Posted on 10/24/2006 1:08:40 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
In the 2004 teen comedy "Mean Girls," Lindsay Lohan's character, Cady, who just moved to the United States from Africa, observes that for American girls, Halloween seems to be nothing more than a day when girls can dress up in scandalous outfits and no one can say anything about it.
When mean girl Gretchen asks her friend Karen, who's barely clad in black lingerie and animal ears, what she's supposed to be, Karen points to the ears and says, "I'm a mouse. Duh."
The idea of sexy Halloween is not necessarily a new one. For years, Halloween parties have had their share of hot nurses and seductive pirates. But these are parties for adults, right?
Not anymore. With names like "Transylvania Temptress," "Handy Candy," "Major Flirt," and "Red Velvet Devil Bride," there is no doubt that costumes marketed to children and teens have become more suggestive.
Such costumes, which typically feature plunging necklines, fishnet stockings, knee-high boots and very short skirts, dominate the display at most costume shops and party supply stores, and parents are having a hard time avoiding them.
Robin Pese of Voorheesville, N.Y., the mother of two girls ages 11 and 14, walked out of a local party shop exasperated. "All the teen costumes are revealing. I walked out with nothing," she said. "You either have the adults or you have the kids, but there are no good ones for teens."
"Whatever happened to being ghosts, and just homemade costumes?" wondered Jennifer Dinova of Brunswick, N.Y., who was shopping for her daughters, ages 4 and 7. She said she was doing her best to steer her girls away from the midriff-baring get-ups and toward more practical costumes.
Even Lindsey DeVerry, 14, of Glenmont, N.Y., called the costumes for girls her age "a little weird."
Her friend Kacie Weatherhead, 13, of Guilderland, N.Y., elaborated. "They're a little racy," she said. "They all have really short skirts and are just really revealing."
Family therapist Lindy Guttman said: "It's a strange time we live in when half the doctors are women and half the lawyers are women, and all the little girls are prancing around in sexy costumes."
Guttman said girls today face "intense marketing" that didn't exist when she was a child or even when she was raising her own now-grown daughter.
Girls are bombarded from an early age with images that tell them to wear pink, love accessories and attract attention for being pretty and sexy, said Sharon Lamb, who wrote "Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers' Schemes" ($24.95; St. Martin's Press) with Lyn Mikel Brown.
When it comes to Halloween, Lamb said, the costumes marketed to girls severely limit the options they see for themselves. There's nothing inherently wrong with a little girl dressing up as a pretty princess, Lamb said, but the problem comes when such feminine, passive characters are all girls can envision for themselves. And she thinks it is that same ideology that pushes girls toward hyper-sexual costumes as they get older.
To Lamb, it is not about preventing girls from feeling sexy or exploring their emerging sexuality. Halloween is one night when girls can imagine themselves to be anything they want to be, Lamb said, and she thinks it's sad when what all the girls want to be are "hot chicks."
HOLDING SEXY BACK
Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown, who wrote "Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers' Schemes" ($24.95; St. Martin's Press), offer the following tips to parents who want to encourage their daughters to think beyond the risque costumes:
• Use this as an opportunity to talk to your daughter about sexuality and appropriate ways of exploring and expressing it. Talk to girls about what they fear as well as hope for in terms of intimacy and teach them there is more to sexuality than looking sexy for a guy.
• Avoid catalogs and packaged costumes. Instead, "imagine big" with your daughter, looking to her talents, interests and fears for ideas.
• Rather than getting attention for being pretty or sexy, encourage her to attract attention for other things, such as how unique and creative her costume is, or how scary she can be.
• If she loves the glitz and accessories of traditional "girlie" costumes, find creative ways to add those elements to other costumes.
• Add an element of power to the character she chooses. If she wants to be a fairy, let her imagine she's a fairy in charge of her whole kingdom. If she wants to express her sexuality, suggest that she be a toga-wearing goddess of wisdom. "If you're playing at being grown-up, think of all the things that being grown-up means," Lamb said.
That's pretty funny, considering that Halloween is short for All Hallows' Eve, the day before All Saints' Day. No link to Christianity? If it weren't for Christianity, there would be no Halloween at all.
Google it.
The ghosts and goblins? Have you ever looked at the gargoyles on a European cathedral? They're everywhere...designed to show folks what's waiting for them if they don't become Christians.
Oh, yes, Halloween has much to do with Christianity.
"Times have changed.
"
Have they, really? When I first was in college in 1963, Halloween parties involved excessive drinking and revealing costumes on the girls, too. I doubt that anything has changed all that much for college-aged people.
How come when I was a teenager (damn I feel old all of a sudden) the girls hardly ever dressed like this?
Your adult daughter is going trick or treating?
When I was a teenager I wouldn't have had the faintest idea what to do even if they had! That's darn old.
I gave up trick or treating well before I could be charged as an adult for the stuff I did. :)
Considering how I was raised, I wouldn't have either but I still would have liked to look. LOL!
"Dr. Tongue's 3D house of Slave Chicks"
"3D House of Beef"
"3D House of Stewardesses"
and my personal favorite....
"3D House of Pancakes"
"I don't know about you kids....but blueberry pancakes scare the hell out of me"
Sorry, but the pagan holiday Samhain was around long before the Christians came to be. Do you believe everything you read on Google?
Semper Fi
"faintest idea what to do"
They're shoveling dirt on me already, and I still wouldn't be sure what to do, cause everything I tried so far got me divorced and lawsuited!
Go trick or treating as a pole dancer!
We're not talking about Samhain, are we? We're talking about Halloween. Samhain is a pagan holiday. Halloween is a Christian holiday.
Yes, Samhain predates Christianity, but like many pagan holidays, it was usurped by the Church for its own uses.
Samhain is gone...replaced by Halloween. Halloween, even in its name, is a Christian holiday, not a pagan one.
We could look at Easter, Christmas, and some other holidays as well, and find their pagan equivalent on the calendar, too, if you'd like.
The holiday bearing the name Halloween is a Christian invention, set up to replace the old Celtic pagan holiday. The Church in that time found it convenient to supplant those pagan holidays with ones more appropriate for Christians.
Even the name Easter has pagan roots....it was coopted by the Church, but held its name. A nice fertility festival for the pagans got converted to a resurrection festival. Oddly enought, it had pretty much the same function for the pagans...just a different religious emphasis. The dead plants coming back to life again after the cold winter, or the Messiah coming back again after the crucifixion. Very nice that the two ended up being celebrated at the same time, eh? Worked out well for the Church, too.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=412195&in_page_id=1770
It's been done.
Nice work, tuffydoodle. I'm sure your daughter was very pleased with it.
Thank you! She loved it.
Beautiful little girl, beautiful costume
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