What’s the real price of Halloween?
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It’s safe to say that Syracuse University is a school with a large social scene, and the pressure to go out at least three times a week is a known fact. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights are spent dancing the night away with friends. Sometimes, you’ll even be looked down upon for not going out. Oh, and don’t even get us started on the expectation to go out at night after a full day of dartying.
Halloweekend is on an entirely different level when going out, and this year is no exception. Halloween falls on a Monday this year, meaning it will be celebrated from Thursday to Monday night–it’s a five-day “weekend.”
In conjunction with the pressure to go out, there’s a pressure to dress up in different costumes for every night of Halloweekend, and it’s problematic. Besides the overwhelming peer pressure to drink yourself silly, there’s a heavy emphasis on wearing creative, cute, and slutty costumes.
New costumes are trending every year, and it’s frowned upon to repeat the same costume as last year. Not only does this make the holiday more stressful, but it also takes the fun out of it and breaks the bank. Fast fashion provides an unethical solution to our extremely capitalistic problem; it has made costumes incredibly affordable, with a dark nurse costume, for example, costing $11 from Shein, versus $40 from Dollskill.
In addition to the ongoing expenses and stress when finding a Halloween costume, there’s massive pressure on women (especially at SU) to dress “slutty” for the holiday weekend. The idea of dressing revealing for Halloween stretches back decades, with the most infamous example coming from the hit movie “Mean Girls.”
Although “Mean Girls” came out in 2004, it’s considered one of our generation’s most defining movies. Aside from the cliques, bullying, and general backstabbing among the main characters, Halloween is one of the turning points of the movie. Cady, the protagonist, gives the movie one of its most infamous quotes: “In Girl World, Halloween is the one day a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything else about it.”
When Cady doesn’t dress slutty for Halloween, she’s rejected by her crush, Aaron. Through this plot, the movie equates revealing costumes with desirability. This scene reaffirmed the narrative that girls have to dress slutty on Halloween for male attention. While the message wasn’t uttered outright to our young minds, the implication still stuck.
The overwhelming pressure to binge drink, succumb to consumerism, and dress slutty on Halloween is not only problematic but also doesn’t seem worth it just for one weekend.
Besides, after all this effort, the only thing students get after Halloweekend is the frat flu.
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