Fairytales have served many purposes in their history. These tales can educate, warn, or provide an escape for the reader. Halloween is the quintessential holiday when people dress us to become someone else. So it is fitting that there is a whole industry that is dedicated to the creation of fairytale inspired Halloween costumes. I began to research the gamut of fairytale costumes, and here is what I found.
These costumes are very tailored to women and young girls (which is not very surprising…the only time a man would dress up in a prince charming costume is if a girl made him). The costumes of the young female demographic are what one would expect. Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty…the costumes for these characters are all available, complete with matching shoes. They’re the kind of costumes that make adults say “aww” and cough up more candy. Although the stereotypical image of characters like Snow White have been popularized by Disney films, these costumes look like what you would typically expect from a costume or image from a fairytale.
On the other hand, we have the adult fairytale costumes. As college students, we already know that Halloween means something much different for the average young adult than it does for the average young child. These costumes are not only short and revealing, but they embody sex in a very obvious way. Somehow, the classic characters of (pictured here) “Little” Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Gretel, and Cinderella have transformed into tight-fitted, corseted, ridiculously high-heeled women with body-hugging clothes that don’t leave a lot to the imagination. Since when does Riding Hood wear laced up black platform boots and striped tights? Wouldn’t young Gretel from the original fairytale get cold while wearing that shoulder and leg-baring get-up? And don’t even get me started on the Snow White costume’s high red stockings and dangerously short yellow skirt. Oh also, Cinderella looks like she just came from shooting a porn film.
Obviously, the theme of making sexy and revealing Halloween costumes for women is not new, but it’s interesting to see how these costumes (which, by definition, is a set of clothes in a style typical of a particular country or historical period) barely relate to the original fairytales. I don’t know what’s more sad…the fact that these types of scandalous costumes are on the market, or that people our age actually buy them.
I totally agree with you, Jean. The way they portray these fairy tale characters is sad and degrading to women (not unlike every other Halloween costume made for young women). I especially think it's all the more effective when you place the children's and the adult's costumes side by side - and all the more disturbing. I don't understand why Halloween has come to have that connotation in recent years, but I think it's very telling of our society.
ReplyDeleteI especially feel that in recent years the idea of using something from one's childhood as an idea for a costume and then taking that figure and making it "adult" is a common practice. Therefore, the use of slutty fairy tale costumes has been on the rise, from what I can tell. This idea alone is disconcerting to me. The obsession that our society has with youth has obviously gone to an extreme with practices such as plastic surgery and botox. However, this idea of going back to your youth in costume is really kind of alarming. Someone who chooses to dress in this manner is trying to appear attractive to men through using a character that they already know from their youth and sexing it up. A girl is trying to appear both youthful and grown-up at the same time, but it is all the more "naughty" because it is such a blatantly innocent figure that she is transforming into something wildly inappropriate. The thought of that is really disturbing to me. What's wrong with dressing up as a ghost or a pumpkin? Do we really need to go there every year? I think not.
After reading all of these fairy tales in their much earlier versions, I'm surprised that you are so shocked that they could be made to be sexual figures. Many of these stories were originally very sexual in nature, so after arguing about Perrault, the Grimms, and Walt Disney toning them down, shouldn't we be praising these costume designers for getting back to the roots of these classic tales. Perhaps no fairy tale shows this better than early versions of Little Red Riding Hood. The wolf is a sexual predator that wants Red to get naked and climb into bed with him. So why are we complaining about some skimpy clothes, but we have no problem with the meanings of these fairy tales?
ReplyDeleteObviously that is not the issue at hand here, and I'm being rather facetious. But, the last person I'm going to blame for this is the company that makes money on costumes such as these. The question is WHY do girls wear costumes like this? Don't blame men, most men enjoy seeing a cute girl in anything skimpy, no preference for fairy tales. So as much as we make fun of the girls who want to be princesses, and dress up like Disney characters, aren't these costumes proof that girls never really grow out of that mentality?
To quote one of my all time favorite comedies (Mean Girls): “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” I wholeheartedly agree with this view. That is not to say that I endorse it but it is undoubtedly true. For those of us who are of legal drinking age or of “legal drinking age” and have been at Fever Feve on Halloween, there are many girls who particularly embrace this line of thinking (my personal favorite the girls who dress up as the Victoria’s Secret “Angels” and show up in a bra and panties with wings). Hilarious. Girls, unfortunately I think your own views on this issue are extremely naïve. As Justin says, guys like a girl in anything skimpy. Sex is implicit in almost all the fairy tales that we have read on at least some level. To make these costumes and sex them up is to merely satisfy a need of the market. Though girls themselves judge one another as slutty, outfits like this bring about some level of sexual empowerment to girls. Rather than acting as a Little Red Riding who is the prey of the sexual creature the wolf, the girls are taking charge of their sexuality perhaps to prey on men. You may not like it but that doesn’t make it ineffective. I have an immense dislike for the notion that these images are fundamentally degrading to women. They present women as sexual beings but why is that given such a negative connotation from a girl’s perspective? If anything owning your sexual identity reflects a comfort within one’s self and an assuredness that most girls simply to use an amusing expressing don’t have the cojones for. Don’t get so up in arms about these outfits girls; they are simply erotic retellings of the characters we all know and love.
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