Cultural appropriation has been a hot topic in the Halloween costume discussion in the past few years, and a lot of inappropriate costumes are still on the market. If you’re unsure what costumes run the risk of offending people, this list is a good place to start.
Note: No one is forbidding you from buying and wearing the costume you want, but if your costume shows up on this list, you may want to reevaluate, or be prepared to face criticism.
1. Senorita Sugar Skull
Sugar skull costumes and makeup are trendy, but that doesn’t excuse how disrespectful they are. Sugar skulls are motifs for the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday that has nothing to do with Halloween. Dressing up as something with cultural significance not only trivializes the holiday and the culture, but Mexican-Americans already face racism in our country, especially in today’s political climate. We have to acknowledge that there’s something wrong with white people chanting “build a wall”, then turning around and wanting to dress up like the people they’re oppressing.
2. Gypsy
If you didn’t already know, the word “gypsy” is a slur targeting Romani people. Romani people were nomadic and found work in trading and fortune telling. They were targeted and exterminated by Hitler, and are still treated as second class citizens in Europe today. Reducing their culture and experience to a mocking Halloween costume is distasteful, to say the least.
3. Vodka Geisha
Geishas are part of traditional Japanese culture – and aren’t just a cute outfit for white girls to don on Halloween. Japanese people have been oppressed and mistreated by white Americans throughout US history (World War II, anyone?). A sexy Geisha costume is a whole new level of offensive, considering that East Asian women are already hypersexualized and infantilized. Gross.
4. Queen of the Tribe
In case you failed US History in middle school, here’s a reminder that Native Americans have been massacred by white settlers since they arrived on this continent. Native Americans face extreme poverty compared to the rest of the US population, and any expression of their cultures are squandered. The real kicker on this costume is that it’s categorized as “historical”, as if Native Americans don’t still exist – which is yet another harmful idea that negatively impacts the lives of Native Americans.
5. Sexy Eskimo
This costume continues with the theme of sexualizing an oppressed group of people. First of all, “eskimo” is a slur. The correct way to refer to them is Inuit or Native Alaskan. These people have faced routine persecution, and are subjected to harmful stereotyping and poverty–and they don’t need an offensive Halloween costume added into the mix.
6. Hula Honey
Native Hawai’ians, much like the earlier-mentioned groups, affected by poverty and racism today. Hawai’ian culture is threatened by extreme tourism and migration of mainland white Americans. Reducing Hawai’ian culture to a hypersexualized and inaccurate stereotype is damaging to the lives and culture of these people. There’s an abundance of costumes that involve a skirt and crop top that don’t insult anyone’s culture, so perhaps you should stay away from this one.
7. Private School Sweetie
Unlike the aforementioned costumes, this one isn’t racist, but it’s certainly creepy. School uniforms are designed for an elementary school through high school-aged demographic, making all the students in uniforms minors. The “sexy schoolgirl” trope is misogynistic and pedophilic. If there’s anything sexy to you about what an innocent young girl wears, something has gone wrong. If a sexy costume is what you’re after, maybe go for a something not related to children.
8. Bollywood Darling
If it’s still not clear that wearing a costume from a culture that doesn’t belong to you is harmful, here’s another example. Indian women in the US face prejudice and mockery on a daily basis. Bollywood dance and Saris are a part of Indian culture, and should not be bastardized by the people who mock those cultural aspects.
9. Arabian Princess
Muslims and people of Arabic descent are the daily victims of jokes about terrorism, and the harmful mocking and stereotyping which affects them in their relationships, their work, and their ability to obtain citizenship. Fetishization of a culture only worsens negative ideas about it and harms the perception and lives of the people that belong to it.
10. Girl Scout
Girl Scouts are all under 18, most of them being in elementary school. Dressing as a “sexy” Girl Scout comes off as no less than creepy. Pedophilia and sexualization of young girls is a very real, and very traumatizing, issue, and the normalization of it through costumes and jokes perpetuates the problem. Not to mention, the Girl Scouts of America seeks to empower young women, and sexualization does quite the opposite.
So before you go dig through your bin of Halloween costumes, and pull out the first microagression you see, think about what your costume is really saying, and who it is really hurting. And remember, no one ever gets hurt by a good, old-fashioned sexy nurse.