Halloween Hazards

I always thought Halloween was fun, but these days, I can see where it might be a little dangerous. I’m not talking about tainted candy, but PC. You might have to think about that before choosing a costume.

The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, felt compelled recently to apologize for putting on blackface, or in this case,  brownface, to portray Aladdin at an Arabian Nights party at a school where he taught years ago. I would like to be able to say that I’m horrified, but I’m just not that woke yet. Give me a minute to rub my eyes.

The governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam,  got in trouble for allegedly dressing and going blackface as Michael Jackson for a party when he was in medical school. Blackface has a sorry history in this country, as we all know. But in Northam’s case, he was doing Michael Jackson, so you would think blackface would be part of the costume, for a person of another color, at least.

This all reminds me of one of my favorite old movies, Khartoum. Why it’s a favorite, I don’t understand, but it came out in the mid-1960s, and was about the  British general Charles George “Chinese” Gordon, enlisted in the 1880s to lead an army against the Mahdi, who, along with his Islamic followers, laid siege to the Sudanese city. It made me laugh, because they cast the American actor Charlton Heston as the British general, so he had to adopt an accent, with mixed results. But then, Laurence Olivier, who really was British, was cast as the Mahdi. They made his face sort of burnt sienna so he could look more Arab, and he had to use a strange accent too. How did that happen? Maybe Omar Sharif was busy at the time. Hollywood has pretty much mended its ways these days , favoring authenticity in the use of actors of appropriate races, ethnicities, and even genders.

To get back to the point, though, I’ve tried to tell myself that old portrayals by sitting politicians might be OK, because they didn’t seem to involve mockery with malicious intent and they were about specific characters -- but I guess that doesn’t work. It’s a shame, though, that pictures from private parties years ago are producing a whole new set of folks taking offense. In my case, I tend to judge politicians more on their response after the revelation than on the original deed.

OK. So what will I wear for Halloween?  I was thinking of an orange wig. But hey, I never won any prizes for original ideas. Just make sure I get some candy if I knock on your door.