Sometimes a costume is just a cigar...

A quote often attributed to Sigmund Freud (which he never said, but is beyond the scope of this entry), "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar",  is the perfect way to open this post up. It encapsulates the idea I'm trying to get across here.

There's a bit of a buzz around the introduction of "Sexy Handmaid's" costumes for Halloween this year. A lot of people are up in arms about how this is endorsing or advocating the future it depicts.

Now, is it absolutely justified to be outraged by the story told by Handmaid's Tale? Yes.
Is it justified to be outraged by politicians that seem to be actively working towards making that fiction into a reality? Absolutely yes.
Is it justified to be outraged at a satirical costume? Well...

I don't think so. I think it's a little too simplistic and misses the purpose of satire and irony.
I even saw someone make the comment to a woman (who didn't see the problem with it), quote:
"I hope no one takes you wearing it seriously. Don't get raped..."
As if there wear any danger of that in the first place.

Could it come across as insensitive to some? I'm sure it does. Many things do. I'm not sympathetic to that interpretation. I just don't think it carries much weight when scrutiny is applied. It certainly doesn't when that interpretation is carried to anything else.

Nobody thinks someone wearing a pirate costume promotes the idea of rape, pillage, and murder on the high seas.
Nobody thinks someone dressed as Al Capone is actually promoting organized crime.
Nobody thinks someone dressed as a witch can actually cast spells or hexes.

Wearing this costume is promoting rape no more than wearing any other costume is endorsing what it originally meant. It's meant to remove the power it stood for.

If anything, it flies in the face of those who are actively working for those ideals because it symbolizes that are not falling for their subterfuge and it isn't working. We are aware of what they are trying to do.

A group of women dressed up as Handmaids (not the sexy kind, the subservient slave kind, pointing precisely to the original context of the story) while attending the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. They used their outfits to draw attention to what they though Kavanaugh represented for the future of women.

Now, there is a significant difference between dressing up in a protest for a serious purpose and dressing up as a character for Halloween. There's a lot of contextual difference between them and I fully recognize that. To make the leap of endorsement, however, is ludicrous.

If you apply the original context to anything you satirize, you're missing the point of satire.
This costume isn't an endorsement, it's a mockery.