Halloween is a celebration that began in Celtic Ireland during its pagan years. It was believed that on summer’s end, evil spirits would roam amongst the living, and curse the peasants so they wouldn’t survive the winter. To ward off and confuse the evil spirits, the people dressed as to look like them. Therefore, variations of ghouls, the undead, and ghost costumes were the original choices of costumes. The tradition was brought over to America by an influx of Irish citizens who were escaping the potato famine. Overtime, as people believed less in the doctrines of evil spirits, costumes like fireman, fictional characters, and heroes became readily accepted. This is how Halloween has evolved into the celebration we know it as.
I broke the promise of staying to the topic of philosophy and psychology in order to dispute an ad campaign that I saw throughout buildings on the Penn State campus. The ad features a sad child looking at a picture of a costume that depicts a culture. ![culture4[2]](https://sites.psu.edu/ryanhanchick/wp-content/uploads/sites/31644/2015/11/culture42.jpg)
“We are a culture, not a costume, and this is not okay”. Pictures have ranged from condemning suicide bomber costumes, Asian costumes, and others. These ads weren’t the only pushback from a politically correct stance during the Halloween season. Celebrities like Nicki Minaj have come out condemning a hilarious and well created costume of Bill Cosby, saying that our culture is too desensitized.
To start with an inexpensive observation, it seems to me Nicki Minaj isn’t the best spokesperson to talk about the problems of desensitization. Here’s a link to the music video Anaconda. I’ll let my readers decide which draws most of their attention.![Bill-Cosby-Halloween-costume[1]](https://sites.psu.edu/ryanhanchick/wp-content/uploads/sites/31644/2015/11/Bill-Cosby-Halloween-costume1.jpg)
While Halloween has not also been about satire, the costumes people wear can be a political statement or just plain fun. Take the Bill Cosby costume for example; what was the message of the person who wore the costume? Was it joy over the fact that injustice like rape with the assistance of pharmaceuticals could occur? Or was he calling attention to the injustice? How is this any different than crude satire? If we can safely make fun of the Chris Christie in a baseball jersey, or Demi Lovato when she’s called out on live TV, we should safely be able to satire current events, using words or costumes. Live a little people!
I definitely like the structure of your post. When it comes to halloween there is definitely a line between being funny and satyrical to offending someone of a different culture or a victim of a tragedy. But I don’t think your point about Nicki Minaj is particularly relevant to the topic you were discussing.
awesome topic- something we can all relate to. Great use links and images. I think you make an extremely valid point about barriers with costumes. Something that we can easily oversee but should pay closer attention to.
This is a very good topic to discuss because I agree with you that many people get caught up in the spirit of Halloween and don’t consider the people that they are offending. I like how you incorporated the Penn State posters. Until this year, I never really thought about how truly offensive a Latino sombrero outfit or Asian kimono was. I like how you made the distinction between what is satire and offensive. People get too wrapped up in what they think is offensive that they take away from the holiday.
Breaking your theme was definitely worth it for this post, since you explored a multi-faceted, relevant topic. I think the topic is especially important for college students, who tend to go all-out at Halloween and don’t always realize that their costumes and actions may be offensive. I think there is a line between commenting on something in society and mocking or misrepresenting a culture.
Very relevant topic. My friend’s dad is the Dean of Students at Shippensburg University, and every year there are reported problems of insensitive costumes. I definitely think there are boundaries, and if you aren’t doing anything to explicitly mock a person/culture/situation, it should be taken lightly.