In defense of ISIS, Ebola and other insane Halloween costumes

In defense of ISIS, Ebola and other insane Halloween costumes
Yep, it’s real. ( /

Remember when dressing up like Monica Lewinsky for Halloween was considered provocative?

Or when a 21-year-old Prince Harry was roundly condemned for wearing a Nazi costume to a party?


Or when professional terrible person Chris Brown shocked us all by being a terrible person and dressing up like Osama Bin Laden in 2012?

Those were the good old days. This year might just be the most offensive Halloween ever as pop culture, politics and the liturgical calendar collide spectacularly in one big mess of inappropriateness.

Don't be surprised if someone comes to your door dressed as Ebola. Or as a person trying to avoid Ebola, in a hazmat suit.

BrandsOnSale is selling an "Ebola Containment Suit," and promises in the product description, "You are sure to be prepared if any outbreak happens at your Halloween party. This will literally be the most 'viral' costume of the year." How clever.

Then there's ISIS. The same company's chief executive indicated that they aren't only working on a costume depicting members of the Islamic terror group, but one for toddlers no less. Adorbs.


There's no question these costumes are reprehensible and offensive, which is probably the intention. If any of your children planned to wear one of them, you would be totally forgiven for sending them to a place for troubled and wayward kids.

And, Halloween or not, if you were to show up at my door looking like a terrorist or a disease host, I promise you'd be met with more trick than treat.

But with all of that logged for the record, allow me to defend the totally indefensible.

These are scary, uncertain times. Flesh-eating illness and genocidal terrorists — truly biblical stuff — make Monica Lewinsky look like Mother Teresa. What are we to do with all our pent-up fears and anxieties?

As any psychologist or anthropologist will tell you, role-playing is a vital and healthy outlet for coping with otherwise inexplicable and frightening situations.

Just as dressing up as a devil or a witch or President Nixon isn't an endorsement of evil, the occult or bugging an opponent's campaign office, dressing up as a much-maligned athlete isn't the same thing as supporting him, either. It might even be an effective form of shaming.

Justin Moyer of The Washington Post's Morning Mix recently made the latter point, suggesting that dressing up as ISIS fighters is a good way to ridicule the group into submission:

"Americans at home can play a strategic game for hearts and minds by making it look uncool to act like angry radicalized adolescents nursing grudges and growing pains . . . to honor those slain by ISIS, we should fight their executioners not just with cruise missiles, but also with laughter."


While I think cruise missiles will be far more effective, I'm happy to try laughter, too.

Lastly, the world is an offensive place, and politically correct attempts at accommodating the perpetually offended are silly and should be boisterously rejected.

Case in point: The world's most self-serious person, Keith Olbermann, finds Ray Rice costumes "violent and racist," and believes those who wear them should go to a special "circle of hell."

But if you haven't noticed, the world keeps turning even when Olbermann or anyone else is offended by something. Being offended is unavoidable. We are an offensive species. It's best we brace ourselves and move on with our lives.

Frankly, I'm more genuinely offended by the parents who want me to police their own kids' nut allergies this Halloween by giving out pencils instead of Snickers bars than by some idiot who thinks putting on a hazmat suit is clever.

Contact Cupp at