Stores are stocking their shelves with Halloween costumes, and, undoubtedly, Ghostbusters will be a popular choice this year.
But already, Internet feminists are decrying the fact that, besides screen-accurate and officially licensed female Ghostbusters costumes, there are “sexy” Ghostbuster costumes widely available across the Internet. They’re especially concerned because this year’s all-female Ghostbusters reboot was supposed to force fans to cope with the political implications of women — and women alone! — busting ghosts.
“Oh, good, the sexy Ghostbusters Halloween costumes are here,” wailed feminist “geek girl” site, The Mary Sue, sarcastically. Fusion put it more politely, telling the Internet that “we need to talk about the Ghostbusters costumes,” claiming that female fans are left to choose between cheap versions of the new Ghostbusters uniforms or “two explicitly ‘Sexy’ costumes” from a company called Secret Wishes.”
Feminist Twitter is, of course, aghast — or should that be aghost?
Here are the actual costumes.
The two “officially licensed” costumes mentioned by both Fusion and The Mary Sue are actually pretty decent replicas of the movie costumes. Though, like most costumes in the $30 – $60 range (the costumes usually available online or in those fly-by-night Halloween stores that pop up in September and October), they aren’t the best quality. And they also aren’t sexy.
Okay, so they’re cheesy looking and the boots aren’t right and the hair is all weird, but frankly, marketing cheap costumes isn’t an offense against social justice. It’s just how the Halloween costume industry seems to work. The Princess Leia costume, for example, sold on HalloweenCostumes.com, seems to be a slightly altered bed sheet. The women’s “Warrior Huntress” costume, clearly based on Katniss in the Hunger Games, is pretty much a set of plastic armor taped to a unitard.
If Halloween costume manufacturers are making an anti-feminist statement by putting out less-than-screen-accurate Ghostbusters jumpsuits, they’re going to have to adjust their entire business model to accommodate Internet feminists.
Another complaint seems to be that the “good” costumes are well out of the price range of anyone with a normal Halloween costume budget, thus making a feminist statement at Halloween unaffordable to most Gender Studies majors. But as a cosplayer, I can tell you that good costumes aren’t hard to find, even at moderate price points (though buyer beware with foreign eBay sellers, of course).
But if SJWs are concerned that female Ghostbusters costumes are too sexualized, they seem just fine complaining that the male costumes from the movie aren’t nearly sexualized enough. Chris Hemsworth plays a “dumb-but-gorgeous” secretary for the Ghostbusters in the all-female movie, a take off of Annie Potts’s character in the first Ghostbusters. But while Annie Potts played a serious, mousy organizer, Hemsworth is just eye candy.
The “Kevin” costume has to be adjusted for accuracy.
