It’s Halloween weekend. Accompanying the spooky decorations, abundance of Disney’s Frozen characters and raised sugar intake is the conversation of cultural appropriation surrounding costumes. Cultural appropriation is dressing up as a certain culture and either over generalizing it or making fun of it. Times are changing, and so is the demand for appreciation for race, culture, gender, etc.
Everybody, to some extent, uses Halloween as an excuse to be something he or she isn’t. Most of the time, it’s out of fun. It gives some people a chance to show their creativity. Or, unoriginality. This poses a huge problem. Why should someone be able to literally “put on” another person’s culture? Especially when the idea of the culture is incorrect and/or derogative.
People who are of a distinct culture certainly are not able to pick and choose when they want to be it. In a sense, they are never able to leave the stereotypes that people assume about them. Halloween gives people a chance to step out of their norm and be a Native American, a gangster, or an illegal immigrant and then return to their place of privilege. These individuals have to face the discrimination that comes with it every day while you get to put it on for one night. In 2013, a student organization at Ohio State created the “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” campaign, which was a strong effort to make people aware of what they were actually doing by wearing these costumes. They showed just how wrong it is to put on someone else’s culture for a day. This is not only for Halloween, it can be as broad as to include fashion lines being insensitive to cultures just to be trendy.
Granted, it is one day out of the year, but the motives behind them are part of the larger issue. People lack the common sense of respect. While you may think its “funny,” it’s not. You may think that people are just being “insensitive,” they aren’t. That kind of attitude is why we are still having these racial and sexist problems in 2015.
It’s not only cultures that are being appropriated on Halloween. Sexist costumes continue to degrade women and gendering children’s costume doesn’t seem to be necessary anymore. Sexy cop, sexy maid, sexy devil. Just because they are costumes for women, society thinks they have to be appealing to men. A picture went viral of a young boy who was dressed as a princess for Halloween. His father said that’s what he wanted to be so he let him. Why should a young girl who admires Superman not be able to dress up like him?
I wanted to mention that while nobody should appropriate costumes, what about if you are doing it to your own culture? Is that justified? I am going to go ahead and say no. If you are insulting your own culture, you are doing two things. The first would be showing people that it’s OK and that it isn’t that big of a deal. The second would be elucidating the stereotype that people are fighting against.
With that, whatever you decide to wear, just make sure you wouldn’t be offended if the roles were reversed. Besides, the forecast says it’s not supposed to be over 50 degrees this weekend. That piñata costume will not keep you warm.
