10.27.2008

Mean Girls Halloween Quote

With Halloween coming up we only felt it appropriate to ask this of our readers... what are the rules on Halloween? Girls are assumed to dress up as a scantily clad animal, actress, or just plan scantily clad girl - does this change the cat-calling mantra? Do you find yourself saying it's okay to dress up like that, then get catcalled but it's funny and appropriate and most likely going to happen because of how you're dressed? Let us know!

Of course, here's the popular culture reference to this dilemma of Halloween once a girl graduates from being their favorite character from the American Girl Collection. Gotta dress like a slut... or look like... :

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's so interesting about the issue of dressing scantily on Halloween or any time is that we automatically label it "slutty." Is it actually "slutty?" or just outside the norms and therefore we label it "slut" to police it and reign it back in to exist within the confines of society-appropriate dress?

Furthermore, why do we attach a negative connotation to "slut?" Why is "slut" among the worst labels we can hurl at women? Like if they haven't got their virginities anymore, they're lost causes? Outcasts?

And it's like we better have the excuse of Halloween to dress scantily or we might really be deemed (gasp!) "sluts."

As if clothes reflect sexual practice and as if women should be defined by their sexual practices (although they are when termed "bisexual," "lesbian," etc)

But on the other side of the discussion, Mean Girls introduces an interesting point. Halloween is a time to "Dress-up," to be someone else...there is a pressure to dress or a normative standard of dressing more revealingly than usual on Halloween. Is it a cathartic release of 364 conservatively-dressed days...of a whole year of having to hide our bodies to fit social norms so we avoid the "slut" label and earn/achieve/maintain the clean/virginal gender performance?

Honestly, I'm not a big dresser-upper. I like dressing up like me (fashion is always sort of like dressing up as someone else anyway, it always has a performative aspect.) The last Halloween I dressed up for, I channeled my inner Tom Cruise from Risky Business. Courtesy of the annual German Church Sale, I wore an oversized white oxford shirt and tube socks. I had nude tights and tightie-whities. It was probably less than 50 degrees outside (the things that freshman do for fun...) and yes, I went to LULUs to dance the night away (and to run into about three other "Tom Cruise's")

Really, this issue could be a research project unto itself.

Anonymous said...

I watched a man literally follow two young scantily-clad (and might I add freezing cold) women with his arms opened wide down 17th Street Thursday night before Halloween. The girls wore costumes which I couldn't place, but given make-up and hairpieces they were undoubtedly Halloween celebrants. As the man approached them, they simply quickened their pace in a fit of giggles.

Anonymous said...

Thursday's Express was encouraging Halloween enthusiasts to buy their costumes for the Nightmare on M Street bar crawl at Party City in Rockville for a free ticket with $25 purchase. Express encouraged readers to pick out "a costume--be it clever, cliche or downright slutty (no judgment from us!)"

Insignificant? Or just rendered insignificant/mundane because 'slutty' is so written into our vocabulary?

Halloween quotes said...

Happy Halloween to all!

this is ladies night

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