Political Correctness and Halloween Costumes

[Silvanus]

I've been thinking about this quite a lot today, for some strange unfathomable reason.


Specifically, I was imagining a halloween costume based on Renfield, from Dracula. He's a mental patient; he wears a straight-jacket; he's crazy and creepy and dangerous.

I'm pretty sure that costume would be absolutely fine-- it's specifically a character of fiction, and by making that obvious, it would imply nothing about the community as a whole.

And yet, a simple re-name of the costume above wouldn't sit right with me; were that figure called a "murderous psychopath", an implication about the mentally ill would still be obvious. He's wearing a damn straight-jacket.

 

[Scarecrow]

Mental patients get such an awful deal in video games and the entertainment industry as it is, the name on this one is not wise at all. A renaming would have being best.

 

[Pink Gregory]

You get a backlash wherever being considerate to other people is concerned in the UK. Some people have an odd idea of 'Good Clean Fun', until, of course, it's at their own expense.

Mainly it's the Daily Mail and their ilk trying to hide their disappointment at the fact that it's simply not acceptable to refer to every black person as '******' or 'sambo' or homosexuals and 'wrong'uns' or whatever.

But yeah, in this case, it's a case of rather senseless titling.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

I?m fine with the costume, since it looks like your typical horror film villain, but they shouldn?t have called it something so on-the-nose offensive as ?Mental Patient?. They should?ve called it something like ?Psycho Killer?, like Bertylicious suggested, or ?Zombie Butcher?. I doubt it was malicious intent, but it sure was ignorant.

This isn?t ?PC gone mad?. Most people that complain about ?PC? are just people who, for some odd reason, want to hold onto their ?right? to be a twat to someone and not face any criticism for it.

Is the issue the NAMING of the costume (i.e. "mental patient") or the SUBJECT of mental patients? Because if it's the subject, we should immediately ban Michael Myers and Jason X costumes, since they're disparaging to the offspring of broken families and such. And Freddy Kruger costumes are disrespectful of burn victims. Not all of them haunt your dreams, you know?

It's purely the name, since it has the unfortunate implication that all mental patients are all ugly, straitjacketed murderers. Michael Myers, Jason X, Freddy Kruger, and even the Joker (in fact, especially the Joker) are exaggerated fictional characters, and costumes based on them would be named as such.

 

[Remus]

What we need is a big white badge on every costume this halloween that reads "NOTE: Costume is not representative of (insert trope here). Any similarity between the costume and real people is purely coincidental". You are only offended by the costume because you have a personal stake in the matter. You know a mental patient so are likely offended by every portrayal of mental patients in every form of media. I bet American Horror Story: Asylum just drove you up the wall. Did you send an angry letter to them? I bet you did.

Almost nobody takes offense to anything so trivial as a halloween costume unless they either are what's being presented or knows somebody. Dick Cheney didn't say a word about gay rights until his daughter came out, after his term was up and he could no longer affect change. I'm not comparing gays to mental patients, just showing a clear example of a similar pattern. Everybody knows somebody that's facing a kind of hardship that might be misrepresented in some form of media. Just let it roll off your back and move on.

Besides, it's not the mental patients we have to worry about. They know they have a problem and submitted to treatment and are therefore safe. It's the people that aren't being treated that are a problem. The people like Jared Lee Loughner who shot Gabby Giffords in the head in front of a crowd of people, then proceeded to fire on the crowd. He was later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Or more recently, Aaron Alexis, the naval yard shooter, who thought his body was being penetrated by microwaves beamed to him by the government. So in response, he killed 13 people and was later gunned down by police. These are just two examples. I can easily provide others as we see a new one at least once every couple of weeks. They may be the exception but they are far from being so miniscule as to not count. My suggestion: Get over it, or better yet, wear a costume that you find equally offensive in response. I bet nobody would notice that either.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

"Political Correctness" is one of those buzzwords that pretty much identifies the user as having no interest in the actual issue, beyond a blanket moan about how it's vaguely made them think about others.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

Oooooooh boy.

OOOOOOOOH BOY.

