But there's one aspect of Halloween as it's celebrated in 21st century America that I didn't discuss very much in that piece. It has been around for a while, but apparently some think it's a new trend:
It's going to be one happy Halloween for the Roman Polanskis of this world.
God help the "Sexy Minnie Mouse" who tricks or treats at their doors. The upcoming holiday has long been the favorite time of year for women to let down their hair and wear risqué — or should we say slutty — outfits to parades and parties across the country.
Until now, most of the revelers in these trampy getups have been above the age of consent. This year, in a growing trend that is truly scary, fifth-graders are encouraged to dress like cheap hookers. Mainstream companies such as Brandsonsale.com, Costume Super Center and Costume Kingdom are peddling pint-size versions of outfits even Madonna might find trashy.
The shameless CEOs should be placed on the sex offenders register. Poor murdered JonBenet Ramsay and Miley Cyrus, the 16-year-old Disney star who famously pole-danced at this summer's Teen Choice Awards, might be their inspiration — but that's no excuse to promote pedophilia.
Meanwhile parents who allow their offspring to wear this junk should consider putting them up for adoption.
I've heard various names for this push to dress younger and younger girls as if they were sexually available, everything from "pedophile chic" to "prostitots" to "tartlets," and I'm sure there are even less flattering names out there of which I am fortunately unaware. But Halloween has become yet another battle front in this particular war for our daughters--if we can convince the seven-year-old set that it's fun to dress "sexy" for Halloween, can slutty looks for toddlers be far behind? Or are we already there? (Note the size on that costume: 3T or 4T, which in my experience can fit a child as young as two.)
The Halloween industry has been as infected by the ills of American culture as everything else has been. As I wrote in my post last year, my main issues with Halloween are that it has become far too commercial and far too gory; I need to add that it's also displaying our culture's extreme sex saturation and its hatred for childhood innocence and purity. Putting little girls in "sexy" costumes is something sick and wrong, not something harmless and fun; but our culture which elevates sex above everything and which can't seem to manage unequivocally to condemn Roman Polanski can no longer see that this is so. But when we dress young girls in garb designed to appeal to adult males, and appear to condone or even applaud this sort of thing, we're participating in the kind of trick the devil likes to play.
I think most Catholic parents would agree with me here, and would avoid putting such costumes on their children. The problem lies in the ubiquity of the cultural poison, not the isolated events like Halloween where the erosion of children's natural modesty becomes part of the trick. The constant drumbeat of the culture in this area tells children in a throbbing whisper that all sex is good, and all restraint is bad, is being reinforced everywhere our children turn. We need to make sure that we stand as a sign of contradiction to the culture, instead of being too caught up in its defects.
6 comments:
Probably, wearing store-bought Halloween costumes might even have been something rich kids did several decades ago, however in the best traditions of creative and spirit of enterprise, (if I still had kids), we'd be coming up with something a week or two ahead of time, handmade and basted on the sewing machine.
Several years ago when my son needed an outfit that had to meet several requirements a.) fit over a tux, b.) allow adequate arm flexion and c.) not compromise visual and auditory cues, we resorted to purchasing a Spiderman costume. We were quite surprised to find that Halloween costumes can be quite inexpensive, though
somewhat limited in styles with a recurring theme from store to store. Fortunately there weren't too many Spidermen in the violin section that year.
Otherwise an old black cape, glow-in-the-dark fangs, sombrero and Vampire Zorro chestnut brought out year after year would have sufficed if studying for school mid-term exams limited creative output.
The holiday celebration beckons us to awareness that we are called to be joyous saints, ordinary everyday saints, making the world a better place.
from Scotch Meg:
Halloween in New England severely limits trashy costumes for kids. If you can't put a sweatshirt (or winter coat, some years) under the costume, it won't sell to children. There are some benefits to a climate where the debate is whether or not to turn on the heat during a cold snap in October! (she types, shivering)
Seriously, these costumes are sick, not cute. Surely they must sell, since they continue to be offered. I am glad my only remaining trick-or-treater is a son, but I will have to start sewing again if I have granddaughters!
You can see the hand of the Enemy in this. The thing that is holiest in humanity is the family, and the hope of the family is the child. If he can destroy the child either with physical or spiritual death, Satan will. If childhood becomes a supervised adulthood, and adulthood is imagined to be an indulgent free-for-all, then the child will wither like a plant with no roots.
As for adults, Halloween offers the same license that Mardi Gras does. It's night where you are supposed to be stupid and 'out of character'. A woman would then wear something completely trashy and excuse it as 'O that was just Halloween, that's not really me' and go on lying to herself. Men won't complain because they get to subjugate these women either physically, mentally, or with their imagination.
So how exactly are women being liberated in this age? I'm confused. Again.
In total agreement here. Want to know what's horrid? Have you seen the clips of Toddlers and Tiara's? I've never watched it but I've seen enough clips of it (ironically, as I'm watching the Duggar family) that it makes me sick.
I'm glad my kids know their limits. They have to come up with their own costumes, I help to create them but for the most part, they take inspiration from favorite books or good movies (Narnia this year!- woohoo!)
There are always the old standards from the dress up trunk. Ghost, hobo, gypsy, princess, evil looking character in black with scary fake teeth, pirate. One year my youngest, though she would blush at this now, wanted to be Barney, and we managed something in purple. Gypsies wore long skirts and peasant blouses and lots of strings of cheap beads. They wore their long john's under all these costumes, and sometimes had to wear jackets over them. Hobo's made dirt marks on their faces with wood ashes. Pirates got to carry plastic or cardboard swords. I had girls who went as pirates and hobos rather than as gypsies or princesses.
I think having a dress up chest is a good idea. Stuff can be bought at thrift stores throughout the year to go into it.
Susan Peterson
It's 40 degrees in Virginia; all the sleazy trick-or-treaters will die of pneumonia this year. And since global warming is over for another what? 12,000 years? late October will be much like this in the future too, I think.
Post a Comment