October 28, 2014
Walmart Apologizes For 'Fat Girl Costumes' on Website
Winnie McCroy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Walmart is owning up to its mistake this week, after the company's website labeled a line of plus-sized Halloween costumes, "Fat Girl Costumes."
The retail giant apologized this week for their latest "outreach" toward the plus-sized market -- their key demographic, if those "People of Walmart" websites are any indication -- in what as been described as "a very polite, very general, only slightly robotic apology."
Jezebel reports Walmart has been auto-replying to angry customers via Twitter, writing, "This never should have been on our site. It is unacceptable, and we apologize."
The "Fat Girl" section is still live, however, and features a lot of the same outfits as the Women's Plus Size Adult section, leading Jezebel to speculate that the whole thing was one twisted web site developer's idea of a "hilarious joke."
The "Fat Girl Costumes" nicely complement the stores' line of racist American Indian parody outfits (including fringed dress and headband), sex "Gypsy" costumes and a Marie Antoinette costume that features the famed Queen of France as a beheaded spectre.
Jezebel doesn't hold back their ire when reporting on both the awful description given with this costume, and the faulty editing that allows formatting characters to show up in the live version of the text.
I bet she's regretting that crack about letting them eat cake by now. The Women�s Ghost Marie Antoinette Costume is a quality costume. There aren�t very many costumes of the Dauphin of France floating around, and even less where she�s a ghost. Spirits that used to be royalty must be the worst. It�s one thing to haunt some abandoned, old shack, it�s a whole other bag of marbles to haunt a palace. That�s gotta bring the property value way down.The Women�s Ghost Marie Antoinette Costume comes with a dress, a neck slash, and cobwebs. Bonnet rouge not included.The Women�s Ghost Marie Antoinette Costume is a spectral outfit of the last Queen of France. Ghost plus Royalty. A winning combination.
Numerous Tweets showed up in response to the posting, including those from user Kristyn Washburn @ItsWithaY who said, "not sure labeling these as 'Fat Girl Costumes' is the best approach." #rude walmart; and Just Erin @hearagramed, who wrote, "Congrats on your 'Fat Girl Costumes' section. Always keepin it classy, eh #Walmart?
Winnie McCroy is the Women on the EDGE Editor, HIV/Health Editor, and Assistant Entertainment Editor for EDGE Media Network, handling all women's news, HIV health stories and theater reviews throughout the U.S. She has contributed to other publications, including The Village Voice, Gay City News, Chelsea Now and The Advocate, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
