Halloween is a fun time, you dress up, eat candy, and maybe party a little. The only downfall is that it’s at the very end of October, just after midterms. This means it’s super easy to forget to get a costume until the last minute. Then, you rush to get one of those cheap “thrown together” costumes that come in little plastic bags! A lot of these also end up being a little questionable on the moral side of things. So, here are five Halloween costumes to avoid this year!
- Pocahontas or Native American Costumes
These are often extremely stereotypical and very uncomfortable to be around. Dressing up as an ethnicity and treating traditional regalia (inaccurate or not) is definitely something you want to avoid.
- Real Life Murderers or Serial Killers
These can be extremely insensitive and honestly more than a little weird. It seems that whenever a documentary comes out about a serial killer, there’s almost always costumes of them. But let’s not forget that they were real people and real victims were hurt by them.
- Cleopatra or Ancient Egyptian Costumes
These fall under the same umbrella as the Native American costumes. It’s not like Egyptian people have disappeared and wearing stereotypical representations of their history can be very insensitive.
- Literally Anything Involving Blackface
It seems that time and time again, we see people who use makeup or face paint to give themselves a drastically darker complexion. This is usually accompanied by “Caricaturesque” traits meant to mock and demean.
- Hobo or Homeless People Costumes
Dressing up as someone going through something extremely difficult and often dehumanizing is extremely messed up. You shouldn’t dress up as someone who is likely at one of their lowest points. I think this should be avoided.
With all of this in mind, a good general rule to follow when picking out a costume, last minute or not, is to try to put yourself in other people’s shoes. Would you be happy if someone wore your culture or tragedy as a costume? Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for more articles!