It’s Halloween again here in the West, and I have to say…now that I’m a grown up, Halloween sucks. Especially because of:
- Slutty costumes (I just had to say it)
- Slutty “ethnic” costumes: Native American girl, geisha, etc.
In particular:
-
- Harem girl costumes
- Belly dancer costumes
- Genie costumes
- Cleopatra costumes
- Arab sheikh costumes
These costumes reinforce the eroticized and/or dangerous stereotypes associated with Muslim and Middle Eastern men and women. Plus, it’s doubly insulting because (usually) non-Middle Eastern and/or non-Muslim people will “play dress-up” in these costumes, to supposedly “live like we do” for one night. The only missing detail is: none of the institutional oppression that we face as Muslims and Middle Easterners comes with the costume.
Just looking at the names of the costumes is informative enough: “Exotic Belly Dancer Costume” and “Sheik of Persia Arabian Costume” can tell you that these people have no idea about the culture they think they’re appropriating. (History lesson: Persia didn’t have sheikhs, they had shahs. And Persia and Arabia were two different places! AKH!)
Look at the women’s costumes: all are revealing and hypersexual. How many Middle Eastern women prance around in sheer pants and face veils? None. These costumes scream sexist Orientalism!
Don’t worry, guys! There are plenty of racist costumes for you, too! Take this “Arab Sheik” costume: of course he has a knife! All Middle Eastern men are dangerous, didn’t you know? You can even tell by his face: he’s pissed, and he’s going to take it out on some infidels!
And, if you’d like to pass on your racist Orientalist fantasies to your children, there are belly dancer costumes for little girls! That’s right! Make sure that your daughter learns that her self worth comes from how much her coin-bedazzled bra reveals and how pleasing her dancing is to a man! You can start as soon as she’s a toddler!
Ick. Enjoy your free candy! I hope you get sick from it.
Hmmm…let’s see this year the costumes in my house are Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean and Blade, the vampire killer. My costume of choice for the last few years has been a dark fairy and a renaissance woman. Before you assume either costume was skimpy, you should know that by October we usually have snow. It’s all about layers here.So, while I undertand why you may be frustrated by what you term orientalist costume choices, please be careful in making sweeping generalizations. Isn’t that something you’re fighting against in terms of people’s perception about Islam and Muslim women?
Krista, while I realize that the last sentence may have been made in an accusatory one, that accusation is directed to people who choose such racist costumes. Other than that, I don’t understand which generalizations I think you’re making. Nowhere in the article did I state that I hated ALL Halloween costumes or that I assumed EVERYONE who participated in Halloween wore skimpy costumes.
Safiya–waleykum salaam and thanks for the tip! That sounds like a really interesting show, and if you find any critiques of the female character, we’d love to hear them!
Not that this is any consolation, but I think halloween costumes objectify women from a wide variety of backgrounds, and have done so for many years now. Last Halloween a friend of mine asked if my husband (a Cairene) and i had traditional egyptian clothes that she and her husband could borrow. I offered up my embroidered galabeya, but she was hoping for something sexier (so I lent her a belly dance scarf. Now hubby doesn’t even own a galabeya for lounging around the house, but she was hopign for somehting ethnic-presumably dishdasha and head dress. sigh.
My apologies. The comments about Halloween seemed to be pointed at critizing “the West”. Apparently I misunderstood or took those two words a little out of context. I guess that’s what makes forums of communication like this a good idea. Hope you had a nice night even if you don’t trick-or-treat. BTW…because I have no idea..is trick-or-treating allowed for Muslims? I know some faiths are fundamentally opposed and don’t participate just on principle.
I just came back from the dining hall, where I saw a long line of scantily-clad girls. What is up with all the “sexy” female costumes? Why is the only police officer, nurse, doctor, pirate, or soldier costume worn by females one with a low neckline and a short skirt, usually with fishnet stockings? Is being sexy the only way a woman can play such a role, or do such a job? I have not seen any “sexy” costumes for males, especially not for those roles. All males in costume are fully dressed… which is perfectly rational for a chilly October night. Yet half the costumes girls wear show off their thighs and more. I understand your frustration (though I haven’t seen any of the costumes you describe, thankfully, except a glimpse of what looked like a Saudi man holding a suitcase — and I’ll hope that wasn’t a “terrorist costume”), but I understand Krista’s comment on generalization. It’s nice to have a day free to dress as creatively or eccentrically as one likes, without the judgment reserved to regular life. (Judgment of store-bought, ready-made Orientalism is separate.) But don’t hate Halloween and its teeth-rotting (though otherwise innocent) candy. Hate the racist, sexist, and every-of-kind-of-offensive costumes and the societal ignorance that creates them.
I just took a closer look at all the photos of the costumes. Wow. Who on earth would want his or her daughter to dress up in a costume like the one pictured? Ignoring the Orientalist racism, it’s also inappropriate for a little girl. And what’s with the makeup the model is wearing? It looks very strange and unnatural on such a young face. One also might notice that the pants are completely sheer. Great way to teach your daughter to sell her body. The whole thing’s quite disturbing.
I am a female firefighter and I find it very disturbing that there are no firefighter costumes for little girls, or police officers, chefs, soccerplayers, airplane pilot, or soldier outfits for that matter… for little girls or teenage girls to wear for halloween. There are real role-models for young women to emulate. Why don’t people realize all of the hard work women have had to do to be respected in these fields, only to be mocked on Halloween with these whore costumes that they force on these unsuspecting women, who don’t even realize what’s going on?
