On Halloween and being 'ethnic'

Ah, Halloween:It’s the only day on which it is socially acceptable to dress up as someone other than yourself (or a sexualized version of yourself) and ask people for free candy.  So many options to choose from, with so many pre-fabricated costumes available not just at your local party needs store but in department stores and drugstores and megamarts.  But I think the issue of who/what to be for Halloween gets a little sticky if you’re not a white person. 

“An Asian little red riding hood?”

My best friend in middle school Dorothy (not real name) gave me this question, accompanied with dubious look when I told her I was considering going as that character for one Halloween.  We were close friends and I thought we had reached the point where we could be brutally honest with each other without getting offended or personally injured, but the way she responded managed to sting me a bit.  White girls were used to sell the costumes for geishas, Pocahontases, harem girls, gypsies, flamenco dancers, and Cleopatras—why couldn’t I dress up as someone who didn’t share my ethnicity?  Did Dorothy expect me to trick-or-treat as an Oriental, because I already had the right “look”?  Actually, I think that was the year I went as Cleopatra—mostly because the costume kit was relatively inexpensive and it gave me the chance to rock some heavy black eyeliner.

It’s fun to assume another identity through a sartorial transformation, don’t get me wrong.  But it’s not fun when being “ethnic” or being a minority is thought to restrict what kind of roles you can play, even just for one night.  It’s bad enough that Hollywood often sequesters certain minority actors to certain roles.  The first thing I think of it how the (very handsome) chocolate-skinned Idris Elba was cast to play a Norse god in “Thor”.  Well, why not?  Elba himself pointed out the ridiculousness of the fact that the movie deals with Norse mythology, and that itself is stranger than his casting in his role.  Ah, but I digress; this could be a blog post itself but this topic has already been extensively covered and articulated more comprehensively than I could ever hope to accomplish. [Amazing Grace is a great children’s book on a similar topic.  The titular Grace is an African-American girl who gets the part of Peter Pan in her school play, despite the discouraging whispers of her peers that she’s black and a girl.  Thank God for “Reading Rainbow”, which is how I know about this book in the first place.] 

So, Halloween: great opportunity for people—especially white people—to  appropriate other cultures’ dress just for kicks and giggles.  This year I hope to go as the boy Russell from the movie “Up”.  When I first watched the movie it never occurred to me that his character was Asian, but I later learned that the voice actor and Russell were both Japanese.  I admit it: it’s convenient for me, an Asian person, to dress up as this character.  But another motivating factor is that I have the proper physique and this character is a boy, a young male.  Most of my peers—twenty-something year old females—will opt to dress up as something sexy and female.  I aim to do the opposite by donning garb that is the opposite of both those adjectives.