It’s come to that time of the year, you guessed it Halloween! From all the delicious candy, to our favorite spooky movies on TV, Halloween is one of the most exciting holidays. Apart from receiving candy on this glorious day, the costumes that people wear are a major part as well.
“I’m going to a party and then trick-or-treating dressed up as an exotic girl”, said Springbrook High School sophomore Tayla Brawner.
Although Halloween is an exhilarating holiday, people’s costume choices at times have sparked controversy. Over the years, it has seemed to be that pop culture makes an impact on the popularity of certain costumes. We all saw what went down at the 2013 Video Music Awards when Miley Cyrus had a bizarre performance that caused a lot of social media attention. To be exact, 300,000 tweets per minute. The outfits that Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke wore on stage are in popular demand this year.
“For me, I wouldn’t dress up as Miley Cyrus because she’s crazy and not a great influence for teenagers my age”, said Springbrook High School sophomore Fatim Toure.
Apart from pop culture, there has been recent racial controversy with people’s choice of costumes. Julianne Hough from “Dancing with the Stars” dressed up as ‘Blackface’ from the popular Netflix TV hit, “Orange is the New Black”. She wore brown face paint to portray that she was an African American woman. Those who have criticized her costume have linked it to racism. Most people feel that the face paint wasn’t necessary, that people would have still been able to assume which character she was trying to portray.
Another instance of this was when a photo of a man dressed up as Trayvon Martin for Halloween spiraled the Internet. The man wore black face paint and a hoodie covered in fake blood. The other guy in the photo has a shirt on with the words ‘Neighborhood Watch’ and is shown placing his hand as a gun to the male’s head. The heartbreaking story of Trayvon Martin made breaking news when the 17-year-old male was fatally shot and killed by ex-neighborhood watch George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012. The photo has since gone viral and has had a numerous amount of people that have shared their disgust and have expressed their thoughts on it being “racist” and “insensitive”.
“It disgusts me to know that something this serious can be made as a joke”, said Springbrook High School junior Dana Jackson.
There comes a point when people have to consider if their costume will be offensive to others.
Yes you can be creative on Halloween, but never impertinent.
Article by Ngozi Nwanji, MoCo Student staff writer
Image courtesy of mlive.com