BOOO hoo.

I love Halloween. I like candy, I like dressing up, I like the notion of scaring away the things that go bump in the night. But this year, Halloween's kinda getting all stressy and pressure-y and up in my grill. Back off, halloween!

First off: Not all women want to be a "sexy" fill-in-the blank. The weird hypersexualization, and even more the hyper gender-ization, of costumes is bugging me. It is seriously ridiculous searching for a costume online. You can choose from men's, women's, kids, or couples. The men's costumes are all baggy, pants-and-shirts sorts of things. Things you might be able to sit down at a party in. The women's costumes are all "sexy." Sexy nurse, sexy schoolgirl, sexy french maid. Sexy cat. Sexy bunny. Sexy soldier. Sexy nun. Seriously? Who thinks to themselves "I'd really like to dress up like a nun. I just wish they're habits weren't so unsexy." Nobody. Nobody thinks that. I hope. And then I go to the Goodwill and I hear college girls saying things like "Do you think this would make a good dress for a nerd? Like, I mean, if I shortened the skirt and left the buttons open?"* So the women's costumes are all super short, super low cut, and super shiny. You couldn't possibly DO anything in most of them. What if you want to bob for apples, miss Sexy Cat? You'd show your entire heinie to the whole party!

And then there's the fact that the costumes are divided by sex in the first place. Mermaid = women's costume. Beer can = man's costume. And the fact that costume designers, who are apparently all 15-year-old boys, believe that all women are slim-legged and large-chested. And kind of slutty.

The New York Times ran an article on this, and it made some interesting points that I think I pretty much disagree with. Halloween gives young women a safe way to play with their sexuality! It's a fun time to try on new personas! But . . . really? An event where people are usually (a) drinking and (b) literally wearing masks is a safe space? Do so-called "men's costumes" suddenly give the wearer a stronger sense of social awareness and party restraint?
The whole point of halloween is self-indulgence and hidden identities. I'm sure there are plenty of fun, decent, safe halloween parties, but I'm not sure that's what the makers of, say, this sexy boot camp officer costume were going for.

* I actually overheard this. In real life. Sexy nerd? Is that possible?

Next up, "cultural" costumes. Feministing ran a bit on appropriating other races for Halloween costumes, and, when you put it that way, yeah. Bad. The first picture they showed was a "Pink Indian Princess" costume. Bad. And then after the jump, they went on to show an Arabian Dancer, Dragon Samurai, and Sexy Seniorita. And...I don't know. I think the names are stereotypes and offensive, but if your seven-year-old dresses up as a ninja, is that racial oppression? I just don't think that putting on the clothes is the same as putting on the race. If you dress like a ninja and draw racially caricatured features on, that's one thing. But if you dress like a ninja with a hood, is that racism? How is dressing up like an Arabian dancer different from dressing up as Jeannie, the genie? Is it really that different from dressing up in lederhosen or wooden shoes and a pinafore? Is it okay to dress as another nationality, but only if that nation is characterized by the same race I am? I don't know. There are definitely some sketchy boundaries here, but I don't know if it's really like Halloween samurais and flamenco dancers are really trying to pretend they're Japanese and Spanish. [Later: Comments posted on the ad now say a lot of the same thing--and make the point that it's the marketing that's racist, not the costume. With that, I wholly agree.]

Last up: The pressure. Halloween used to be one of my favorite holidays because it's all about pretending to be something else, and most of the time I'd definitely rather be something I'm not. And it's just plain, fun, goofiness. There's no family drama, or gift tension, or religious overtones. You dress up and eat candy. That sounds awesome.

But now it feels like every year you have to have a very clever costume. Funny, scary, sexy, whatever, it still should be terribly smart. Right now I just don't have that much energy to devote to my costume ideas. It's sapping the fun out of it.

Annnnnyway. Happy halloween, witches and werewolves and Elvises and heelys!