While Madison students may have outgrown their trick-or-treating years, it is never too late to dress up and participate in Halloween festivities. Finding an outfit that expresses creativity and humor is the most exciting part of the experience. However, Halloween often hosts offensive costumes.

Upon its release of the Maui Polynesian Warrior Costume from the movie “Moana,” Disney was met with an uproar of offense. Disney promptly took the brown-skinned, tattooed bodysuit off its store shelves. Originally, the film was praised for its representation of Pacific Islanders. The costume created unsettling disappointment among those previously overjoyed about the upcoming movie.

“Being African American, seeing costumes appropriating and exploiting my culture is an event that happens every year around Halloween time,” Adriana Brown (’17) said. “People will emphasize what they find to be funny or negative about a culture and put an outrageous twist on it, but at this point, it is almost custom. Racist Halloween costumes are extremely detrimental to so many years of fighting for civil justice and racial equality.”

Nady Soe (’17) explained that there are many spooky costumes that are not offensive.

“I love Halloween, and it’s not hard to make a conscious effort to be respectful to other races,” Soe said. “The least someone can do if they don’t understand is to respect.”

Some practices that should be avoided are wearing religious or cultural attire, wearing makeup to look like another race or portraying any racial or ethnic stereotype.

“Last year on Halloween, I saw someone walking down the hallways in traditional Islamic clothing (similar to a thawb), and I wasn’t like ‘freaking out,’ and I wasn’t really triggered. What hit me was the question, ‘What made you want to wear that?’” Nima Jawadian (’17) said. “If you look around, many of the things people have these days are made from people of a minority culture. If not that, it was derived from their culture.”

Portraying a stereotype through a costume is most likely going to make someone feel uncomfortable or hurt.

“A stereotype is a stereotype,” Soe said. “It’s a way for people to put a box around others that aren’t like them. They take one small aspect of a culture and spin it into something distasteful.”

Stereotypes show a lack of knowledge about the complexity of a culture. The oversimplified images that stereotypes produce give the impression that every person within a culture represents that stereotype, good or bad. Dressing up as a stereotype perpetuates that assumption.

“Usually stereotypes have a negative connotation to them. And most of the time the culture that the stereotype goes with is fighting hard to end the stereotype. You’re just adding fuel to the fire by dressing up as a stereotype,” Jawadian said.

To many people all over the world, culture holds a very important role in life. Culture serves as an outlet for artistic, historical and emotional bonds between humans. By appropriating a culture through a costume, the culture is being reduced to a mere joke or an aesthetic.

“I know people are going off about how our generation is offended by everything. I think we should just think before we speak or do something,” Soe said. “And if you do or say something offensive, apologize.

Instead of trying to put someone is a box, try to explore, learn, accept, understand and respect their roots and beliefs.”