As many college students know, and as Cady Heron explained in “Mean Girls,” “Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” Classic “sexy” costumes include sexy nurse, sexy maid and sexy devil or angel.
It is, however, possible to take it too far. Earlier this month while surfing the web, I stumbled upon a pair of costumes called “Sexy Ernie and Bert,” meant for two females who are fans of children’s television programming but somehow feel it needs a more provocative edge.
After recovering from my initial shock and anger over this atrocity (Ernie is my favorite television puppet), I began to think about what other “unsexy” costumes there may be – costumes that should never be “sexy” but for some inexplicable reason have taken on that characteristic. A quick Google search turned up a Cracked article with 26 costumes of that exact specification. Highlights included Sexy Nemo, Sexy Darth Vader, Sexy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Sexy Hermione Granger (which is redundant if you ask me), Sexy Big Bird, Sexy Pregnant Raggedy Ann (which raises many questions that deserve their own article) and Sexy Small Child.
As I scrolled through the list, I noticed a pattern: these unsexy costumes seemed to focus around children’s entertainment, which is of course logical since these characters are meant to be enjoyed by children and not by those looking to show off their bodies in an alluring way.
With that in mind, I began to craft my own list of unsexy Halloween costumes. Initially I tried to stay away from children’s television and films for a variety of reasons – primarily that I did not want someone to pick up my list and think I had a strange ulterior motive. Sexy foods came to mind first because food is not typically something that will encourage someone to take you home.
I also began brainstorming unsexy animals, such as a sexy cow or sexy moose, and as I thought of that I realized that sexy animals in general just do not make sense. These costumes are popular for an inexplicable reason. If you found a mouse or cat sexy in real life, you would be considered a zoophile, and if you acted on those impulses, hauled off to jail for bestiality.
When I had exhausted those ideas, I then moved my list on to professions that are completely and inherently unsexy: a priest, a nun, the Editor in Chief of a print newspaper or a computer engineer.
When I finally reached the point where I could no longer avoid children’s programming, I realized that any costume based on children’s entertainment is inherently unsexy – characters like Big Bird just weren’t to be used in that way.
My favorite of the unsexy costumes that I came up with is Sexy Mr. Rogers: in nothing but a cardigan, Daisy Duke shorts and a pair of loafers, any person who wears this costume is sure to be shamed. Although I lacked a pair of Daisy Dukes and loafers, I own the perfect sweater for this costume and decided to see how it looked.
It’s going to be hard to wear that sweater respectfully again.
Ignoring other controversies that arise from sexy or “slutty” costumes, the idea has simply been taken too far. Though students may have enjoyed these characters 10 years ago when they were children, it is important to remember that what wasn’t made to be sexy should never be made sexy. Please, just refrain. A sexy Teletubby is just embarrassing.
Patrick Hoff can be reached at [email protected].
