Clowns, candidates and other Halloween costume missteps

In a matter of days, many Americans will find themselves facing an important but risky decision. No, not the election: What to wear for Halloween.

In a year of a bitterly divided presidential campaign, a growing divide on matters of race and gender and bizarre news events like creepy clown sightings, it seems harder than ever to find a costume that won't get you into trouble.

Some cities have banned or strongly discouraged clown outfits, while costume sellers have faced protests from Native Americans, Muslim Americans and other groups about anything that mimics traditional ethnic or religious dress. The fall ritual of dress up has particularly haunted American universities, where past problems have led to annual warnings about costume choices. Media outlets have a new October staple, helpful guides about what to avoid: generally anything involving blackface, Nazis, suicide bombers or the sexualizing of children.

[Your guide to 2016 Halloween events in Southcentral Alaska]

A recent visit to an Upper West Side outpost of Ricky's, the costume superstore chain in New York City, was like taking a field trip through the cultural markers of our unsettled times.

The storefront window was festooned with the sign "Making Halloween Great Again!" Inside were heaps of rubbery Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton masks.

"I don't think it's a funny joke," said Rose Fredman, 33, an Upper East Side resident, as she brushed past displays of the candidates' masks. "So I wouldn't wear one."

Clown costumes were nowhere in sight.

"Less scary, more upbeat," said Taycha Lino, an assistant manager, when asked about customers' preferences. "I think it's because of the whole clown thing."

The most widely searched costume online this year is superficially clownlike: Harley Quinn, the murderous blonde, ponytailed villain of the "Suicide Squad" film and Batman comics. That's according to Google's Frightgeist interactive, which lists the top costume searches in the United States. More generic clowns were also ranking high, in the ninth spot at one point this week.

Presidential politics seemed out of favor online. Donald Trump was 69th on the list. A search for Hillary Clinton did not even rank.

An analysis by state shows "Star Wars" costumes are popular in Texas; Batman in Alaska; and gumball machines leading searches around Helena, Montana.

In recent years, some Halloween costume choices have reflected the darker side of current events, allowing people to feel a little less powerless by making fun of, or coming to grips with, their worst nightmares, according to Jack Santino, a folklore expert and professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He recalled people who dressed as priests and altar boys during the height of the Catholic Church's abuse scandals.

"The whole idea of pushing boundaries or crossing lines is that there always is a line, but different people will cross it at different places," he said.

[Just in time for Halloween, the election is scaring the heck out of people]

Sometimes that backfires. In past years, costumes depicting Trayvon Martin, the black teenager who was shot dead in 2012 in Florida, and the man who killed him, George Zimmerman, drew condemnation. In another case, Santino recalled, students were criticized after dressing as victims of the Virginia Tech massacre.

This year, Kim Kardashian's robbery in Paris fueled interest in a "Parisian Heist" costume featuring her long, dark hair, with bound hands and gagged mouth. The company selling it, Costumeish, later withdrew the item, citing backlash.

Campuses tend to be at the forefront of Halloween controversies. Universities and colleges have started putting out annual warnings.

Yale University, which had a Halloween controversy last year, told students in an emailed message to "don a costume that respects your classmates." North Carolina State University poses a simple question in guidelines: "Ask yourself, would you wear the costume in front of people from that group? If not, then don't do it."

This year at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, resident assistants posted advice about possibly offensive "cultural appropriation," but the university does not ban costumes, said Ed Blaguszewski, a spokesman, in an email.

The University of Florida, where students have posted photographs of themselves in blackface in previous years, reminded students this month that Halloween costumes can reinforce negative stereotypes.

But the nature of this year's political campaign has some bracing for costumes that challenge ideas of good taste in public.

Santino said public figures were typically viewed as fair game. "The whole moment of Halloween is reclaiming power and the public spaces as ours, and our public figures answer to us and we have the desire to bring them back to earth," he said.

After Trump was recorded making vulgar comments about women and then was accused of sexually touching them without their consent, British journalist Jemima Goldsmith appeared at a UNICEF Halloween function dressed like Melania Trump, with a Donald Trump doll on her back, reaching around to grope her. Goldsmith later said the proceeds from selling the costume on eBay would go to benefit Syrian refugees.

[Halloween attractions use mental illness to scare us, and advocates say it must stop]

Ethnic costumes are also a concern. Ibrahim Hooper, the national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that hooknosed Arab masks or costumes that mimic Muslim suicide bombers appear each year, and CAIR has asked retailers to remove them.

"It is one of those things that contribute to Islamophobic sentiments in the country, " Hooper said. "People can do it, there is no law against it, but everybody just needs to be respectful of each other. You get these people dressing up in Nazi uniforms — it is not done in polite society. You don't dress in blackface or other bigoted kinds of things."

This month, a Spirit Halloween store in Nebraska pulled Native American costumes from its shelves after the state's Indian community said the headdresses and other items disrespected their culture. The store's corporate office ordered that they be put back, local news media reported.

The Ricky's in Manhattan had a feathered headdress on display, but it had not caused complaints. "We would pull it down," Frank Oglesby, the receiving manager, said. "We try and stay as free from controversy as possible."