Ah yes, I remember some of the Halloween costumes I wore when I was a wee freckled child:
— a yellow rabbit
— the Artful dodger
— a witch
— Laura Ingalls
All pretty much home-made and thrown together.
But just imagine: if I were a child now, look at the costume I could wear!!
I’m making a joke – only because I am sick to my stomach.
And do me a favor: Please no world-weary “well, what did you expect with the way society’s going?” comments. You bore me already. The day people, as a whole, become incapable of outrage is the day that I will give up hope on society.
And not a moment before.
Too late for this year: booked solid. Halloween 2005 in New Orleans, anyone? ;-)
Over the years I was a bee, a crayon, Raggedy Ann, a hobo, a mad scientist and others. I think if I remotely suggested a ho costume, my mother would’ve slapped me until next Halloween. And rightfully so.
A mad scientist. That is heart-crackingly cute.
The really sad thing about this is that I am sure there are far fewer children who would want to wear these costumes than there are parents who would want their children to wear them. My consolation is that society is actually getting better. The abuse of children has been more acceptable through most of human history than it is now.
That costume could cause kids to have Holiday Confusion. “HO,HO,HO” takes on an all new meaning. I agree with Bryan. Without their parents’ influence, few children would choose a Child Pimp costume for Halloween. For me, I remember the old hose over face/hobo faithful that got me through several trick or treat evenings.
“Oh, wouldn’t it be so cute to dress my son up as a pimp?”
I mean – who the hell ARE these people? grrrr
Dah, these kids and their Music Television…
;)
Actually, If I wore that as a kid…I’d have set back race relations by about 40 years.
“Andrew…don’t you ever go into his family’s house again! Do you hear me?!”
Well, it’s evidence at least some businesses still subscribe to the theory of amorality. There’s a demand, never mind what, someone will come along to fill it. I think Bryan has it right, about certain parents. I once worked with a woman who thought it was cute to have a fake policewoman/stripper at her husband’s 50th birthday party at which their under-10 grandchildren were present. Some people are alive only because it’s against the law to kill ’em.
On a lighter note, some of my costume highlights, child through adult:
Batman (still have the picture somewhere)
obscure 1960s Cleveland Browns RB/KR Reece Morrison
Darth Vader (twice, and homemade both times, complete with Mattel Electronic Football II taped to my nauagahyde breastplate)
Luke Skywalker (also homemade)
Indiana Jones
The Shadow
The Green Hornet (sans cool Mercury Cougar, alas)
Edward Scissorhands (again, homemade)
Cyrano de Bergerac (once again, homemade, except for a real rapier)
Shakespeare (Shakespeare in Love edition).
If I have time this year I’m going for Bill “the Butcher” Cutting.
My older son has been a dinosaur, a slice of pizza, Batman, and Buzz Lightyear (twice). I suspect he’ll be wanting Spider-Man this year. My younger son has been, so far, a jack-o-lantern.
think of all the jon benet ramseys of the world, where you’ve got lots of parents dressing the little girls up as tarts year round. disgusting.
yuck!
this is right up there with little miss hooters and the “baby porn star” wear…
I think people have it backwards when they talk about ‘corrupting’ and ‘sexualizing’ kids. It’s not what they’re projecting onto them. It’s worse. It’s what they’re taking, in fact stealing, in the process…their innocence; this amazing, precious, essential period before adolescence, a time that by rights should be resplendant with schoolkid crushes and storybook fantasy and glorious naiveté, a reservoir of happiness to draw upon when kids finally face the inevitable and often unpleasant realities of grown-up life.
Our casual devaluation and dismissal of childhood is truly unconscionable behavior masking as smirking ‘evolved’ hipness.
On a side note, I was slightly disappointed not to find any kiddy meth addicts amongst the featured costumes.
what bill said. I didn’t even UNDERSTAND that prostitution existed until I was at least 12.
What’s the value in getting kids to know about that crap early on? I’m just bewildered. Like it’s a good thing?
I’ve seen teenagers wearing t-shirts (or slightly older teenagers with bumperstickers on cars) declaring themselves “Superpimp.”
Maybe I don’t understand pop culture and its evolution, but to me pimp = exploitative, mean person who will sell women’s bodies for his own material gain. Not exactly something to look up to.
Ah well. My childhood costumes were thus:
Fuzzy kitty
Fuzzy mouse (several years; the costume was large and I grew slowly as a kid).
I think one year I was a generic superheroine.
and then, in high school, one year I went as a little girl (not very successful; I wore a short full skirt and carried a giant lollipop),
an alligator (this was an elaborate costume; my mother helped me make it. The real joke of it was I wore a polo shirt over it with a little man on the left breast; this was at the height of the Izod popularity. I guess I was sort of a walking Far Side cartoon that day).
Holden Caulfield, and,
most successfully, Opus the penguin. (Old tuxedo bought at a rummage sale; pink felt shoe covers, “head” with eyes and beak build onto a baseball cap).
ricki:
You are my new hero. You were Holden Caulfield for Halloween? What was the costume??
Bill –
I really like what you said, even though it made me dreadfully sad. That what is happening is that children are having their childhoods stolen from them.
I saw a documentary on HBO about the whole Little Beauty Queen sub-culture, and it was one of the most upsetting things I’ve ever seen in my life.
Anyone else see it?
My friend Allison and I were both up one morning at, like, 6 am – and tripped over the documentary – and watched the whole thing – riveted. Disgusted.
The abuse, both sexual and physical, of children is a matter of great concern to me for some very personal reasons, and really it needs to become a matter of greater concern for society because society as a whole suffers for it. It is well documented that abused children become abusers in turn, and you can walk into a prison and, if you can get the inmates to talk to you, listen to story after story of abused childhoods. Hitler was brutally abused as a child; Stalin was brutally abused as a child. I don’t know anything about Saddam Hussein’s childhood, but I’ll bet you dollars to holes in donuts that he was brutally abused as a child. We all pay the price for what happens to children.