By Asha Varma ’20, Arts and Entertainment Editor

We can all agree that Halloween is one of the most fun holidays of the year. Not only is it the one day of the year when eating an unreasonable amount of candy is acceptable, but it’s also a day when dressing up as ridiculously as possible is encouraged. Perhaps the group that embraces Halloween the most is Hollywood. Every year, Hollywood seems to step up its game as celebrities dress up in over-the-top costumes, often using the whole month leading up to October 31 to get in the Halloween spirit. Many celebrities, like Kylie Jenner, use the holiday as an excuse to post as many instagrammable photos as possible, by having several different costume changes. Although many people love the creativity of celebrities when it comes to picking Halloween costumes, there are a number of A-listers who have come under fire in recent years for their insensitive and offensive choices of costumes. 

The most criticized celebrity Halloween costumes are often the ones that spark uproar due to their racial insensitivity. Many celebrities have chosen to dress up as other famous figures and portray them by using blackface, an old makeup technique historically used by non-black performers to paint their face darker when playing a black role. In 2013, actress and dancer Julianne Hough used blackface when she dressed up as Uzo Aduba’s “Orange is the New Black” character “Crazy Eyes”. Country music star Jason Aldean and actor Colton Haynes used the same technique to dress up as Lil Wayne and Kanye West, and while Haynes publicly apologized for doing so, he used a variation of blackface known as brownface to portray Mahatma Gandhi the following year.

Racial insensitivity is not the only reason to debate many Halloween costumes. Other costumes have been deemed controversial because they seem to make jokes out of current events. In 2015, actress Ashley Benson’s Cecil the lion costume received heavy criticism because of her depiction of the 13-year-old lion who had been shot with an arrow and killed by American dentist Walter Palmer. 

Other questionable Halloween costumes involved celebrities mocking the lives of other famous people. Though honoring beloved celebrities during Halloween is common, it was the manner that comedian Bill Maher and model Adrienne Curry went about depicting celebrities that was frowned upon. Just one month after crocodile hunter Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray in 2006, Maher decided to dress up as Irwin, but included the stinger of the animal that killed him as part of the costume, along with a bloody wound. In 2009, Curry decided to mimic singer Amy Winehouse’s struggles with drug addiction, by dressing up as WInehouse and including a fake syringe in her costume. The worst part was that Winehouse, who eventually died of alcohol poisoning, was still alive during this time. 

Since there are a multitude of celebrities whose Halloween costumes are called out for insensitivities each year, I wonder why these controversies still occur. There are no circumstances under which a person’s identity, struggles, disabilities, or death should be depicted in a demeaning or mocking way for the use of a Halloween costume. However, I think that the debate over cultural costumes becomes a bit more complicated. There is a fine line between using a costume to immerse yourself in a different culture and simply using another person’s culture as a decoration or to make an aesthetic statement. I hope that in our present culture, in which awareness of people’s identities and personal experiences is becoming a more prevalent topic of discussion, that people will learn from the past mistakes of others, especially celebrities who know that they are in the spotlight and are constantly being looked up to. 

Other questionable Halloween costumes involved celebrities mocking the lives of other famous people. Though honoring beloved celebrities during Halloween is common, it was the manner that comedian Bill Maher and model Adrienne Curry went about depicting celebrities that was frowned upon. Just one month after crocodile hunter Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray in 2006, Maher decided to dress up as Irwin, but included the stinger of the animal that killed him as part of the costume, along with a bloody wound. In 2009, Curry decided to mimic singer Amy Winehouse’s struggles with drug addiction, by dressing up as Winehouse and including a fake syringe in her costume. The worst part was that Winehouse, who eventually died of alcohol poisoning, was still alive during this time.