Opinion

College refashions Halloween costumes from spooky to skanky

By Sarah Hellier

October 28, 2010

With Halloween approaching, one of the best ways to embrace your chills is to watch a couple scary movies or hit up a haunted house. However, since I’ve been at college Halloween seems to have become more about the provocative costumes than anything else.

When I was a freshman, I had this great plan to be the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz. I found some green body paint and looked up a costume that I was going to order online. Although, when I asked my friends about the idea (thank God I did) they informed me that they were being characters such as a slutty nurse, a naughty baseball player, or one of my friends just decided to get straight to the point and dressed as a stripper. Basically, I realized that if I decided to go ahead with the witch idea, I would end up in a Lindsay Lohan situation from the movie “Mean Girls.” I might as well have just dressed up as a slutty Dorthy than going as something scary.

I ended up falling to peer pressure, but I’m glad I did. When I got to the party, even the boys were showing skin. One boy was a UPS man with disturbingly short shorts and a cut off top, another was wearing nothing but a Speedo and holding a paper bong. Any guesses to whom he claimed to be?

Anyway, I was terrified. For girls, I knew Halloween had turned into the day where it was socially acceptable to dress up as a skank, but I didn’t know it would go as far as guys in Speedos.

According to the History Channel, Halloween is a mix of “ancient Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European folk traditions that blended together over time to create the holiday we know.”

Halloween is a day of celebration and also superstition. It has commonly been thought of as a day when the dead can return to the earth.

So where did the costumes originate?

“The ancient Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off the roaming ghosts.”

I don’t think the slutty baseball player costume would have made the cut. “Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday.” I wonder how much the Speedo and paper bong costume costs? Maybe I’ll look into it.

This year, I decided to get a consensus of what costumes my friends are wearing. (God forbid two people show up to a party with the same one) There were actually some very creative ones such as: a group of people being a rainbow with a pot of gold and a leprechaun, Thing One and Thing Two (Dr. Seuss) and, my personal favorite, a pizza box (the guy explained to me he is actually wearing nothing but a pizza box).

I asked a girl sitting in the University Center what she planned on being. She replied, “I would like to be a witch. You know, like the witch from that play, Wicked.”

I sure hope this girl has kind enough friends to explain to her what college Halloween is actually all about.

Sarah Hellier is a student at UW-River Falls.