Introduction
It's that time in October again where Halloween is coming and that means costumes, parties, and trick-or-treating are going to be effective on that day. Every year, kids, teenagers, and even adults plan to dress up as their favourite character or anything else with costumes. Some adults hold halloween parties and invite their friends to celebrate Halloween at its finest. The best part for halloween as a child is trick-or-treating. We would go to other people's houses and ask for candy by saying the words "trick or treat." Then the person that is giving away the candy gives the candy to the trick-or-treater. Afterwards, we move on to the next house. This has been a tradition for hundreds of years and it's still striving towards this day. Halloween is a holiday that kids would never forget besides Christmas.
Situation
When it comes to costumes for halloween, all of us want to dress up as someone we like whether it's a video game character, anime character, mythical creature, jobs like firefighters, doctors, etc. or something else. Some of the costumes we see can ether be appropriate, derogatory, ugly, scary, good-looking, offensive, or maybe even borderline racist. As for the famous party supplier, Party City, they do this every year where one or more costumes can offend anybody of their race, culture, or religion which is exactly what will be discussed in this blog. According to this article from thestar.com, some racist halloween costumes are still being sold throughout Party City stores across Canada. When a woman and her son were shopping for halloween costumes, they found an isle that depicted their culture (in other words, they found a section full of indigenous costumes on racks). The woman was not happy as she replied to a Party City store saying "We (indigenous people) are still here, we are not costumes." The woman has not got a word from Party City yet with that comment. Finally, the woman decided to buy her son's costume somewhere else because she felt like the store she went to disrespected her with the indigenous costumes.
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My Thoughts
To me, this doesn't look like a very big deal to me as I would usually avoid these types of costumes because if I bought it and wore it on Halloween and someone posted a picture of me wearing a costume like that on the internet, I would get hate comments saying that I'm being offensive to their culture and making their culture look bad or something similar to that. And then I would need to make apology and regret posts stating that what I wore was wrong and offensive and that I shouldn't have worn that costume in the first place. All of this is just my opinion. I mean if I saw a costume that depicted Filipinos and our culture, I would have mixed thoughts about it whether I wouldn't mind or care about it too much or take it seriously and report it to the store owner/manager. Likely wise, I think Party City stores should stop selling these types of costumes like indigenous clothing and more offensive costumes. If people feel so offended by racist costumes or can't take those costumes seriously, then might as well pull them off shelves so that people don't need to hate on party supply/costume stores like Party City. Like mentioned before, I wouldn't take this kind of stuff too seriously. At the end of the day, we are who we are in our costumes that we are wearing on Halloween; we just need to forget about all the negativity that some costume stores are giving us and enjoy the rest of our day in general. In other words, let's just have a good day and not bring up any bad vibes with us throughout our day so that everyone can be happy.
Your blog response was overall simple and straight forward! :D
ReplyDeleteYour reasoning of why Party City should stop selling those Indigenous costumes is accurate. People who were already planning on wearing these types of costumes and posted pictures of themselves wearing that costume should prepare to receive hate. It's also agreeable that most people would have mix feelings about the costume whether they wouldn't mind or care about it too much or take it account by giving hate comments and telling the store manager about these racist costumes.
But in the end, you mentioned how 'we are who we are' and we shouldn't take these kind of things TOO seriously since It's just a one day event (Halloween). But even though it's a one day event it's still an issue that needs to be addressed and fixed.
I can agree with some parts of your opinions but I feel that this is still an issue. As I wrote in my own opinion someone wearing the Indigenous Costume could be the equivalent of someone dressing up as like a African man holding a drum or maybe even just someone dressing up as an old Chinese man. Its just outright rude and just isn't a good thing in general. I agree with people who plan to wear these costumes should prepare themselves for hate but they shouldn't have been made in the first place. Costumes are supposed to be fun and taken with a grain of salt but this is just making fun of people's ethnicity and cultures.
ReplyDeleteHalloween is a holiday where we dress up as someone we aren't and feel like that person for a day. I understand we should embrace culture and understand the different cultures in the world, but doing it through costumes isn't a good idea. I agree with your opinion on how stores shouldn't sell these costumes because they're offensive and can put the company in a bad place. I also agree with you on how people shouldn't take these costumes seriously. For example the rice hat is a hat worn by many rice farmers in Asia. If someone who isn't Asian wheres that on Halloween I would think they are dressing up as a certain video game character with electric powers. But then I would realize that they dressed up as an Asian rice farmer but I wouldn't mind that much and would just say "Good Job Then". Overall, we should avoid costumes that are teasing culture on Halloween. We should just dress up as people who are fictional so it does not offend people that much.
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