Barely scary

Further to this, this and Wednesday's treeware column, which I didn't get around to blogging, this cartoon by Andy Marlette which says it all.

And for good measure, a snip from Wednesday's treeware musings:

Mr. and Mississauga, this weekend, when your daughter spurns the Hermione sweater vest for the prostitot getup, be ready to put up a fight.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I loved to smear lipstick on my face and wear my mother's cocktail dresses. You can be sure I wanted to go out looking like jail bait. But no way would I have gotten past the foyer.

Which is why I got nostalgic at last week's Mad Men when Sally and Bobby dressed as a gypsy and a hobo.

One Halloween, my dark-haired sister, Irene, was outfitted – all from stuff we had in the house – like a gypsy, while I had dirty smears on my face as a hobo.

I was insanely jealous of her eye makeup.

Now, of course, homemade costumes just won't do. At least not from what I can see every year at this time: frazzled parents lining up to get into It's My Party on the Danforth, where all the Riverdalers go for their Halloween supplies.

It's also where big girls can go for their outfits, invariably skimpy sexed-up versions of nurses or sorceresses.

But, no need to look for parking. Just Google "Halloween costumes sexy" – and you'll find all you need to look as if you're working in the kinky division of your local brothel.

Even in plus sizes.

If you hit the club district this Saturday night, you'll see sexy French maids, sexy firefighters, sexy everything.

As for the guys, they may be costumed, or not.

Consider how the men dress up: more often than not as zombies or vampires, gangsters or super- heroes, athletes or cops.

Boys and men invariably opt for personas that represent power or strength, for good or bad. I can't count the number of Freddy Kruegers that continue to show up at my door on Halloween.

So what is it about the female sex that drives them to strut their stuff in thigh-high fishnets at least once a year?

That's a heck of a lot scarier than some of the ghosts, monsters and other fright sights back in the day. Check out these vintage photos for the homemade hauntings I can recall.

Happy Halloween.

Via Sociological Images.

Comments

[hysperia]

I made the BEST Halloween costumes for my kids if I do say so myself. MUCH more fun than buying stuff. Funny, they thought they were lucky not to have store bought. A further note - while taking my grandson for a walk around his neighbourhood this week, I was stunned by the elaborite Halloween decorations - very few of the homemade variety. From fullscale graveyards replete with bodies hanging out of open coffins to a spiderweb that covered the entire front of a house out to the end of its property line. Sheesh. Competition in the burbs.

[NY]

oh antonia, you will love this video. i'm a little surprised it hasn't foumd you yet. it fits in well with the column http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1715915

[Jim M]

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as a Halloween song that is not scary. I swear, by the moon and the stars in the sky!
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Gods_Will/485658

[stellersjay]

Antonia, I've been noticing the same thing with dismay for some years. Recently, I ran across a blog whose author is pretty tired of it too. She referred to the day as Slutoween.

[Jim M]

I hope stellarsjay used to enjoy Halloween as a child, and things like that classic, old CNE ride called laugh in the dark.

[Jim M]

In catching up on my Google News Alerts, the article at the other end of the link below ends up fitting with this topic even though my key alert words of "original sin" do not normally yield this type of search result.

"Do you know what that pointy hat really means?"

Read more:http://www.momlogic.com/2009/10/witch_hunts_fear_of_womens_uncanny_power.php