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How today’s Halloween costumes focus more on the “look” than the “gore”

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at San Francisco chapter.

Halloween is always a fun time of the year to get away with excess amount of candy from our orange pumpkin shaped buckets, decorating homes with fake spider webs and other creepy accessories, but most importantly it is about dressing up as any fiction or non-fictional character that you’ve always wanted to be.

Trick-or-treating is a tradition that is mostly popular amongst the younger generation. As children, it’s very easy to take advantage of the opportunity and dress up as princesses, witches, angels, ghosts, and more. We exploded with excitement and joy when Halloween came around and as a result, some of us would get cavities from consuming all the free candy.

Now, as we grow older and out of the candy collecting phase, our main priority becomes our physical appearance- choosing the perfect costume that will give much wanted recognition among our peers.

True, as a child the goal was who could look the scariest or who could be the goriest, but going into college, students start transitioning toward another look. The playing field has changed and it is no longer who is scary, but rather who can be more sexy.

Girls are no longer girls, but women with shirts to fill. For one reason or another, women’s costumes are being made more and more revealing. The little amount of fabric being used, the more the product costs. The fun of being able to dress up has turned into a competition of who can could look more attractive. Some girls take Halloween as an opportunity to dress more inappropriate without being told anything? Many characters have lost their innocence.

For example, Disney princesses went from elegant gowns to short mini skirts with the exception of a tiara. The young Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz also went from cute and simple to a skimpy dress with tulle added under the skirt, red, high platform heels, and thigh high white socks (as if that will make a difference).

Costumes from the 90s were less revealing and simply focused on obtaining the goal of looking identical to the character. As time went on, costumes in the year 2000s were less focused on what the character looked like, but more on how sl*tty the character could look. Even girls dressed as angels transformed into “naughty” angels, which defeats the purpose of dressing the part.

As quoted in the well known movie Mean Girls, main character Cady says, “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total sl*t and no other girl can say anything about it.” This quote has become a much used excuse among girls. Whether this statement is one to follow really depends on the person that takes the initiative to cover up or reveal more.

Photo by Brittany Randolph, Flickr
 

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Jessica Schimm

San Francisco

Jessica is journalism major finishing her senior year at San Francisco State University. She founded and lead San Francisco State’s Her Campus branch as Editor-in-Chief for two semesters and now helps run it as managing editor due to other internships responsibilities.  Her passion for magazine and online journalism has led her current online internships at 7x7 and California Home & Design magazines in San Francisco. She also was the social media editor for her award-winning college paper last semester.When Jessica is not working hard in school she spends her time working on her blog, Women Who Run San Francisco and cheering on the San Francisco Giants (world series champs!!). Having been a competitive Irish dancer for 15 years, she knows that it takes practice, hard work and determination to meet her goals. It is through these qualities that she plans to become editor-in-chief at a leading women’s magazine.