The World's Gone....oops!

What do we think of when it comes to Halloween costumes? People painting their faces green, sticking on a pointy hat to become witches? People sticking a pair of plastic fangs in their mouths to become Vampires? Hell, throw a white sheet over yourself and you're a ghost! These are pretty much the kiddy images of things that go 'bump' in the night. Of course, if you move away from that and focus more on the horror aspect then you'll see different figures showcasing the terror; Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michal Myers are all horror icons and are often another inspiration when it comes down to Halloween fancy dress. These costumes are purely for the scare-factor of course. It's all just a bit of harmless, spooky fun right?

Well, the UK supermarket chains ASDA and Tesco have caused a storm with one particular brand of fancy dress costume in their Halloween line. Why shops seem to fill their shelves with such crap ages before the actual event, I will never know (but that's another issue altogether). Stupidly early or not, the whole Halloween shebang is on sale. This line features one costume (ASDA) simply titled 'Mental Patient' and another costume titled 'Psycho Ward' (Tesco). 

Set your faces to stunned...

Outraged yet? Well, let's carry on...

The outfits have been condemned as 'crass', 'disgusting', 'outrageous' and 'unacceptable' by hoards of people taking to Twitter. Apparently, these outfits promote a negative stereotype of mental health sufferers. Cries of 'Stigmatizing' and 'Ignorance' have been echoing all around the World Wide Web. People are sickened that mental patients are being portrayed as psychotic villains and they've not kept quiet about it. Due to this explosion of disgust, the outfits have been pulled from their respective stores. ASDA have even gone so far as donating a chunk of money to the mental health charity MIND as a way of appeasing the angry mob. So, another victory for moral decency? Or is it a knee-jerk, hysterical overreaction by the Outrage brigade? My opinion falls into the latter camp.

I love Halloween and love Horror. I'm familiar with the typical fantasy figures and horror movie icons and I'm familiar with all the horror clichés; so I'm fully aware of the context of the 'Mental Patient' costume. The lunatic that escapes from the local asylum has been used numerous times for a good horror yarn. I referred to Michal Myers earlier because, guess what? He's an escaped mental patient! This is, generally, what horror movie mental patients do; they escape their asylum and go on a murderous rampage. So what's the problem with using this as inspiration for a costume? Well, the main argument seems to be that the costume itself isn't the issue; the name given to it was the problem. Mental patients exist in the real world and they aren't all homicidal maniacs and generalizing them in this way is offensive. The negative stereotype is being peddled through things like this, it needs to be stopped and the general public educated on the true face of mental health. 

Here's the rub though: We're not taking about real life mental patients. Instead, we are talking about fictional mental patients that are used solely for the fright factor in horror movies. See the distinction between real life and Movieland? Well apparently the offendees are worried that people don't. The emphasis put on 'educating' the public (complete with patronizing tone) seems to suggest that the public are too stupid to tell the difference between reality and fiction. If the costumes in question were allowed to continue being sold, then everyone will believe Mental Patients are knife-wielding, crazed, psychopaths. Forget about real life, that doesn't matter. When you hear talk of a Mental Patient, there's only one kind because fiction has told you so.

Personally, I like to credit the general public with a little more intelligence than that. If it turns out that the average joe takes his life's attitude from fiction rather than reality, then there's really no hope for humanity. 'Mental Patient' in the context of Halloween  should not be any cause for outraged gasps or demands of 'Ban it at once!'. No-one is 'poking fun at' or 'belittling' real life mental patients, they are just playing up to the Hollywood stereotype. 

Next stop: Halting the sale of hockey masks for Halloween because it unfairly portrays hockey players as deranged, serial killing maniacs. Like this guy: 

 

(I am aware of how many times I've stressed the difference between real life/fiction, but I felt it was necessary to 'educate' the masses since they're too stupid to work it out for themselves, y'know?)