Patricia
S. Helton, the Associate Provost for Student Life, just sent an email to the
University of Denver community about the Halloween season. Here’s the section I
wanted to focus on:
So, if you
are planning to dress up for Halloween, or will be attending any social
gatherings planned for this weekend, we encourage you to think on these
questions before deciding upon your costume choice:
·
Are you wearing a funny costume? Is the humor
based on “making fun” of real people, human traits or cultures?
·
Are you wearing a historical costume? If this
costume is meant to be historical, does it further misinformation or historical
and cultural inaccuracies?
·
Are you wearing a ‘cultural’ costume? Does
this costume reduce cultural differences to jokes or stereotypes?
·
Could someone take offense with your costume
and why?
Why
is it necessary for the University to send out an email like this one? Well,
trending on social media is a wide array of tasteless, offensive Halloween
costumes. For instance two guys decided dressing up like George Zimmerman and
Trayvon Martin was a good choice.
The Huffington Post wrote an article about
the Halloween costume and included people’s tweets in response to the picture.
The photo was originally posted on Facebook but once the photo went viral one
of the guys deleted his page. As you can see, one is George Zimmerman and the
other is dressed in black face as Travyon Martin. The two guys are from Florida
too. Seeing how this issue is causing some outrage amongst social media sites,
DU’s email is a preventative measure. Halloween is supposed to be fun, full of
candy, dancing, candy, tricks, and more candy. Yet, when people’s costumes are
offensive, in poor taste, and misunderstood it takes the fun out of the
holiday. So my question to you is, is DU’s preventative measure necessary or a
good idea by our communications department? I think it was a good call given
the negative publicity surrounding these two guys. The last thing any
organization would want is bad publicity, especially a university that just
hosted the Presidential Debate and had George W. Bush on campus. Thoughts?
Links:
Here's the email sent to the DU community if you didn't receive it:
I think it is a good idea to ask students to think twice about their costumes this year, given the recent news of offensive costume choices. It doesn't mean they won't still make poor choices this Halloween on a variety of levels, but certainly encouraging costume choices that aren't in poor taste culturally, racially or in any other way is a good move in my book.
ReplyDelete"Celebrity", Julianne Hough, crossed the line already this Halloween, dressing up and painting her face black to portray Crazy Eyes from the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” (see link). She has received a considerable amount of flak for it, too, and rightfully so!
The University has acknowledged this topic in the news and used it as another learning opportunity for students. It’s what we parents call a “teachable moment”. It is important that students full understand that costume choices, such as Julianne’s and the one Shannon mentioned, are offensive and not okay. Certainly, the University would also not want to deal with one of its students representing DU poorly. Although I did not think that was the main point of the message. Also, I like how the tone of the message was not limiting the freedom of the students in their costume choices, but rather to remind us about being sensitive and thoughtful. That is a good message to receive every day, not just on Halloween. I for one am glad that the University is committed to living its mission and encouraging students to do the same.
Link: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/10/27/julianne-hough-apologizes-for-halloween-costume/3272201/