Wednesday, October 26, 2011

What are you going to be for Halloween?

This is an ad campaign launching in Ohio by students fed up with stereotypical ethnic halloween costumes.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/26/living/halloween-ethnic-costumes/index.html?&hpt=hp_c2

"We are a culture not a costume" reads the print as a young girl holds up the costume bag for a 'Geisha Costume'

But costumes are just fun, I think. Or are they subversive expressions of hiearchies that exist in our society? Can someone mean will when they dress this way. Personally, one halloween, I wore a hat I got in Chinatown, and gave everyone fortune cookies as a halloween gift. I don't know if I would have worn that costume if I had seen this ad campaign and the message it brings up.

2 comments:

  1. I don't think costumes like that HELP the subconscious stereotypes our society has placed on those ethnicity's. I think, for the most part, they are pretty offensive, even if they're not meant to cause harm to anyone.
    I've seen those ad's before and had not realized that the costumes themselves were that racist beforehand.

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  2. To me it seems like we take full advantage of Halloween and hardly think if we are offending someone because of what we think is cool or funny. I think costumes are fun but we shouldn't bring race into it or any other offensive things because in a way it is subversive expressions of hierarchies. This reminded me last year Party City or some other Halloween got in trouble because they were selling Afros with the caption "nappy hair" for a 60s costume. I found it so offensive. Any other day it would not be cool so why on Halloween?

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