Roderick Cook | Politicizing Halloween costumes

What's the T? | Dressing up as ‘Native warriors’ and ‘geishas’ for Halloween reduces other cultures to caricature

By Roderick Cook 10/15/14 10:56pm

H allo ween is without a doubt my favorite holiday.

The fall atmosphere, communal viewings of horror films and decorations riding on the border between creepy and hilarious all make for a truly entertaining and fun occasion. But the most notable aspect of this holiday — and my personal favorite — is the opportunity to dress up in costume.

Whether reflecting our personal tastes in pop culture or acting as beautiful works of art in and of themselves, Halloween costumes say a lot about us. Beyond just the aesthetic and personal value that they hold, however, lies an inherent political and cultural potential. For example, Halloween presents a unique opportunity for trans people to express their gender in ways that they might not otherwise be safe or comfortable doing during other times of the year. However, the political and cultural potential of dressing in costume is not always utilized in totally positive ways. Halloween costumes also unfortunately present an opportunity to perpetuate oppression.

One of the most recognizable ways that costumes uphold systems of oppression is through cultural appropriation. For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, cultural appropriation refers to the adoption of certain elements of a culture by outsiders who do not belong to that cultural group. This may sound innocent enough, but it more often than not plays out in harmful ways that promote stereotypes and other negative ideas about cultural groups.

Cultural appropriation is not merely educating oneself about aspects of different cultures, but rather partaking in very specific cultural practices that are not meant to be consumed and performed by those outside of that group. Examples of cultural appropriation around Halloween include dressing up as “Native warriors,” “geishas” and “hula dancers.”

I intentionally include quotation marks around these examples because in addition to uncritically picking and choosing over-simplified versions of cultural elements from groups of people, cultural appropriation also includes (intentionally or unintentionally) making a mockery of these elements and mass-producing them in ways that completely remove them from their original context. Putting on these simplified and decontextualized costumes reduces complex histories and cultural practices into something that can be simply put on and taken off by just anyone.

Some who put on these types of costumes do so while willfully ignoring the critiques coming from the cultural groups that the original practices or clothing belong to. Others may not be quite as active in silencing those voices, but rather claim that their intention is to emulate a culture rather than mock it. However, it’s impossible to look at this issue of appropriation through costume outside of its colonial and racist context. College junior Jade Huynh says that we need to recognize that oppression has historically been maintained by colonizers asserting the “complexity” of their own culture over the “simplicity” and “backwardness” of those who they oppressed.

“Given that culturally appropriative Halloween costumes are caricatures of the cultures that they aim to emulate, they’re a means of exercising control over them,” Huynh says. “In this mindset, white culture gets to be complex. It cannot be reduced to a certain type of clothing or mannerism. But ‘East Asian culture’ can be reduced to the geisha girl. Cultures can be bought and worn for Western entertainment.”

Although cultural appropriation may appear on the surface to be only a minor aspect of the structural issues of racism and colonialism, these supposedly small perpetuations of those systems are vital in holding them up. The pain and anger that come with seeing one’s cultural identity reduced and mocked in such a way cannot be easily described in words. But activists and community members, such as students involved with Ohio University’s “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” campaign, are working on getting people to recognize the gravity of these issues and disengage from these practices.

Halloween is only a few weeks away, and many of us are currently figuring out what kind of costume we’re going to wear. I encourage all of us to utilize the potential of Halloween to express our genders, creativity and personalities through our costumes. But we must also be self-critical of what costumes we are considering this Halloween and make the conscious and political choice to not be complici t in perpetuating oppres sion.

Roderick Cook is a College junior from Nesquehoning, Pa., studying gender, sexuality and women’s studies. Their email address is rodcookthedp@gmail.com. “What’s the T?” appears every other Thursday.

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