Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Are Halloween Costumes TOO Sexy?

I came across this topic from yesterday's Cenk Uygur/Young Turks on the Current TV network.

What is sad is that I haven't seen it brought up anywhere else. Sadly, I could not find a video clip of that interview about girls, sexualization at increasingly early ages, and specifically Halloween.

But I did find this clip about a more general issue of this as a problem. And that in turn has linked me to MissRepresentation.org. which has information about Halloween Costumes and our cultural assumptions.  Their article on Halloween costumes follows after the youtube video.

But if you have any questions about what the result of this kind of sexualization results in, look at the 'HoneyBooBoo' video clip that follows afterwards.


Why Halloween costume advertising is pretty much the worst
by Leah Debber

Anyone who has seen a packaged Halloween costume in the past few years has probably caught a glimpse of what the holiday has (de)evolved into. Halloween, which for many was once a time for candy and spooky stories, has been overrun by hyper-sexualized imagery. The day has largely become about the body and, more specifically, about the young, white, fit (and busty!) female body.
While there is nothing wrong with this body type in and of itself (or wanting to dress however you please on this day or any other day), the Halloween costume industry has featured it almost exclusively. This not only supports a form of body shaming, but it largely excludes women of color and of different sizes and ages from appearing in Halloween culture.
The over-saturation of the ‘perfect’ body image that is featured on costume package after costume package is selling more than just a revealing outfit. By emphasizing this one ideal, women who look different face forms of body shaming and alienation. Full-figured women, older women, and women of color are discouraged from participating in Halloween culture because they do not fit the image that is advertised as ‘acceptable’ for most costumes. It is implied that the only person who should be wearing a provocative costume is someone who is young, white, slender, and female.
The seemingly conscious decision to exclude most women from costume packages is completely unacceptable (there is, apparently, more body diversity on retailer websites). A lack of visibility and diversity implies that there is something wrong with differing from the created norm, or that it is somehow unappealing. This encourages women to further contemplate the way they look – something the media already encourages us to do the rest of the year – rather than kicking back to enjoy the holiday season.

The adult women’s costume section isn’t the only place that revels in body shaming though, as many even more problematic and offensive costumes can be found in the “funny” section of men’s costumes.
Some say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery — but when it comes to Halloween costumes that mock the female body, that’s certainly not the case. Take, for example, Spirit Halloween’s “Giant Boob” costume. Nothing says respect for a woman more than a piece of her detached anatomy. And if that amount of objectification alone isn’t funny enough for you, have no fear, the nipple squeaks too!
Or how about Spirit’s “Droopers” costume? The costume comes with attached breasts which “droop” beneath a short crop top. The description asks, “ever wonder what happens to the girls who work at Hooters? There’s no real retirement plan when you’re a waitress”.
These costumes are shaming the bodies of women by turning them into objects meant to be ridiculed by men (note that these only appear in the men’s section). A breast is either ‘hot’ and then accepted within the main sphere of Halloween costumes, or it’s ‘not’ and therefore it becomes funny. Because the Giant Boob is not attached to a real, ‘perfect’ woman’s body, it becomes comedic. In the same way, because the Drooper’s breasts ‘droop’ and differ from the ideal, they become hilarious. This sentiment is not only ageist, but it’s insulting to the different bodies of women. There is already enough conversation that occurs on behalf of women’s bodies around Halloween (and in our culture at large), to which these costumes only add an extra disturbing element.
The point of this piece is not to demonize those who look like the women on the costume covers, or to bully all those who choose to sport these costumes. But rather it is a call-to-action for people to start thinking critically about our limited and gendered options for Halloween, and how they affect how we think about ourselves and each other. There are so many things about Halloween culture that are problematic, and looking at costumes is just scratching the surface. Hyper-sexualization, the prizing of some bodies over others and gender stereotyping has created a climate that actively perpetuates sexism in society.
Maybe it’s time we asked retailers like Spirit Halloween to take a stand and stop contributing to this harmful trend.


3 comments:

  1. Here Comes HoneyBooBoo is on TLC, which I thought was initials for The Learning Channel?

    Likewise, some of the shite which is on Discovery (e.g., Ted "Chickenhawk" Nugent, whom I hope is no realtion to Robert Nugent since Ted disgraces the name).

    But, as the misrepresentation clip points out, this is the fault of commercial media and why the right hate real public broadcasting--the advertisers control the message.

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  2. TLC used to be the learning channel. It was started by the the Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare, in cooperation with NASA, beamed off the NASA satellite at no charge.

    Wikipedia tracks what happened to it when it was privatized - which should be a warning to all of us about what happens when something of value and usefulness and importance - and integrity - is privatized.

    Here's a history of the TLC channel from wikipedia:

    The Learning Channel: “a place for learning minds”

    The channel was founded in 1972 by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and NASA as an informative/instructional network focused on providing real education through the medium of TV; it was distributed at no cost by NASA satellite. It was privatized in 1980 and was then named the Appalachian Community Service Network.[1][2] In November 1980 this name was changed to "The Learning Channel", which was subsequently shortened to "TLC."[3] The channel mostly featured documentary content pertaining to nature, science, history, current events, medicine, technology, cooking, home improvement and other information-based topics. These are often agreed to have been more focused, more technical, and of a more academic nature than the content that was being broadcast at the time on its rival, The Discovery Channel. The station was geared towards an inquisitive and narrow audience during this time, and had modest ratings except for "Captain's Log with Captain Mark Gray". This was a boating safety series which aired on TLC from 1987 to 1990 and achieved between a 4.5 to 6 in the ratings. "Captain's Log" was also the highest compensated series in the history of TLC, with over 30 times the compensation of any other series on TLC at that time and was allowed to sign yearly rather than quarterly contracts.

    By the early 1990s, The Learning Channel was a sister channel to the Financial News Network (FNN) which owned 51 percent of the channel with Infotechnology Inc. After FNN went into bankruptcy in 1991, the Discovery Channel's owners went into talks of buying The Learning Channel. An agreement was made with FNN and Infotech to buy their shares for $12.75 million. The non-profit Appalachian Community Service Network owned 35 percent of the network, and was also bought out.[4][5]

    The Learning Channel continued to focus primarily on instructional and educational programming through much of the '90s but began to air shows less focused on education and more themed towards popular consumption and mass marketing; these would be later expanded.

    TLC still aired educational programs such as Paleoworld (a show about prehistoric creatures), though more and more of its programming began to be devoted to niche audiences for shows regarding subjects like home improvement (HomeTime and Home Savvy were two of the first), arts and crafts (similar to Martha Stewart), crime programs such as The New Detectives, medical programming (particularly reality-based ones following real operations of real people and following them through the process), and other shows that appealed to daytime audiences, particularly housewives. This was to be indicative of a major change in programming content and target audience over the next few years.

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