Just reading through your OP and the replies, man, you need to chill. First of all, your biggest argument is that they are saying that "ALL MENTAL PATIENT = THIS CREEPY KILLER" and "MENTAL PATIENT BAD AND SCARY". No... No no no. They called a costume "Mental Patient" because it looks like a few horror movie killers who are, surprise surprise, mental patients! But no! Clearly, in 3 words, they have cast down the mentally afflicted, stomped on their bodies and told all the children that they are evil and bad.

If you would take one step back, now, I say this with the fear of being corrected, but I DO believe that this is called strawmanning. You are taking a company selling a costume, and stuffing their mouth with shit that they did not say or even imply. Which you then argue.

Oh yeah, by the way, the moment someone says "but it implies...", their argument goes RIGHT out the window. ANYONE can find something that is implied in some writing, just as someone can find someway to be insulted or offended by it.

For example:
"I don't like watermelon"
"CLEARLY HE DOES NOT LIKE WATERMELON BECAUSE HE THINKS IT IS ASSOCIATED WITH A STEREOTYPE OF BLACK PEOPLE, THEREFORE HE IS A RACIST AND HATES BLACK PEOPLE!"
"I HAVE A FRIEND WHO LOVES WATERMELON AND FARMS IT, AND JUST BECAUSE HE IS BLACK YOU DON'T LIKE IT?! YOU ARE RACIST AND MY FRIEND AND I ARE DEEPLY OFFENDED."

Guess what? The guy just don't like watermelon.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Really? Then what about those guys that dress up like girls for holloween? Or they offending trangenders?
Or those girls that dress up as sexy nurses! They give nurses such a bad rep!
Or the girls that dress up as babies ( litteral babies) . They are promotting pedophilism!

I really hope you are joking around here. I would use what you just said verbatim as a parody of people who completely miss the point.

There are so many things wrong with what you just said, it's exhausting to even consider going into every single aspect of how wrong that is. From your trivialising of the stigma against mental illness by likening it to how real nurses feel about sexy nurse outfits (WTF?) to the assumption that naming a baby costume "pedophile bait" wouldn't also be horrid (another big WTF)... I just don't even.

It's not though.

This costume can be considered offensive by the mentally ill because some people can construe it as a statement that all mentally ill, institutionalized people are psychos. Why does that not apply to anything else? Sexy nurse uniforms could make a nurse feel trivialized and sexualized, like her occupation is just a nice dress up for being a whore. Dressing up as the opposite sex can be viewed as a mockery of transgenders, as Halloween is supposed to be an event where you dress up as something scary or silly.

You see how this works? It takes almost no effort to find a group of people who may be offended. Yet you have a double standard - The mental patient thing is offensive because of your personal experiences. But other peoples examples are bullshit, because you can't see why people would be offended.

For shame, sir.

Thankyou, you said it much better than I possibly could and saved me a heap of effort.

Also, how the fuck are people comparing this to calling black people niggers in the fifties? How is this the same? Oh shit, how could I forget all those mental patients that we lynched and hung from trees last week? No. It's just not like that. There's no oppression of mental patients, no real malice and these days, mental illnesses are much better understood by the general public.

Perhaps calling the costume just 'mental patient' was a bit overboard, but 'psycho killer' is a pretty well established trope, which makes me wonder why these people haven't thrown a similar shitfit over films like Halloween.

It's really, really not a big deal people. Getting a bit offended is an inevitable part of life, learn to grow up and deal with it. Hell, learn to laugh at yourself- I for one still life at the occasional 'cutting' joke and my arm looks like it's been fucking ploughed. Steven Hughes does a very good routine on it- being offended causes you no harm, it's just in your head. It's down to you to get the fuck over it and calm down.

 

[TheWanderingFish]

Perhaps this is just a costume designed for someone to put on, and go out and have a bit of fun? I can't speak for the general population of course, but I don't tend to read much into the Halloween costumes of the people I meet.

Was it stupid on the part of the corporation to go with this naming scheme? Perhaps. That being said, I am not particularly bothered by it. What does bother me is that the people who it does bother are the ones who are vocal and are the reason it was removed. Perhaps if the part of the population who wasn't effected by this costume, had stood up as well and said "Actually, I'm not bothered by it", then we would see a different result.

