Halloween Costume Etiquette

ZOË RICE: I’m not sure if it’s etiquette, or taste, or just plain common decency. But I think some Halloween costume effects are off-limits. Swastikas, for one. I’m never going to see a Halloween costume involving a swastika and think, “Oh, that works.” I don’t care if you’re dressed as Charles Manson or a zombie Nazi or a skinhead, whether ironically or as a spoof. If you wear a swastika–ever–you will offend. The same goes–and I saw it in action this past Halloween–for blackface.

My best friend and I were at a big New York party this Halloween, ordering a drink next to a guy dressed as Plaxico Burress. Now, he didn’t have a shot-up leg or sweatpants and a fake gun (one would hope fake!)  or anything clever to signify who he was. All this guy had on was a Burress jersey. And blackface. My friend, who is Hatian-American, calmly tapped his shoulder and said, “Can I take your picture?” Her intention was to blast his face all over the internet with a message along the lines of “Do you see this ignorant fool dressed in blackface?” She then turned to me and said “We have to leave here now.” She wasn’t the only one offended.

And he wasn’t the only one blackfacing it up. This Halloween, a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader also faced controversy with her L’il Wayne costume. Which isn’t to say you can never dress up as L’il Wayne. Cap, fine. Bandana, fine. Even the grillz in the teeth, fine. Makeup to make you black? Offensive. Do I think in these two examples, Ersatz Plaxico and Ersatz L’il Wayne knew about the history of minstrel shows? Do I think they knew that in the 1800s it was considered entertainment for white performers to use blackened cork on their faces in order to put on routines making fun of slaves and popularizing horrible stereotypes? Probably not. But are you really going to tell me that at no point in their costuming phase, when they’re putting brown makeup all over themselves, they never once thought, “Gee, could this at all be interpreted as offensive?”

I will never, ever see anyone dressed in skin-darkening makeup on Halloween and think, “That’s the person I want to hang out with.” No. Like my friend, I will want to publicize that person’s visage with a message along the lines of “Can you believe this?” Because I can’t believe that we’re removed enough from any historical connotations to make blackface acceptable. Even if you don’t know why it’s offensive, I think at this point you should be aware enough to realize that it is.

AKIE BERMISS: Listen, I don’t really like Halloween. I think its kind of corny and boring and I like to eat candy at home alone with the lights out.  Its possible that’s just me.  I find any kind of costuming/masquerading silly and onerous and confusing.  That said, if you’re going to dress up: go for it, I say.  Dress up in your full-on get up and go out there and get that candy!

Are there costumes effects that are off-limits?  Yes.  I agree with Zoë on that point, but I think its fine to make a few distinctions based on intent.  And I just want to make it clear, before I get into things, that I’m not advocating ignorance as an excuse.  Far too often the explanation we make for people wearing offensive effects to say, “Oh, perhaps they don’t know…”  That’s an explanation for why someone would do something offense, but it doesn’t rid the act of offensiveness.

I don’t, personally, mind when people put on make-up to make themselves darker.  Sure there are echoes down the halls of time from an era when performers (white and black) work black-face in order to ridicule and demean African-Americans for entertainment.  The practice was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, deplorable and probably one of the more embarrassing traditions in American popular culture.  But that doesn’t mean that every white person who puts on brown make-up is giving an ethereal high-five to Al Jolson.  I’m fine with verisimilitude in costuming.  If I were not black but I wanted to dress up as Kanye West for Halloween, I’d find it pretty difficult to pull of the part without make-up.  A couple of crazy shades, a mohawk, and maybe some friends to play my quirky entourage might do the trick, sure.  But people are still going to be confused about who I’m supposed to be.  If I were trying to dress up as Beyonce and I threw on the black unitard and the silver glove (from her “All The Single Ladies” music video) I MIGHT convince the casual passer-by.  They might also say, “Who are you?  Michael Jackson at the beach?”  A little face paint and all is illuminated.

At least if you’ve got your pop culture iconography down.

The thing about the original minstrelsy is that the black-face was only a small part of the whole hideous act.  It was, figuratively and literally, the most cosmetic element.  The baggy, decrepit clothing and the worn hat were also integral to the characterization.  And then there was the hokey unlearned pidgin they used for the characters.  Also the facial mugging — big vapid toothy smiles and googly eyes.  All together and you had you character right — then you could hit the stage and sing “Mammy.”

And if you REALLY want to get into it about the facial make-up, you’re not really rocking black-face until you draw the enormous red rictus mouth meant to provide an audience with an impression of gargantuan lips in a time before magnification and close-ups.  In short take every negative physical stereotype you’ve heard about black people and drawn them cartoonishly large on your face — presto: Alexander.

But I have a really hard time reconciling black-face with just any kind of darkening facial elements.  There are so many real descendants of minstrelsy still alive and kicking in our modern times.  Dave Chappelle brilliantly pointed out just how offensive the WB’s former mascot/icon Michigan J. Frog was on his television.  That was a character, whether ignorantly or deliberately, based wholly on the tradition of minstrelsy and blackface from the hat and cane and apish facial features to the overtly deepened voice and facial mugging.  There are characters on stage and screen now who are deliberately meant to be mean variations on the “take every negative black stereotype you’ve heard” method of comedy.  I don’t even think its worth pointing them out.  They are insidious, vile, and hurtful and they offend us (not just black people, but people as a whole) on a somewhat daily basis.

What’s most horrible about those characters is now: they don’t wear black-face.  Now a non-black character can do the same damage as a black-faced character without having to put on any make-up.  So I just don’t buy it that skin-darkening (if that’s what we’re going to call it) is, in an of itself, offensive.

Let us not forget Louis Armstrong’s plight to be exonerated when, in the 70s, his humorous mugging for the cameras was seen by many black radicals as an endorsement of the racism from which they were trying to extricate themselves.  It was a fine line, of course, but Louis had come up in a time when humor was all about mugging whether you were black or white and these days we still respond to silly faces with giggles and chortles all.  Its just that when put into the context of mistrelsy — the humor is hard to find.

So if someone wants to dress up like some black caricature and darken their features so that they can parade around making fun of black people as a whole — then I say condemn that person.  Call them out.  Stop them in their tracks.  And if they do so without the make up — I say go even harder.  But when kids (or, indeed, adults — though I shake my head sadly) want to dress up as a particular person for the purposes of some festival of costumes (which, as I said previously, I don’t really understand at all), then I say let them.  If a white child wants to dress up as Obama or Beyonce or someone like that because they want to be like them, then that is the greatest victory of all over minstrelsy. Here is imitation out of respect and love.  Its rare enough that black features and customs are openly celebrated and coveted in this country.

Its all about how you do.  And, no, ignorance is not an excuse for anything. But let us not make skin-darkening a taboo move, because then it becomes avoidance more than education.  And that is, in fact, where most of the damage is done.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 9:01 am and is filed under Arts & Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.