Too soon? You can get a Whitey Bulger costume for Halloween
By adamg - 10/7/11 - 7:38 am
Channel 4 is conflicted:
WBZ's Jim Armstrong spoke off camera with the widow of one of Bulger's alleged murder victims. She's disgusted by the idea someone would not just make such a costume, but that anyone else would dress up as a man accused of murdering 19 local people.
But it seems, if you're not personally connected to the man or his legendary wrath, you might be OK with it.
Comments
Ugh someone is offended
Ugh someone is offended again. If you want to be offended head over to Allston on Halloween and watch my generation throw woman's right along with their dignity out the window.
God bless em.
God bless em.
The DiMasi costume is better
The DiMasi costume is better. Prison jumpsuit with deep pockets. Or the Marzilli, with velcro zipper.
Even easier
I've got my Scott Brown costume on right this moment.
speaking of whitey
let me start by saying i have read Michael Patrick MacDonald's 'all souls' and i enjoyed it very much. i grew up in a somewhat similar if not so heartbreaking fashion. i actually know some of the people in the book, though many names have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty.
id like to say that i find the ads on this site hawking the book to be a bit disingenuous. it seems like someone is trying to sell books using bulgers name. there is a link that will bring you to the chapter "looking for whitey".
i understand that bulger is an integral part of the story. he is a shawdowy figure luring young men, and some of macdonalds own siblings, into lives that end in tragedy. i also understand he was a part of growing up in that neighborhood in the 70s and 80s but it seem s bit opportunistic to be using his name to sell more copies.
i guess my question is, is this macdonalds idea? does he even know about this?
I don't know if the author knows
The ads are from Beacon Press, the book's publisher. I suspect the reason for the ads is, yes, because Bulger is in the news these days, but maybe they figure people want a fuller context for the story.
One of Whitey Bulger's victims was offended and disgusted??
Hell...I don't blame her! I would be too, if I were in her place! I seriously wonder if this person who's thinking about dressing up as Whitey Bulger for Hallowe'en has an inkling about who that guy is! It sounds like this person's making a mockery of people who've been victimized by Whitey Bulger and are paying for it with a lifetime!!
Halloween
Grown people in their 20s, 30s, 40s who dress up in Halloween costumes aren't concerned about being offensive. In fact they are trying to be. It is part of the unexplainable and unnecessary phenomenon of Halloween having morphed from a one-time chldren's holiday, to a full fledged "season" for adults, where more money is spent than any other holiday except Christmas.
Yup!
Hallowe'en is as commercialized as pretty much any holiday here in the United States, so of course people of all ages are involved and more money is spent, and the consequences be damned.
I also might add that the guy wanting to dress up as "Whitey"
is seriously in need of a little history lesson. Somebody ought to tell that idiot that Whitey Bulger is nobody to romanticize, glorify or glamorize. He's a murderer, an extortionist, a racketeer, and a pedophile who not only exploited whole neighborhoods and their peoples for his own ends, but victimized individuals and their entire families, and an extremely dangerous guy, to boot. Whitey Bulger is not just some ignorant, incompetent boob, but an extremely crafty and diabolically clever individual who'll strike just out of the blue, without warning, all of which makes him a nasty, dangerous piece of work.
Orange Jumpsuit-clad Whitey
Orange Jumpsuit-clad Whitey isn't really glamorization.
You have good points about him in general and I can see actual family members of victims not seeing a representation of him at all but showing him shackled and jumpsuited and facing justuce is ridicule, not glamorization.
Are you serious?
Do you even know what the point of Halloween is? You just made every argument FOR putting on a Whitey costume.
You do know people used to dress up as vampires for Halloween BEFORE they were sparkling, abusive boyfriends...and even before they were whiny fauntleroys in New Orleans, right?
There is no point
Aside from it's original All Hallows connotation, there IS no point to the event we now know as Halloween, except for grown people to act like idiots in costumes. In the not too distant past it was one night of fun dress up for children. Get that? CHILDREN. Not the elaborate drawn-out brouhaha it has now become for adults.