Why Dress Up for Halloween?

Twisty the Clown from American Horror Story.

Twisty the Clown from American Horror Story.

Phillip Lemus, Staff Writer

Halloween is a holiday that many people and cultures around the world observe. This is also a time of year where children are blindsided into trick-or-treating for fun by the “corporations.” Children get to dress up for Hallow’s Eve, but why do we teenagers dress up? This is a question that doesn’t really need answering, but it’s going to get answered! Teenagers are grown-up enough to make their own decisions on whether or not they want to do something or buy something. In this case, they get to choose if they are dressing up for Halloween or not. From this writer’s perspective, it seems that dressing up for Halloween itself is a real challenge.

Guy dressed hilariously as Mario riding Yoshi.

It’s a challenge, since schools seem to censor what types of costumes are brought. We’re all teenagers here, so the writer assumes that students are open to crazy ideas. The thing is that students often bring costumes that are really on the nose crazy– like being a reggae guy or a sexy princess. Schools also aren’t so enthusiastic when it comes to teenage girls wearing rather “indecent” (non-appropriate) costumes, or when people wear gory makeup that can make someone puke at the mere sight of them. Speaking more on the subject of female costumes, there aren’t a lot of costumes out there that aren’t considered “sexy,” and this is, rather unfortunately, not going to change unless something is done. If guys get to wear costumes that are scary and diverse, then why isn’t that the case for women?  This type of sexist censorship in costumes is uncalled for–though taking the school’s part, they just want a safe, friendly, non-offensive environment that can harvest creativity– and not really that surprising. Is it so crazy to believe that schools want what’s best for their students, and that those schools strive to give students more costume choices on Halloween? Yet our high school seems to bar/ban a lot of costume choices!

Wow! How ironic.

Wearing a costume to school just seems pointless, unless these costumes for a purpose. I personally don’t mind wearing a costume to school, but it just seems like nowadays celebrating this holiday isn’t what it used to be. As a kid, you might like the idea of trick-or-treating for free candy–and for good reason because nothing says fun like walking around your neighborhood and asking your neighbors for candy. This childhood feeling won’t last forever because, as you grow, it will diminish and that’s actually pretty normal for most people. If you want to wear a costume in general, then that’s perfectly fine, but to truly capture the spirit of Halloween, in my opinion, is to celebrate in any way you’d want to celebrate. We should be able to make our own traditions, have a stance on whether we want to celebrate, and be able to wear whatever we want, even if it’s Christmas attire!