Since everyone is focusing on what to dress-up as for Halloween, which is indeed a noble, worthy and helpful pursuit, since the holiday is almost upon us, what happens to the other side of the coin? Namely what NOT to dress up as, under any circumstances, regardless of whether your misguided sense of humor or your original hipster thinking tells you it would be a good idea.
Isn’t that important too? Should censorship in this instance, not be a virtue? And self-performed, as opposed to induced by a mob of general outcry as you make your presence? Of course it should. But just in case some people are low on common sense self-censorship, here’s 8 Halloween costumes to banish from your mind.
Of course, there are many MANY more. But surely these ones can serve as hints and a general idea of what not to do, and people can figure the rest for themselves.
1. Cecil The Lion and/or The Killer Dentist
Heeeey, isn’t that cute?! You dressed up as The Killer Dentist, because you wanted to portray him as a monster or as Cecil The Lion to honor his memory as victim of said monster, right? No. It’s not cute and creative. It’s actually insensitive. Because that particular lion was real and lived and died for real. Ergo, not appropriate to channel him on a night focused on fooling around as fictional personas.
2. A Cereal Rapist
Another case of you thought it was ha-ha that is in fact horribly wrong. Rape is one of the most traumatic experiences that a human being can suffer, not a joking matter. So, if you really really feel pun-y, stick with the “corny” and soooo last decade(?) Cereal Killer. Boring and no longer even mildly amusing, but at least you won’t get stabbed by angry by-standers.
3. A Penis or A Vagina
Ah, classics. For some unexplained reason. Because it’s one of the world’s biggest unsolved mysteries why some guys and gals insist on dressing up like this every year. Perhaps they’re actually hidden adherents of Symbolism and are trying to hint at the best part of them. Who knows? Who cares what the motivation is? The fact is that it needs to stop.
4. Hitler and/or Anne Frank
Remember the first example with the lion and the dentist. This one’s way way worse. Like around 11 million times worse if you catch my drift, as that’s the estimated number of total deaths caused by Hitler’s actions. So, no, even if you pair up as Hitler and Anne Frank it’s not a cute innuendo to your dominator and victim relationship. Oh, did I mention that Anne Frank was underage at the time of her death? How’s that for even more inappropriateness?
5. Dead Celebrity
Whether recent or not, the death of a celebrity is not part of their act, you know. It’s a personal event having to do with them and their families and it should be private, not subject to the usual hype that surrounded their every waking moment when they were alive. So a Dead Steve Irwin or Headshot JFK, as gorey as you make them, do not magically become approved Halloween creatures like zombies or other undead. Let them rest, ok?
6. A Necrophiliac
Yes. This actually happens. You see, the reasoning goes that since it’s Halloween, you get to meet not your usual lie-there-and-do-nothing dead that you supposedly do the naughty with all year, but the far more interesting variety of the animated dead. So, as a necrophiliac, it’s like Christmas, because you’re sure to get a treat. Great, huh? NO! Disturbing. Very disturbing.
7. Tragedy or Victim of Tragedy
Back to the sensational news-induced bad-taste costumes, let’s just say this one flat and directly. It’s not at all acceptable to dress up like a victim of the tragedies that scarred our collective memory in recent or past times. That means: no Boston marathon victim costume, no Malaysia flight crew costume, no Columbine victim costume and no Twin Towers costume! Geez. How more self-obvious could this be?
8. Suicide Bomber
Corollary to the above, terrorism is a clearly serious, complicated subject that affects everyone in the world in one way or another in our current age. How one could possibly justify a suicide bomber outfit as being funny is beyond me. This simultaneously manages to insult so many people that it’s mind boggling, like: soldiers who live with the specter of it over their heads as they carry out their missions, the families of victims who died of it, the people who still live with the constant fear of it in certain areas on the globe, the ardent supporters of the fight against it AND those just as passionate persons who claim that it is either not the biggest problem in the world right now or that it is an artificially created scare by politicians, and possibly the aliens monitoring us right now so that we don’t do anything permanently damaging, to give a non-exhaustive list.
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