I myself am very tired of the whole slutty halloween costumes ritual year after year, as well. Or well on a college campus, (where I am) it doesn’t have to be halloween to have tons of girls dressing up as sluts, but it just makes it 10 times worse. It is very disturbing to me, as a woman. But it goes far beyond halloween. Halloween is just a symptom of what the real problem is. The real problem is how the media and our culture depict women. Women are raised to on one hand, to be intelligent to be valued. After all we all need that to get a good job. But on the other, she feels like she is still worthless without the sex appeal. So women decide that is what they need to do. So one way they deal with it is to go out and get slutty costumes on halloween, to feel valued, for what culture and plenty of men will make them feel gratified for. There are women who feel like on a daily basis they have to keep their weight in check, scrutinize over weather certain body parts are still up to “standards”, paint their hair, paint their face, paint their skin. This is so insulting to women. We give in to it. We dont’ have to. We can stand up and say, no I want to be valued for who I am, not for my body. It doesn’t help when even the nice guys in the world check out other women all the time. It makes even women in seriously relationships think, I know he loves me for me, but there he is watching a woman for her body parts, and paint. Then we feel like maybe we aren’t good enough for not doing that. And even though we know we are good enough, the war inside continues. Becuase I think it is so ingrained in us women to be valued for what we look like, it is hard to just let it go. Somewhere we feel like we can’t be good enough without it. I think this must also be our WOMANLY INSTINCT. The one no one talks about, becuase its all about the man’s instinct in this world. So if we get jellous, that is just part of our instinct, to be what men want over other women.Quite naturally, if this is our instinct and our man is looking at another women, we will get jeallous. So jeallousy, its ok its just our instinct. Just like men, “oh I looked at that woman, its ok its just my instinct.” Isn’t it funny how that logic works just fine for men, but not for us even though it is our end of this sad deal nature gave us. See why instinct just messes up an otherwise intelligent species. But besides this, we still need a new media culture and a knew perspective from both real life men and women. Or maybe we can just move to antartica and live with the penquins…lol. The only place to get away from it all it seems.
I know it might seem like I got off topic. But this all fits in well with women being seen for their bodies. And for once, I wanted to tell part of OUR story about it. It’s about time. I am so tired of only hearing the guys side. Women, please let me know if you think my hypthisis describes what you think is goign on in the world. I in now way say this has to cover every woman. But women I am friends with and have talked to seem to agree with me. So let me know your thoughts.
I saw someone dressed up as an american with a gun.
OH NOES THE AMERICANSES ARE ALL DANGEROUSNESS!
I also saw someone dressed up like a black cowboy.
AH THOSE RACIST FOOLS DONT THEY KNOW THERE WERE NO BLACK COWBOYS…ES…!!
Lighten up, it’s a freaking holiday. They sell these costumes because movies and cartoons made them popular. Just because the manufacturers (or the consumers) don’t know a damn thing about the middle east doesn’t make them racist. They want exciting costumes, and they want costumes they can recognize.
Not everything is about muslims or the middle east. In fact, barely anything in the west is about the muslims or middle east. It’s mostly in your head and in the heads of the few fools who do discriminate.
@ Daniel: I suggest you see Reel Bad Arabs. And check yourself.
@Krista: “BTW…because I have no idea..is trick-or-treating allowed for Muslims? I know some faiths are fundamentally opposed and don’t participate just on principle.”
~It probably depends on who you talk to. If you look at the origins of Halloween then it would not be a good holiday to participate in, IMO. My hubby is pretty much anti-holiday (besides celebrating the Eids), but I think as long as it’s not Christmas or Easter there’s no harm.
Daniel, your privilege is showing, you might want to do something about that.
It’s very easy to point fingers at the media for what you believe to be a grave injustice against your culture. While it’s true that the entertainment industry embellishes quite a bit regarding the middle east, this article was about racism– not lies. There is a difference, and that difference lies in the motives and how it’s received by the public.
Beyond that, the entertainment industry certainly doesn’t confine its fantastic stories to the middle east. They lie and generalize about every culture and stereotype on the planet. People aren’t entertained by the truth, and they certainly don’t pay to watch a film about people working 9-5 jobs in America or visiting the market in Afghanistan. There’s no sense of adventure there, so stories are invented for the sake of entertainment.
Last time I checked, dragons weren’t real, and neither were wizards. There is no such thing as ET, and nobody has ever seen a gremlin. Americans didn’t really blow up the pyramids, and not all college kids are stoners or drunks. But all of these things, and so much more I couldn’t even begin to list, have been in movies. Do people take it seriously? No, they don’t, because 9/10 Americans know the difference between fantasy and reality. I guarantee you I could ask 10 coworkers if they thought that muslims really run around with cloaks and daggers and belly dancers all day, and at least 9 of them would say, “No, that’s garbage.”
People like to see things that illicit a sense of mystery. They love the exotic, and because middle eastern culture is so foreign to most Americans, it’s much easier to turn it into something fantastic. This isn’t racism, because they aren’t doing it to vilify your people, make genuine generalizations, or single you out. In fact, as I’ve previously mentioned, they do it to every single culture and subculture they can– as long as it will sell.
That taste of the exotic, whether or not it’s real, is exactly what people are looking for in Halloween costumes. The holiday is all about dressing up as something fantastical and creating a night full of fantasy.
That isn’t racism, and quite frankly I think it’s little arrogant or paranoid to assume it is. Most Americans aren’t out to get you, and neither is Hollywood. There’s no nice way of saying this, so I’ll just say it: Get over yourselves.
Daniel: if I didn’t think these were racist, I would “get over myself.” But your dismissal of Orientalism and the role it has played and continues to play in depictions of Muslims and Middle Easterners isn’t going to fly.
It doesn’t matter whether they INTEND “to vilify your people, make genuine generalizations, or single you out”. What matters is that this is the end result of their “exotic” characterizations, and it’s the end result that matters. It’s the end result that’s racism.