Disabled Appropriation and Halloween

I have never been a fan of Halloween. Call it personal preference; I could never understand why people wanted to be scared. Once I became disabled and regularly interacted with the community, that distaste only grew. 

 

I had not noticed how many villains – and, inevitably, Halloween costumes – use disability or illness. It might not seem like an issue but using a trait that someone cannot control as the identifying factor for them being ‘evil’ or ‘scary’ is not representation. It is insulting, and cruel. 

 

Why is the villain the one with a mutation, an amputated limb, or speech impediment? We are fed the narrative that someone with a disability has cruel intentions, simply because they are disabled. No wonder I do not like horror movies.  

 

As Chrissy Stockton from CreepyCatalog.com says, “At the beginning of cinema, inclusion of disabled characters was for the sole purpose of framing them as monstrous.” It reinforces the idea that anyone who looks or acts differently is wrong or scary. Countless horror movies feature villains with disabilities or mental illness, making us incorrectly associate these with sinister intentions. 

 

If that is a someone’s only exposure to our lived experience, how do you think they will view people with similar disabilities in real life? 

 

Unbelievably, people also use symptoms or mobility aids to ‘be funny,’ mocking the realities disabled people face. Pretending to use a cane as a blind character or showing up in a wheelchair ‘for laughs’ reinforces the idea that only the elderly are disabled, or that people would fake the conditions they face.  

 

To put it in perspective: if you google ‘Disabled Costumes,’ you would expect ideas to help wheelchair users incorporate their chair into a costume. Instead, the top results? Bibs.  

 

Disability is not, and has never been, a costume. 

 

You do not get to exploit someone’s lived experience for the sake of a costume. Our existence is not supposed to be scary or ridiculed. Often, these instances are dismissed as “just a joke” or “everybody does it,” as if Halloween provides a free pass. It may not seem like a big deal to you, which is likely because you have no actual experience with disability – certainly not enough to understand the damage it causes.  

 

While we have come so far in understanding why appropriation is not okay, it still slips through the cracks with disability. As much as people want to dismiss what makes them uncomfortable, or gloss over what they think does not matter much, it ’is an attitude that requires collaboration to change. And remember, disability is something that could affect any one of us at any moment.  

Might be worth a second thought, right?