The leaves are changing, the weather is getting colder, and the pumpkin spice latte has returned to Starbucks, with actual pumpkins this year. Yes, autumn has finally arrived and with it comes the staple holiday of October: Halloween! Whether you’re handing out candy, attending a Halloween bash, or still going door to door with other little kids, your Halloween costume is a direct reflection of your spirit for All Hallows Eve, or, unfortunately, their horrid sense of humor.

A safe pick that most people take in choosing a persona for Halloween is selecting a costume relevant to pop culture, such as the lead in the summer’s greatest blockbuster like Owen from Jurassic World. However, not all pop culture figures should be turned into a distorted caricature. On many Halloween websites and in various pop up stores, such as Spirit Halloween, both males and females have access to a corset and wig to given them the appearance of Caitlyn Jenner’s iconic Vanity Fair cover. Last year’s controversy was the modest Ebola nurse costume. There’s a line that most buyers are oblivious of and most sellers just don’t care about between an outfit being funny and topical and it being offensive and crude. Making light of a disease that took the lives of thousands and affected millions or of a person going through a personal change in the center of a blinding public spotlight should not be defined as “humorous.”

And humor is a weird category in itself. On Spirit’s website, there is no humor section for women’s costumes. Yes, one could suppose that a girl could fit into the men’s banana costume all the same, but why couldn’t the same costume be put on a female and be called a women’s costume rather than men’s? Are women not supposed to be funny on October 31^st? On any day of the year? The stereotypical women’s Halloween costume, as depicted in many movies, such as Mean Girls, show ladies dressed in corsets and tutus with a set of ears or vague design on the outfit to represent some animal or character. Really, producing a huge lack of seasonal-appropriate outfits is really just giving NyQuil and Campbell’s more money from the girls who definitely are catching colds from being outside more than 10 minutes. That, and the whole objection of bodies that comes from having only 10% of your costumes touch the wearer’s ankles and promoting that those outfits are appropriate for underage girls to be wearing.

It’s amazing, that Halloween costume producers somehow manage turn beautiful and complex cultures teeming with vibrancy and life into a $59.99 outfit that a trick-or-treater or party-goer thinks will be “different.” There’s a difference between displaying your love for your favorite Disney Princess, Pocahontas, and dressing as a “sexy Indian girl.” You shouldn’t reduce someone’s culture to a costume. There’s a whole movement behind preventing the very thing.

So when deciding what to wear this Halloween remember this: keep your costume to characters and not real people, and enjoy yourself, however you choose to celebrate the day. And it is getting chillier, so don’t forget to stay warm, Bobcats!