It’s generally advisable to stay away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on holidays, whether at Thanksgiving dinner or on Halloween.
Walmart never got the memo: the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer was selling an Israeli-soldier outfit as a children’s Halloween costume, until critics pounced.
The listing for the costume, modeled after an Israeli Defense Force uniform, pictured a young boy holding a gun and dressed in a full green outfit with Hebrew script on the chest.
Needless to say, the costume sparked outrage on social media. Walmart has since removed the costume, which was on sale for $28 (reduced from an original $57), from its Web site. The company also took down its costume listing for a prosthetic “Sheik Fagin Nose,” which featured a stereotypically large nose on a man appearing to wear a Keffiyeh, after it drew its own social-media backlash.
Walmart did not immediately respond to requests for comment on why it had taken down the costumes, or why it had listed them for sale in the first place. It’s unclear if these costumes are still being sold in stores.
This is hardly the first time Walmart's found itself in Halloween hot water. Just last month, it faced similar criticism, and a subsequent removal of a “Little Amigo” costume, also meant for children, which, Complex reported, came with a straw hat, mini-mustache, and striped serape shirt. Complex wrote that the costume’s description read, “Let the Fiesta begin for your little one,” before the retailer wiped it from its site, saying, according to Complex, it violated its “prohibited products policy.”
The company bumped up against its own policy and faced Internet ire last Halloween, too, when it devoted an entire section to so-named “Fat Girl Costumes.” At the time, Jezebel reported that the section featured many of the same costumes as the Women’s Plus Size Adult section had.
Walmart has yet to respond to questions about whether it’s put new measures into place to prevent this post-offensive-costume-then-remove-it-if-there’s-outrage cycle from spinning round again.
Read more at: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/walmart-halloween-costume-controversy
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