By Ed Avis
The MeToo movement and last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests raised a question in some NCA members’ minds: Are there some costumes I shouldn’t be selling?
It’s not an easy question to answer.
For sure, some costumes that seemed harmless a generation ago could easily offend some costumers today. For example, last fall Party City publicly apologized after customers complained that the store was selling a children’s Halloween costume that depicted a Confederate soldier. A decade ago such costumes were routinely sold in stores, but now it’s widely understood that Confederate symbolism is offensive to many people.
But there are many costumes that might be problematic but are not clearly offensive. For example, do you sell a costume depicting an American Indian? Many people might find that inappropriate, especially if it’s a “sexy” adult costume or leans heavily into stereotypes. On the other hand, if the costume is designed to emulate the actual clothing of a particular Native American group or individual, is that offensive?
The bottom line is this: When you look at the costumes in your store, consider whether any of them might offend customers, and then decide what action you want to take to reduce the risk of offense.
(Of course, in all of the situations discussed below, the equation changes if you’re talking about rentals for theater. No one is going to be surprised if you rent a General Robert E. Lee uniform for the play “Abraham Lincoln” or a rabbi costume for “Fiddler on the Roof.”)
Three Categories
There are three broad categories of costumes that might offend people.
The first is historical costumes that depict a group or person who participated in an event that is generally understood to have caused great harm. This category includes Confederate uniforms and Nazi clothing. These kinds of costumes are likely to offend some or all of your customers.
The second is costumes that depict racial or ethnic groups or individuals. These become problematic if they emphasize stereotypes or poke fun at the group or individual. This can be a gray area.
“Are you trying to honor this person or are you doing it to make fun of them?” asks Brynn Shiovitz, a professor of dance and performance theory at Chapman University in Orange, California. Shiovitz, who is also the author of the upcoming book called Behind the Screen: Tap Dance, Race, and Invisibility during Hollywood’s Golden Age (Oxford University Press), says a Michael Jackson costume is a good example of this conundrum.
“It’s nice to idolize somebody to the point of wanting to dress like them, and you can distill Michael Jackson’s image down to his wardrobe choices,” Shiovitz says. “So it’s conceivable that even if you’re white, if you wore a Michael Jackson costume, people would understand who you are trying to be.”
But the story changes if you are white and put on black face make-up while dressing like Michael Jackson. That would take idolization down a dangerous path. “As soon as we start talking about body modification, it gets tricky,” Shiovitz says.
Another example in this category could be a costume depicting an Asian person. Kimonos, conical hats, and long mustaches are stereotypically associated with Asians, but would wearing these items be considered honoring this group? Probably not.
“Asian costumes will get a lot of attention this year because of recent events,” Shiovitz notes. “It’s complicated because you have to ask yourself are you really trying to honor a specific Korean actor, for example, or are you collapsing stereotypes of Japanese, Chinese and Korean all into one? As soon as we create a costume that encompasses an entire ethnic group, that would be problematic.”
Bottom line with the second category: If an ethnic costume is grossly stereotypical, you can expect someone to be offended.
The third category of potentially offensive costumes – those depicting religious or cultural figures – includes costumes depicting Jesus, nuns, priests, rabbis, etc. These can be good selling costumes, but it’s not likely someone wearing a priest costume to a Halloween party is doing that because he wants to honor priests, right? So these types of costumes might be offensive to certain customers.
There are no hard rules for what costumes to sell and which to avoid, but it pays to give it some thought, especially in these times.
“It’s not like I can come up with an ethics code or a politically correct code,” Shiovitz says. “But we all have the responsibility to ask, ‘How will this costume or wig or depiction affect someone else?’”