Halloween is the one time a year where everyone dresses up in their most creative costumes. However, it’s really easy for a costume to go from cute and clever to controversial. This year, some celebrity couples costumes did just that.
Billie Eilish, a 20-year-old singer-songwriter, and her 31-year-old boyfriend, Jesse Rutherford, dressed up as a baby and an old man for Halloween this year. This costume was definitely meant to poke fun at their 11-year age gap, but it had some fans grossed out.
According to Buzzfeed News, Eilish’s Halloween Instagram post was adorned with comments about how the costume doesn’t sit right with her followers, which is understandable. The costume shows that not only do they know about their questionable age gap, but they’re making fun of it and showing fans they really don’t care that it’s controversial.
Most fans are just concerned with Eilish’s well-being. One Instagram comment with over 11 thousand likes states “[this costume] is gonna haunt her in a few years when she’s older and realises a 31 year old has no business with someone that young.”
“It seems like their way to cope with all the drama that concerns their age gap,” said sophomore elementary education major Gabriella Luque. “I don’t feel like it was wrong or inappropriate, because it was just a costume and the situation only affected them.”
Some fans took to Twitter with the observation that instead of keeping quiet about their controversial age gap, they chose costumes that highlighted it. This might unsettle fans because it confirms that the couple knows what kind of situation they’re in and how it may look to those who don’t know them but don’t care about the repercussions.
“They knew that they were inviting negative attention when they decided on their costume,” said Luque.
I definitely don’t agree with the age gap, but this costume doesn’t harm anyone and only concerns the couple involved. Though, I do think a relationship that’s so public with such a large age gap could be handled with some moderation. I feel like this is especially the case when the couple is over ten years apart in age and one partner is just barely out of their teenage years.
Eilish and Rutherford were not the only celebrity couple with controversial costumes, though. Megan Fox and her boyfriend Colson Baker, who’s professionally known as Machine Gun Kelly, had a few questionable couples costumes this Halloween season. Most notably was their decision to dress up as Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, famous couple from the 90s whose relationship ended due to spousal abuse.
This costume was seen as controversial due to the nature of Anderson and Lee’s relationship. Some fans feel like we shouldn’t be glorifying violent relationships.
The costume has been called a “red flag” on Twitter, and fans also remarked that Lee was sentenced to 6 months in prison due to the abuse he put Anderson through. They were appalled that this is considered “trendy” now.
“I just think it’s very insensitive to people that have been through or are going through something like that,” said junior elementary education and special education major Heather Gallagher. “[Then] people dress up as them for Halloween just because they are celebrities and are ‘hot.’ It’s just rude.”
I definitely agree that this costume was highly controversial. The couple is romanticizing abuse and subtly glorifying those types of relationships as sexy and desirable, which is dangerous. After seeing all of the backlash this Halloween season, I think that celebrities should be more mindful of the implications of their Halloween costumes, especially since they are spotlighted due to their fame.
jhammer@ramapo.edu
Photo courtesy of Justin Higuchi, Wikipedia.
