ARE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES BECOMING MORE OFFENSIVE?

A few decades ago, the limits of outrage were grotesque masks of politicians. Nixon and Reagan were favorites.

 The question of what’s edgy vs. what’s offensive can be tricky.

 Among this year’s most outrageous costumes are the “Foxy Megyn Bloody Tampon”

 (based on Donald Trump alleging that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly

 had “blood coming out of her wherever” after the first Republican presidential debate) 

and the “Lion Killer Dentist Halloween Costume” 

(a bloody dentist’s smock and plush severed lion’s head).

 When it comes to distasteful, last year’s do-it-yourself “Robin Williams” costume, 

with belt hung around your neck, tops the list. (Williams killed himself in August 2014.)

Of course, there is the current controversy over the Caitlin Costume based on the Vogue cover.

 There have certainly been viral moments this year that deserve some wink-and-nudging.

 But that doesn’t mean you have to dress up as the awful ones, 

especially if your costume involves 

cultural appropriation, mocking real people who are in distress like the Syrian refugees, or plain old racism. 

What do you think?