It is Halloween, Lighten Up!

It is that time of the year again, when people start wagging their fingers and shaming people for dressing up in costumes which are not considered to be “socially acceptable” Now I do not deny that there are some costumes out there which might be in poor taste and maybe not the best idea for a costume, but I also maintain that, just because a person dresses up as X does not mean they endorse X. My niece is dressing up as the Devil for Halloween this does not mean she is a Satanist who horsewhip the Anti-Christ.

I have always stood behind the idea that you can dress up as whateverthefuck you want to for Halloween. It is HALLOWEEN after all. And if you do not like a certain costume or what you think it stands for, consider the fact that a percentage of people dress up in provocative costumes just to get a reaction because they want to be tweeted and facebooked, and youtubed, and have everyone (even the news) talking about it and if you just ignore it, they will stop doing it because it will not longer be rewarding.

So there were two articles I came across that set me off on this rant. One was about snowboarder Shawn White being criticized for dressing up as Simple Jack, now I am not familiar with the movie Tropic Thunder so when I first read the headline it just stated that Shawn White dressed as Simple Jack and was criticized for making fun of people with disabilities.  At first I thought he dressed up as caricature of somebody with a disability which I will admit would be mean spirited. But when I read the article I realized he was dressed as a specific frictional character from a movie. OK so what? Now we are not longer allowed to dress up as movie characters if the appearance and or actions of that character within the context of the movie is considered offensive?

On the same page further down was an article about a father who had to make an apology for dressing up as a Nazi and having his son dressed up as Hitler. Now this may not be the best idea for a Halloween costume but at the same time, Halloween is supposed to be scary, and what is scarier than a real life monster? As stated above dressing up as Hitler does not be default men you support Hitler. It means you have an interesting and maybe twisted idea of good Halloween costumes. Also dressing up as Hitler on Halloween is a lot better than dressing up as Hitler on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of May (i.e. any other time of the year that does not revolve around a holiday where you are expected to dress in costume). If  kid comes to school dressed as Hitler in March, than yeah maybe you should talk to the parents about that, but for Halloween?

Publicity Ploy or Literarally Valid

Now I love book awards I really do. I will obsessively look up every book on the list and read it but today in my library that really baffled me and made me wonder who pulled that one out of their ass? It is called (if I recall correctly) The Alex Award and it is for books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults. I am sorry but this completely baffles me.

The first thing I wonder is what the hell does that even mean? What is “special” appeal opposed to regular normal appeal? And who determines that a book written for adults has so called special appeal for young adults?

Is the panel who chooses the winners made up of teenagers and pre-teens (depending on ones definition of “young adult) is a poll taken, do they go by sales, or is it just a committee of old guys in tweed who make this choice?

What is the purpose of this award? Because to me it seems like this is a reward created just to help boos sales of a specific niche of books buy being able to slap an award sticks on them to garner more attention and interest.

Granted if publicity was the purpose I suppose it is working since I am here talking about it, and yes I am tempted to look up the award list and read some of the books listed to see if in reading them the award actually makes some sense to me.

It also make me wonder if some authors who are writing for adults are going to make their books sound more YAish in order to try and garner “special” appeal in young adults. With the going popularity of adults reading YA and now adult book being rewarded for appealing to young adults when will the lines between these genres be completely erased? And what will that mean?

Without having yet done research on reward and what sort of books are included I would hazard a guess that they are books written for an adult audience but featuring a young person as the protagonist.

If any book regardless of the intended audience featuring young adult characters is in some way marketed to young adult audiences how will this change the future of literature? Will it cause a dumbing down or softening/simplifying of some books?  Or will a more bluing of the lines prove beneficial to literature? Will it create more quality in young adult literature?