It’s that time of the year again: hundreds of girls scouring stores to do cost-benefit analyses of overpriced costumes, searching up dozens of YouTube make-up tutorials while dismayed at their compared ineptitude, grudgingly debating about whether or not to join the hoards of Minnie Mouse’s and cats. Halloween.
While I wholeheartedly believe in the concept of dressing up and consuming enough candy (or alcohol—take your pick) to make you sick, what makes me cringe about the holiday is the sheer amount of cultural appropriation that I encounter. Walk into any costume store and you’ll be greeted with a plethora of geisha outfits, Mexican sombreros, and Native American headdresses under the false guise of promoting diversity and inclusion. But why get so riled up about a fun holiday, right? Isn’t it a good thing to be appreciating other cultures?
Let’s look at it this way. Are you actually appreciating Japanese culture when you wear a sexy geisha outfit? The truth is, that’s a flimsy excuse and you really just want to look cute. I get that; it’s okay. But have you ever taken a second to think about the actual people from those cultures? Cultural appropriation is harmful because it reduces cultures into commodities for one’s own pleasure and consumption, while allowing one to evade the discussion of issues surrounding those communities. A costume is something that you, as a consumer, can choose to take on and off, but a culture is something powerful that a group of people share. Culture is central to an entire group of people’s identity, rooted in history and traditions. When you turn a culture into a costume, you strip it of its meaning, and strip the culture of its power that holds the group together. This act is disrespectful and doesn’t account for the hardships that these groups have experienced. Throughout colonial and neo-colonial contexts, minorities have fought hard to keep their cultural identities while being forced to assimilate to the dominant standards.
Let’s also think of those people buying and selling those costumes; these tend to be people who have power within society. Who do you think profits from the sale of Native American headdresses in Halloween stores? Not only are these items considered sacred within Native American cultures, and thus wholly inappropriate to be used as costumes for a holiday, but the fact that Native Americans have the lowest employment rate of any racial or ethnic group in the United States makes the commercialization of their culture all the more offensive (The Poverty Cycle). Want more information? Check out this blog.
As a Japanese woman, I’m quite insulted to see the “geisha” costumes in Halloween stores, which are basically overtly sexualized mish-mashes of Japanese and Chinese traditional costumes. Not only do Japan and China have very complicated histories of conflict, but this costume also perpetuates the idea of Asia as a monolith. This is a stereotype ever-present within American society, reinforced through the film industry which casts Asians in various ‘Asian’ roles that don’t match their national identities.
The sexualization and perceived submissiveness of Asian women is also a pervasive issue within society. Up to 61% of Asian women experience physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime—higher than rates reported by women of any other race (Statistics on Violence against API Women). Take the case of Julien Blanc, for example, a pickup artist who held seminars advising men on how to pick up women. Blanc states, “At least in Tokyo, if you’re a white male, you can do what you want,” his pick-up techniques included “grabbing women by the throat” and “forcing women’s heads into his crotch” (find more on Blanc here). I’ve also had my fair share of uncomfortable experiences; once, when I was in an Uber with my Korean roommate, the driver told us that he’d always wanted to date “one of us” because of the way “[we] moan in porn.” Pretty gross, I know.
I’m not asking you to veto your costume options. I’m not encouraging you to justify your decision by finding someone within that culture who thinks it’s okay for you to wear that costume either. In those instances, I’d advise you to remember the number of people who aren’t okay with cultural appropriation and ask yourself why you’re trying so hard to find someone who agrees with you. However, I am asking that you take a minute to think about the people whose cultures are impacted before you buy a costume.