BUZZ
The fun killers are back
As noted yesterday by The College Fix, 2026 continues the college tradition of nutty rules and recommendations regarding Halloween.
At the University of Arkansas, for example, Cultural Programming Coordinator (yes, that’s an actual title) José Torres warned that culturally appropriative costumes, etc. “could lead a person to associate that misconception with said culture, creating harmful misrepresentations.”
Examples included “ninja attire,” “Native American headdresses,” and “ponchos.”
Oddly enough, dressing up as the opposite sex (drag, for instance), was not considered culturally appropriative.
In the past we’ve seen warnings against so-called “ghetto” or “hillbilly” costumes, wearing sombreros, dressing up as geishas and “squaws,” portraying “cowboys and Indians,” dressing up as clowns (allegedly racist origins), and even a complaint about a “sexy” Mr. Rogers costume.
Regarding that last example, Rutgers-Camden Professor Stuart Charmé had said “It amazes me time and again that, despite this post-#MeToo moment, when gender equality is increasingly championed, Halloween remains a holiday when commercial costume makers emphasize traditional gender roles for children and the sexualization of women.”
Which neatly segues into this Wednesday op-ed by UCLA student Sara Green. The English major believes setting up a rather typical Halloween-related display — in this case a “female mannequin covered in blood and in a body bag” — is a “symptom of a larger problem”: misogyny.
[S]ome movies and decorations slip into familiar patterns of misogyny without considering the harm this causes women in the real world. When a sexual assault reportedly occurs at a UCLA residence hall in the week leading up to Halloween and news about the alleged rape at Cornell floods headlines, the way we represent women in media carries even more importance.
Students should think critically about the Halloween content they consume this October. When what’s being called scary is actually just targeted brutality, students should disengage to stop the normalization of violence against women.
Green apparently spoke with various women on campus who share her views.
A biology student told her “seeing women brutalized in media can make people think harm is acceptable.”
Production and Directing graduate student Evelyn Smith referenced reception theory, or “how we interpret the meaning of something comes from external context,” which can “impact how we interpret Halloween movies and decorations.”
Smith said horror-related material “should explore what scares people in a thoughtful way – not simply display violent cruelty.”
UCLA alumnus Colleen De Allaune, president of the “safe space” UCLA horror movie club Shining Stars (which provides trigger warnings “well before each screening”), said “We shouldn’t grow to see violence against women as normal, especially when, unfortunately, it is common.”
“If violence against a woman in a horror movie wouldn’t make sense if it applied to characters who are men,” there had better be a good reason “for creating it that way” De Allaune said.
She added: “A woman character in a horror movie shouldn’t die in a graphic way just so she can be sexualized while doing it.”
MORE: U. Florida offers class on ‘werewolf romance’ and ‘Mexican-American vampires’
