Every year without fail, as the spooky season rolls around, some idiot decides to be a little too edgy with their costume choice, and the Internet goes batcrap crazy. And each year, Halloween costume/lingerie website Yandy concocts another range of disturbing designs.
Last year, we were all appropriately horrified by the ‘sexy Handmaid’ costume, presumably inspired by the television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s modern classic and a total lack of respect for women.
How could they possibly top that? I hear you ask. Sexy Pennywise and Sexy drug control officer are certainly contenders, but even those don’t compare to the totally nostalgia-destroying evils that are Sexy Bob Ross and Sexy Fred Rogers.
It’s less funny when you remember that neither of these men are around to defend their likeness against these gross caricatures.
There’s nothing wrong with revealing costumes, in theory, and ‘slut-shaming’ is a terrible response to this kind of thing. But these outfits are clearly designed to both objectify women and provoke outrage for laughs.
Halloween is supposed to be a fun occasion – for kids, especially – so why ruin it for others as a cheap ploy for attention? People that treat offensive costumes as a joke need to reconsider why they find it funny to make others uncomfortable or upset.
Headlines rebuking famous figures for partaking in offensive Halloween buffoonery have been coming thick and fast. Cultural appropriation and blackface are the most common transgressions, from a Florida state politician dressing as a Black hurricane victim to Prince Harry attending a party as a Nazi.
And costume makers aren’t the only part of the fashion world making provocative faux pas – a brand claiming to honour mass shooting victims somehow decided that the best way to do that was to make bullethole sweaters.
It all comes back to the golden rule of comedy – punch up, don’t punch down. If in doubt about your Halloween costume ideas, ask yourself this: is it designed to shock people, or make fun of someone who is already regularly demeaned by society?
Is it a way for you to brighten someone else’s day with a bit of good ol’ slapstick? Then that’s damn well hilarious.
