Opinion: The best response to this year’s most offensive Halloween costumes

Halloween: formerly a holiday for exercising your pumpkin-based creativity, bonding with your peculiarly dressed pals and, most importantly, getting a boatload of free candy, is not-so-slowly cementing its status as a race to the bottom. From sexy Ebola nurses to gun-toting jihadis, the people of the Internet have truly outdone themselves this year with wildly inappropriate and offensive costumes.

Whether it’s health epidemics, desert-lurking murderers or violent athletes, those planning to dress for distress are truly covering all angles. Let’s hear it for inclusivity!

But while social media sites have gone into overdrive slamming these questionable wardrobe choices, perhaps we should scale back on our angry responses. The majority of these costume crimes seem to be committed by people who are fairly youthful (albeit clearly old enough to know better and young enough not to care), and if we all got heated about every misguided jerk, the world would be a pretty dark place.

Plus, how PG 13 were these holiday costumes in the first place? Adopting the attire of creatures famed for bloodsucking and getting burned at the stake seem to be bizarre foundations upon which to build the notion of appropriate Halloween wear. The entire festival is essentially a death-themed Hallmark holiday anyway, so changing the rules a little to incorporate the latest mutations of the attention-seeking mind surely isn’t too much of a stretch.

Some distinction must also be drawn between the vehicles through which people vent their inappropriateness. The entire comedy industry, for example, would wilt and die without the ability to poke fun at current affairs, so why are we so offended when people exhibit a similar level of mockery through their clothing? If someone genuinely intends to emulate a militant fighter or domestic abuser, we’d have real cause for concern, but people dressing provocatively should just be greeted with a shake of the head and nothing more.

And it’s not like these tasteless offenders are the first to commit public wardrobe offences: from reality stars to royals, photos of badly judged Halloween outfits aren’t new. Prince Harry’s Nazi garb, Chris Brown’s terrorist get-up, Snooki’s turn as the missing child on milk cartons -- lamenting these sartorial blunders on Nov. 1 is part of the joy the holiday brings. Who would want to deny us that festive treat?

We definitely shouldn’t be accepting these outlandish outfits as the norm, but we have to accept that most are fundamentally harmless and take some kind of responsibility over their public distribution. (That said, blackface should not get a pass.)

If some moron wants to wear something totally tasteless, there are ways of showing your disapproval without teeing them up for a barrage of online abuse (like the young woman who dressed as a Boston marathon runner). How about taking them to one side and letting them know what they’ve done isn’t cool? Sending a private message saying their costume’s a bit on the edgy side? Or best of all, just saying nothing and accepting that Halloween’s a fictional holiday designed to mess with our blood sugar?

Every time a photo of an offensive Halloween costume gets shared, or liked, or even made the subject of an angry article, we’re just expanding its reach far beyond the parameters it would have existed within had we not got involved. There’s no doubt about it -- these people are playing fast and loose with the concept of what’s acceptable, but dressing as a scantily clad aid worker won’t make any more people die of Ebola.

When it comes to issues like these, there are real things to be perturbed by, and someone in a slutty hazmat suit really is not one of them.

Charlotte Lytton is a London-based journalist and has previously written for CNN, The Daily Telegraph and The New York Observer. Follow her on Twitter @charlottelytton

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