Christine O’Connor was shocked when she saw these Halloween costumes on the shelves while shopping with her two sons at Party Stop in Vails Gate. THR/JEFF GOULDING
Posted on 10/30/2007 8:18:12 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Vails Gate — Halloween is full of shocks. But the shocks Christine O'Connor experienced at a local party and costume shop were not of the traditional variety.
Far from it.
O'Connor and her 12-year-old son and 13-year-old stepson were strolling the aisles in the Party Stop in Vails Gate about two weeks ago.
It was there she found a rack of costumes she could hardly believe. A pregnant nun. A costume depicting a Catholic priest with an erection.
"It made me sick," O'Connor said.
The sexual nature of the costumes was bad enough. The fact that they were visually available to anyone, including children, was worse. She got her kids out of the store, after complaining to a shop employee who, she said, just shrugged off her complaint.
But there was another aspect of the incident that upset her.
"It seems it's open season on Catholics. What if it had been a rabbi or a Ku Klux Klan costume?" she asked.
That concern was echoed by the pastor of her family's church, the Rev. Robert Hilkiker of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in New Windsor.
"Being anti-Catholic is the last acceptable prejudice," he said. "Imagine the outcry if this had been Muslims or blacks or Asians — there'd have been a storm of protest."
Costumes like those O'Connor described seemed no less incendiary to him than symbolic nooses that have been used in the South and New York City to inflame racial tensions.
Hilkiker said he understands the supposed humor is the result of some "very bad press" about factual circumstances involving sexually predatory priests.
"But perhaps we didn't fight back as much as we should have as a group — I think it's foolish not using our clout, since we're a sizable part of the population," Hilkiker said.
Alan Ortner, district manager of the three Party Stop shops in the region, said he had received no complaints at any of them.
"Obviously, I didn't create these costumes. If I'd gotten a complaint, I would have thought it over," he said.
Jennifer Holladay, a spokeswoman for Teaching Tolerance, a program of the Southern Poverty Law Center, encouraged people to ask "What makes this funny?" She said that when choosing a Halloween costume, for kids or adults, it's all about stereotypes.
"If it's history, does it deal in caricatures?" she asked. "We have to guard against stereotypes in the name of humor. It's really that simple."
Funny or obscene? New Paltz - You can't quite say that writer Mark Sherman makes his living as a humorist. But the retired SUNY New Paltz psychology professor, who writes a humor column for the local weekly here and performs comic songs, has been at it for a long time, and he knows obscene from funny.
His brand of funny is informed by his understanding of people and psychology. But when it comes to the border where "funny" Halloween costumes flirt with disrespect or obscenity, he's not laughing.
It's not funny, he said, if you're not asking to be confronted.
"It's one thing if someone goes looking for something like that on the Web, but when it's right in your face, I've got a problem, especially where children are involved," he said.
Sherman said he's sensitive to freedom of speech issues, but feels that, for example, if a controversial museum exhibit is being offered, people have a choice to see it or not.
"But Halloween is supposed to be dedicated to kids, isn't it? Why do they have to be offensive? There's enough unhappiness out there."
Christine O’Connor was shocked when she saw these Halloween costumes on the shelves while shopping with her two sons at Party Stop in Vails Gate. THR/JEFF GOULDING
Pregnant nun - excited priest.
The hottest couples costume of the season.
Another one to add to the roasting baby Halloween decoration story.
I’ve seen the pregnant nun costume for years now. A new one for me this year is the “Hot S**t” costume, in which you can look like a big piece of brown excrement with orange flames on you.
I don’t know which is worse. That is totally gross.
Well, it's not dedicated to kids anymore. A bunch of older teens and twentysomethings(who need to grow up) like the childish aspects of Halloween, but also like sluttiness. Hence the childish sluttiness.
I think you are right. While schools cut back on Halloween, and communities offer alternatives, and fewer kids go tricker treating each year, adults seem to get more and more into it.
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