Boost Juice pulls display after shoppers' outrage: 'Too far'
'Who wants to look at a severed foot while they're ordering their juice'
A Boost Juice store has been forced to take down its gory Halloween decorations following backlash from shoppers who said it looked more like “a butcher's shop”.
Cardboard cutouts of bloodied hands and feet can be seen strung across the Perth store in a Facebook post which went viral after it was uploaded on Thursday. However the Australian company’s general manager has since confirmed to Yahoo News Australia the decorations have been taken down.
“As soon as we became aware of this type of decoration we asked the team to remove it from display as this is not part of who we are and how we want our brand represented,” they said. “This display has now been removed.
“Fun Halloween is aligned to Boost however frightening and gruesome Halloween is not aligned with our brand.”
Mums divided over decorations
While the Facebook post, shared to a local mother’s group in Perth, has racked up more than 130 comments, many women were divided over the decorations at the store in Cockburn Gateway Shopping Centre.
“I think it’s appalling to have something this graphic where people walk by,” the author wrote. “Already some are finding it hard with their kids to even walk into Big W and Kmart where they have the skeletons and ghouls etc. I don’t understand what severed limbs have to do with Halloween. This is just appalling to have for a shop in my opinion.”
Many were quick to take her side and slam the decorations as “insensitive”, saying they “look like cutouts from real life injuries”.
“With everything happening in the world right now, the horrific images we’re seeing of Palestinian children, this is in very poor taste,” one person wrote. “There is definitely a line when it comes to this gory stuff and this is too far,” another parent said, explaining that her own daughter covers her face when they approach the Halloween section in shops.
While others couldn’t understand “who wants to look at a severed foot while they’re ordering their juice".
But others argued “there’s worse things happening in the world compared to a few tacky Halloween decorations” and that the cutouts would “teach kids resilience”.
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“It’s Halloween, spooky season, not wrap ya kids in bubble wrap season,” one person wrote. “Kids being scared for two minutes isn’t a world-ending sort of moment, it’s really not hard to explain that they’re fake,” another added. While someone else referred to the original poster as a “Karen”, claiming the decorations “are awesome”.
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