It also bothers me that a lot of the time it is people who think they should be offended that make the noise rather than those who actually are, if that makes sense.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Perhaps this is just a costume designed for someone to put on, and go out and have a bit of fun? I can't speak for the general population of course, but I don't tend to read much into the Halloween costumes of the people I meet.

Er, so?

Nobody seems to be arguing that somebody woke up and said "You know who needs further demonising? The mentally ill!"

Hell, if that was the case, they'd probably not have taken it down when people pointed out the problem.

You don't have to be intentional trying to make things worse for someone to do so.

 

[spartan231490]

It's fucking Halloween. People need to fucking grow up and get over it. Freedom to do what we want should supersede your butthurt. The whole point of Halloween is to have fun with stereotypes and shit like that, just because the particular stereotype being played with offends you doesn't give you the right to shut it down.

Also, you have a problem with a Halloween costume that portrays all Mental patients as dangerous and threats to society, but you have no problem with Laws that do the same thing?(At least judging from the general support of any mental health issue being an exclusionary criteria for gun ownership when most of them have no correlation with violent behavior) God I am so fucking sick of hypocritical bullshit. Can I go one fucking day without someone drawing my god damned attention to another example of why the human race is a fucking cesspool?

 

[AgentNein]

It's fucking Halloween. People need to fucking grow up and get over it. Freedom to do what we want should supersede your butthurt. The whole point of Halloween is to have fun with stereotypes and shit like that, just because the particular stereotype being played with offends you doesn't give you the right to shut it down.

It gives me (and others) every right however to call them insensitive assholes. And they have the right to have some sense knocked in them and understand why people may be bothered by this. Which looks like what happened here!

Also, you have a problem with a Halloween costume that portrays all Mental patients as dangerous and threats to society, but you have no problem with Laws that do the same thing?(At least judging from the general support of any mental health issue being an exclusionary criteria for gun ownership when most of them have no correlation with violent behavior)

You're assuming people don't have issues with both.

But the larger issue being whenever someone says "Why are you speaking up about this but not that or the other?", it's not usually with the intent of being productive. Usually it's just a tactic to shut people up. IT'S BECAUSE THIS IS THE PARTICULAR SUBJECT ON THE TABLE RIGHT NOW, NOT GUN CONTROL LAWS DEALING WITH THE MENTALLY ILL. If that's that's REALLY the conversation you want to have (doubt it), make a post, I'm sure you'll see all sorts of opinions on the subject.

 

[TekMoney]

Perhaps if the part of the population who wasn't effected by this costume, had stood up as well and said "Actually, I'm not bothered by it", then we would see a different result.

Yeah, the voice of the unaffected is the one we should be listening to here.

 

[nepheleim]

That's a zombie. In a straitjacket. But regardless, a halloween costume isn't a public trust nor a public service, so I really can't bring myself to care that they've portrayed mental patients as zombies with cleavers. This costume does no more disservice to actual mental patients than the Halloween franchise did to them. So go and enjoy halloween, and if you don't like this costume, don't buy it.

On a more halloween-y note: Make your own costumes. They tend to be better anyway.

Captcha: That's Positive Energy

 

[nepheleim]

It gives me (and others) every right however to call them insensitive assholes. And they have the right to have some sense knocked in them and understand why people may be bothered by this. Which looks like what happened here!

Ummm... no. Nobody has the right to knock sense into somebody (at least here, that means a good thumping) no matter how much you think they need it. Call them assholes, but physical violence isn't covered by the first amendment.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

I think we had this conversation last year. It was when those two college chicks went in blackface and ad to apologize because people got offended. I remember the conversation wound up with someone putting a pic of themselves in blackface and it added hilarity to the thread.

 

[Feedmeketamine]

Ive been in an asylum and i dont really give a shit about this. They were obviously referring to the hannibal lector type mental patient, not the guy with chronic depression. They could certainly have named it better though. What does offend me is that the meat cleaver they give you when you're committed has now been phased out in favour of a chainsaw, so its not even accurate.
Lastly hello.