In recent years, Halloween seems to have changed. No longer are children dressing up as flower children or their favorite cartoon characters. Instead, kids as young as 11 are parading around on Halloween night, sporting high heels and low necklines. This seemingly overwhelming urge for teenage girls to show so much skin is sickening. It raises the question – why is it that original Halloween costumes seem to be a thing of the past for many high school students today?
Such skimpy, revealing Halloween costumes should not be worn by teenagers in general, let alone at school. “This is a learning environment, and since costumes can easily be distracting, we don’t want anything that might upend the learning process,” said Vice Principal Heidi Murphy. “It is definitely not appropriate for girls to be wearing revealing Halloween costumes to school.” Halloween does fall on a Monday this year, and costumes will still be allowed at UC High, just as long as they are appropriate.
Party City has been a major provider of Halloween costumes for years, and is relied on by teenagers nation-wide. On their website, there is an entire section dedicated to “Sexy Halloween Costumes.” Just in this section alone, there are 302 “seductive” costumes (partycity.com). With the abundance of revealing costumes, it is increasingly difficult for girls to pick out the right costume that meets their standards. It seems like if a young girl does not want to show absolutely everything to the world, her only option is to dress up as a bottle of ketchup. This does absolutely nothing for someone’s self-image.
It’s possible these skimpy clothes are a result of some high school students’ desire to grow up faster. The only problem is, it doesn’t actually work. Contrary to popular belief, wearing a short skirt does not actually affect a person’s maturity level. People need to learn to enjoy being a kid as long as possible, as they’ll never get these years back.
According to Senior Philip Pascual, there is no valid reason for young girls to take advantage of an originally innocent holiday tradition. “In my opinion, there should be a certain age when girls are allowed purchase and wear those types of costumes. It’s immoral otherwise. I wouldn’t let my daughter or son dress like that,” he said.
The movie Mean Girls, directed by Mark Waters, seems to sum up the general population’s beliefs with the words of Cady Heron: “In the regular world, Halloween is the night where regular children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In the girl world, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girl can say anything about it” (imbd.com).
Unfortunately, whether teenage girls believe it or not, Halloween is a day like any other. The way people dress, even on Halloween, says something about who they are and who they aspire to be. Based on current Halloween costumes, many teens of this generation seem to be aiming for less-than-respectable careers.