While there’s been a lot of talk this Halloween season about the prevalence of sexy ladies’ costumes being marketed towards younger and younger demographics, there hasn’t been much talk about “bad-taste” costumes. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been seeing and hearing about lots of ideas for these desperate cries for attention and, naturally, we have opinions about them. Here is our review:
1. Amish schoolgirl:
Sure, the recent shootings at an Amish school were tragic and harrowing, but that’s no reason for crass hipsters not to take advantage of it. Dressing as an Amish schoolgirl says, “I am incapable of imagining the unpleasant things that happen to people who aren’t me.” We actually saw several ladies rocking the Amish look during the Critical Mass event in San Francisco, last week. Mass murder and bicycling; an unbeatable combination. Still, while the female outfits were suitably shocking, the dudes tricked out in the Amish gear just looked silly. Grade: B- for the ladies, D for the lads.
2. Steve Irwin:
This one loses points for being too easy; a trip to the local large sports retailer, and you’re done. Sure, anyone can be an asshole, but you don’t want to be just anyone, do you? Make an effort to inform others that you live a shallow, meaningless existence by putting some work into making others uncomfortable. What’s worse is that South Park already did this joke, so you’re going to come off as something worse than a person with bad taste — you’ll be seen as terribly unoriginal. Still, if you’ve already got the khakis, don’t despair; add a jaunty Nazi armband, and you’ll be able to go to the party as Prince Harry. Grade: F.
3. Duke lacrosse player and stripper:
Here’s one for the couples. Nothing says, “I don’t really care that a sexual assault occurs every two-and-a-half minutes in America,” like this saucy outfit. But, there are problems with this particular expression of disregard for cloudy, confused rape cases. Anybody who opts for this costume had better get used to hearing, “Now, what are you again?” If you wind up apart from your partner for any length of time, the just-raped stripper look might make sense, but what the hell are people supposed to think about a lone lacrosse player? What do they even look like? The other thing is that it’s so obvious that you really wanted to dress like Kobe Bryant and alleged victim, but couldn’t, because you’re not black. All in all, we’d suggest that this costume would be a mistake except for the following condition: the woman should dress as the lacrosse player, and the man should be the stripper. Yes, drag is the only thing that can save this outfit. Grade: D-.
