Yesterday my friend asked me to go shopping with her for a Halloween costume. I thought this couldn't possibly take more than two hours... FALSE. We spent four and a half hours scouring the area for a reasonably priced, well-fitting costume that covers more than 10% of your body's surface area. Do you have any idea how expensive most of these pre-packaged costumes are? A Slutty Dorothy costume is $50! And that doesn't even include ruby slippers or Toto! I never realized how many beloved fairy tale characters have been sluttified into Halloween costumes: Slutty Snow White, Slutty Little Bo Peep, Slutty Miss Muffet, Slutty Goldilocks, Slutty Every-Character-From-Alice-In-Wonderland (seriously: Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts- you name it), even Slutty Blue Mary Peasant (I've never even heard of her). Of course, all of these are just variations on the same basic template: a your-mother-would-be-ashamed top piece with either lace, glitter, or rhinestones (preferably all of the above); a so-short-why-even-bother? skirt; and some kind of sheer or fishnet knee-high stockings.
Seeing all these ridiculous costumes, modeled by women who look like their ample bosoms and size-zero waists are mocking your pasty love handles, I couldn't help but feel like all the progress women have made in the past 100 years was being slowly undone. The worst part is that for the same amount of money you pay for most of the generic slutty women's costumes, you could buy a men's Teletubby costume! (I'm not kidding- I checked the prices.) What's wrong with this picture? A women's costume can't be more than four square feet of nearly-sheer fabric, while a Teletubby costume is an enormous neon body-suit made of enough foam and polyester to feed a small family for a week (for the purposes of this argument, let's assume people actually ate foam and polyester). It just doesn't seem fair. But I suppose that's why they call it "Halloween" and not "National Women's Self-Respect Day." I'd write more about the injustice of this beloved holiday, but 'Hocus Pocus' is playing on Disney channel. Oh, who am I kidding? I have the DVD.