Ahh, Halloween—a time when kids used to run around, all dressed up as their heroes, future dream occupations, and cartoon characters. Girls were princesses, pirates, Indians, and rock stars. Boys were firefighters, mad scientists, and cowboys. These were the costumes of our childhood, our youth, our good ol’ days.
Now fast forward to present day. Hike up that pirate dress, pair it with some knee-high black leather boots, add some fishnets just for the hell of it, and cake on as much makeup, because that floor length princess dress ain’t going to cut it, even with gloves and kitten heels.
I feel like this sexy theme during Halloween hasn’t always been a fad, although perhaps as a kid, I just never noticed how the older kids were dressed much differently on this spooky holiday. Has Halloween always been this raunchy? I’m pretty sure that my mom and aunt didn’t dress up in sexy nurse outfits. I feel like our parent’s generation partook in the scary theme of Halloween more than the vulgar. But maybe that’s just me romanticizing about how classy my parents were. I mean, the roots of the holiday definitely did not focus on how scantily you could dress in a costume.
Halloween, also known as All Hallow’s Eve, was originally celebrated as a Christian festival on the evening before All Saints Day, November 1st. Over the years, it has drifted further and further from it’s religious roots and grown into more of a secular holiday filled with nefarious activities such as begging strangers for free candy and, like mentioned, used as an excuse to dress skankily while partying hard.
I’m not completely against its new themes. Yet at the same time, I feel that the way girls dress on Halloween is so overdone and extreme, that maybe it’s time to change it up and go back to when Halloween was a scarier time. No, I’m not talking about your reaction to that scary chick in an entirely too short dress with the clown makeup. I’m talking ghouls, goblins, and, to keep it more current, zombies.
Most guys certainly aren’t dressing in fishnets and spandex for the holiday, and seem to go for the scarier costumes such as a full gorilla suit, Freddy Krueger, or the Grim Reaper.
Pop culture icon costumes are cool, too. I’m sure we’ll be seeing many guidos and guidettes, Lady Gagas and Kanye Wests running around this year, and I’m all for it. Halloween is a time when you can be anything and anyone that you want to, yet still fit in everyone else. So be creative with your costume. Do something different from that average sexed up Little Bo Peep or the common not-so-angelic-looking angel.