When Did Halloween Become Skankoween?

Yeah – I know – I’m old. I make frequent jokes about it!

But I remember when I was a child and when Halloween costumes were BPA-laden face masks and an outfit that ripped if you breathed on it wrong. Costumes for adults were very simple and they were designed to scare people…not as a way to show off your new Miracle Bra!

Then I went to college and we got such racy costumes as dressing like an M&M or even a head-to-toe red bodysuit, with a tail and horns. THAT was the “risque outfit”, because you had to have a built like a brick (ahem) “poophouse” to pull that costume off! Most of the costumes for adults involved a large foam “thing” (Queen of Hearts, M&M, etc) and tights. They didn’t require a miracle bra and a gym membership to wear them!

Fast-forward 23 years and I think I must have been asleep, because I missed something. Sexy Bert & Ernie? Why not just have a sexy Mr. Rogers and have the woman wear nothing but a cardigan (underwear optional!)?

Then we have women “empowering themselves” by taking over the character of a horror movie:

Sexy “Chucky” for Women

Yeah – because there is nothing that I look forward to more than taking my 6, 9 and 11 year-old to a house where the treats are handed out by a chick with implants wearing red thigh-highs and wielding an ax!

But this one has to be the worst:

Because When I Think Of Ursula From The Little Mermaid, I Think “Size 2!”

Here we have a costume based on a VERY plus-sized woman…but the Ursula costume isn’t available if you are larger than a size 14.  The ONE character in Disneyana that isn’t a twig yet was a confident (albeit evil) woman?  Fatties need not apply if they want to be her this year!

Halloween is and has always been a holiday for kids.  It is not a night to unleash your inner whore! I know that Halloween is a great night to go out to the bars and hook up if you aren’t at home mindlessly telling 200 kids how their costume is the BEST ONE EVER (not that I am jealous of you or anything) but could you please de-skankify it a bit?  I’m not saying that red-thigh-high costumes (once a year) are the reason that my daughter is asking me to tie her shirt in a knot above her belly-button…but PLEASE!

Here are some costumes/characters that should NEVER be made “sexy”:

• Bert & Ernie
• Ursula the Sea Witch
• Strawberry Shortcake
• My Little Pony
• Bratz (they are already slutty enough)
• Blues Clues
• Mary Poppins
• Zombies (do I stab you in the brain?  Jump your bones?  It’s just too confusing!)
• The Flying Nun (see – “I’m old” mentioned above)
• Any Childrens cartoon

Of course – one of you is going to say “Min – these are costumes for ADULTS…not children!  Stop being so stick-in-the-muddy! They wear these to go out to parties with their friends”.  But here is the problem….the catalogs that come to my house with a kid-appropriate cover invariably have these kinds of costumes as well.  These are the costumes that I expect to see in a Fredericks Of Hollywood catalog not one that comes to my house with a picture of Buzz Lightyear on the cover! I would like to be the perfect parent who goes through every 890-page catalog before my children see the mail…but sometimes I am just not.

So what say you?  Am I wrong to be upset about the “Skankifying of Halloween”?