Well, folks, it’s that time of year again. Halloween. And we all know what means; I mean, you’ve all seen movies. It’s all fun and games. But does anyone really stop to think about how weird collegiette Halloween is? Let’s take a funny look at the politics of Halloween costumes and then—let’s get weird.
First off—costumes. Mean Girls definitely got it right when it made fun of girls for going as unnecessarily sexy versions of animals and professions, but are all girls really doing it for the sake of it, or do they just have no other choice? Take a look at the differences between the different versions of the same costume:
Funny AND sexy!
You think you can do these things, but you just can’t, Nemo!
When will the over-sexualization of Halloween costumes end?
As you can see, there are a few differences between the male and female versions of the costume. I mean, it’s a clownfish for crying out loud, lady. While the images beg the valid questions, “Why would anyone want to go as a clownfish?” and “Why is the man-clownfish wearing dress pants and shoes? Does he have a meeting?” and “Why the dog, Hunter?” The real question remains: “Who’s really to blame here, if anyone at all?”
Ladies, if your Dream Halloween vision includes you being dressed as a sexy clownfish, then more power to you. There’s no shame in showing some skin and those choices are your own. BUT, I think there’s a bit of a problem in the politics of Halloween that needs to be addressed—us ladies can NOT win, and a lot, if not the majority, of that pressure we feel comes from other women. If we want to be sexy or cute, then we worry about being called sluts by our fellow ladies. If we want to go as something scary, then we end up feeling like Cady in her Bride of Frankenstein outfit and become “the girl who takes Halloween too seriously.” If we try to be funny or witty, we worry about losing our chances of ever being thought of as a female again by the opposing gender(s). It’s hard for a girl to be funny on Halloween and not end up as the un-dateable “funny girl.” And though that perfect costume that’s a mix of everything without being weird does exist, it’s damn near impossible to find or to make. But costumes aren’t really what this article is about.
Which brings us to section two: What the heck are we even doing, you guys? I mean Halloween is a time that’s supposed to be fun and not really thought about, and that’s fine, but have any of you stopped to think about how weird the whole thing is? Halloween is always moving through this flux—cool when you’re a kid, dumb when you’re a teen, wild when you’re in college, and then…you just turn into an adult all of a sudden? When does Halloween stop? Collegiette Halloween is really this last-ditch effort to hide the fact that we’re all growing older, and one day, we’re going to wake up and realize that dressing up as a sexy nurse or anything at all really isn’t okay anymore. We’re growing up and there’s nothing we can do about it. Soon, we’re all going to end up like this:
How did it come to this?
So right now, hang on to Halloween. Who knows how long we have left.