the literal “snowbunny” there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed, and malicious intent is a very relevant thing.
What the heck?? ^^^^
How can you be offended at dressing up as ghosts, zombies etc for Halloween?? If that is an issue then maybe just don’t celebrate the holiday. Our former neighbors used to pull their kids out of school before the Halloween parade and hole up at church for the balance of the evening. The dad was a “devil is roaming at large” literalist. That is funky to me but at least they weren’t pretending that it was some kind of cutesie harvest festival with Biblical costumes and whatnot. You can’t appropriate pagan holidays then fuss that they are too pagan.