Spirit Halloween, a company that manufactures and supplies Halloween costumes all over the city during fall, confirmed that it will make and sell Caitlyn Jenner costumes this year.
The attire is a white top similar to what the former Bruce Jenner wore for the Vanity Fair cove and matching white shorts. The get-up includes a white sash with the words "Call Me Caitlyn." Spirit Halloween defended the costume.
Lisa Barr, senior director of marketing of Spirit Halloween, explains that the company creates a wide range of costumes based on celebrities, public figures, heroes and superheroes. Besides Caitlyn, it has costumes of Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, KISS band members and Marilyn Monroe, reports CNBC.
The plan has angered LGBT groups. In a statement to Huffington Post on Friday, Vincent Villano of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said, "There's no tasteful way to 'celebrate' Caitlyn Jenner or respect transgender people this way on the one night of the year when people use their most twisted imaginations to pretend to be villains and monster."
Addison Vincent created a petition in Change.org for Spirit Halloween to discontinue making the Caitlyn costume. Vincent writes, "Do not turn Caitlyn Jenner into a costume. Your profit will only lead to greater transphobia and marginalization of an already at-risk community."
Besides Spirit Halloween, other retailers also carry the Caitlyn costume such as WholesaleCostumes.com and AnytimeCostumes.com.
Meanwhile, Fortune reports that Caitlyn's reality show is losing its audience. While the premiere had an audience of 2.7 million, the second episode had only half of the number, and the third episode attracted only 1.19 million viewers, based on figures by Forbes and Entertainment Weekly.
This contrasts with the 16.9 viewers of her interview with Diane Sawyer, the 9 million who visited Vanity Fair's website and millions of Twitter followers. Fortune says that despite her celebrity status, Caitlyn "doesn't have what it takes to be a reality star" because people do not want "to watch her try to keep up with the Kardashians or anyone else."
Fortune suggest that rather than place Caitlyn in a reality show, she should be made a guest anchor on a morning news show or host of a daytime talk show where "she belongs."