Writer
Photo Eugene Ho
As the movie “Mean Girls” once informed us, “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.”
If the movie took place in Isla Vista, it would be a different story.
Part of the fun in Halloween is looking at everyone’s costumes: admiring the creative, laughing at the funny and basking in the ideas too cool for me to dream up. Occasionally, a costume too scandalous crosses my path, and I have to disagree with “Mean Girls” (yes, it’s hard for me to do too). Slutty Halloween costumes can actually take the fun out of Halloween.
I love Halloween because of the genius ideas people employ for their costumes. I have a blast walking down DP, yelling at random out-of-towners “I love your costume,” and taking pictures with characters I cannot resist.
Halloween is a time to let the imagination run wild. Why settle for a bra, panties and animal ears? It’s boring, unexciting and shows me you really do not care about the holiday or what you look like. I imagine your thought process as, “I don’t really care what I look like tonight. I’ll just be a rabbit.”
If there is any weekend out of the year you want to care about how you look, it is Halloween weekend. I am not talking body wise, because I will be less impressed if your interpretation of a ballerina is a pink thong and stripper heels. You really want to put your artistic spin on these outfits to stand out. So dress to impress, because otherwise, it just shows you are not having as much fun as the rest of us. And who wants a party pooper?
Another problem with slutty costumes is that there seems to be a recent trend in making children costumes more adult. Like that Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz costume that most every little girl wore? Or what about the Disney princess gowns? And for guys, the plethora of superhero costumes? The trend now is to make it sexy: short, tight, and showcasing.
While this has its benefits, I must say that most people cannot pull this off without making me crawl in my skin. There is something disturbing about seeing favorite childhood characters looking like whores. Pikachu, did you really just paint your breasts as Pokeballs? And Superman, consider going up a size in briefs. My childhood innocence dies a little more with each adult rated childhood costume. If you are going to go that route, really use your imagination and channel the character. Cinderella would never wear that slutty dress to a formal ball to impress Prince Charming, so why should you?
Along these lines is the problem of showing off too much. Another thing I remember from my Halloween weekends? Skin, and lots of it. I am fine with showcasing your body and flaunting your assets, because the salads and gym time has to be useful for something, right? But remember: costumes are a way to clothe and cover you. Those freed body parts visible to everyone in your vicinity is not cute and not what Halloween is about.
Look at it this way: if you’re already undressed, why would a partner bother to? Mystery and keeping the cookies in the jar always works. You do not need to resort to desperation for attention.
So I toast to a great Halloween weekend, filled with ingenious outfits and enough self-worth to avoid the slutty zone.
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