Thursday 26 September 2013

Mental Patient Halloween Costume Removed

When i first heard about the Asda 'Mental Patient Halloween Costume' i thought who the hell thought this was a good idea and i hope someone kicks up a stink about it and Asda issue a grovelling apology and withdraw it.
Next time i hear about it they have done exactly that but with the grovelling apology they handed over £25,000 to a mental Health Charity.
If i had know i was on such a roll i would have also hoped that Rod Stewart would announce his retirement but i will settle for a supermarket chain being shown as tasteless.  
What i didn't expect was some people to take the opposite view from me and see no problem with it and moaning about how the PC Brigade have no sense of humour for getting the costumes removed.
It was not the costume itself that i and my humourless and whinging PC Brigade pals found offensive but the name 'Mental Patient'.
There is much stigma about mental health issues and to depict those with these issues as potential axe wielding maniacs isn't just unhelpful but trivialises their mental health issues which isn't a good thing.
Would the same people who argue that it was just a bit of a joke be okay if instead of a mental patient it was an AIDs patient or a Cancer victim? What's up with that? They're illness's too aren't they? Where's your sense of humour gone?
Being treated this way by the big companies is precisely the reason those unfortunate enough to to have a spell in a mental health hospital won't be keen to make it common knowledge.
Hopefully having humour a bit of humour over mental health issues will go the same way as mocking someone for their sex, religion or colour although while things like this Golliwog Costume are being sold i do wonder.
I also wonder why Amazon is not being inundated with complaints about it.

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