Opinion

Halloween costumes causing controversy

Halloween fever has officially hit Tech. I’m loving every minute of it, but there’s one thing that keeps bothering me.

Why are we so judgmental about people’s costumes?

We’re too old to walk around and fill an old pillowcase with free candy. All we have left is the right to dress like crazy people.

After all, unless you’re a regular at themed parties, Halloween is the one time of year that you get to wear whatever you want.

And I’m not talking about a plaid shirt and striped pants. I’m talking about dressing like there is no such thing as normalcy.

If you feel like wrapping yourself in foil and dancing the robot, then go for it.

Do you want to wear fangs and a cape while you run errands? Then this is your one chance to do it and not look like you’ve read the Twilight series one too many times.

So let’s stop worrying so much and enjoy all the holiday has to offer.

Late October is always a busy time for the social lives of college students.

Think of any event then add the word “haunted” in front of it and chances are you’ve named something happening in Cookeville. We have everything from haunted corn mazes to haunted half-marathons.

After walking through a haunted you-name-it and being chased by the obligatory chain-saw-wielding maniac, it’s time to get ready for all the Halloween parties.

That means it’s time to get a costume.

Freshman year of college, I learned that costumes are not all considered equal. There is a definite hierarchy of costumes and you will be judged according to what you wear.

First, there’s the elaborate and creative home-made costume. This is the highest in the college costume hierarchy. It’s clever, so it obviously took some planning. Another plus is that no one else will be wearing the same thing.

Next on the hierarchy is the standard store-bought costume. It didn’t take a lot of effort, but you did what was necessary to arrive at the party looking like something far removed from your everyday self.

One more down is the slapped together homemade costume. You don’t want to spend the time to make a costume or the money to buy a costume so you throw on a lab coat and goggles you found earlier in Foster Hall and tell everyone that you’re a mad scientist. This category is still passable.

The lowest and most controversial of the costume categories is the sexy costume. This can be homemade or store bought. Take any costume idea, make it tight and possibly short, and you’ve got a sexy costume.

For some reason this category is only applicable to the ladies. I’ve seen plenty of sexy slave Princess Leia costumes, but I’ve never seen a guy show up as sexy Darth Vader.

The college population has a strange obsession with the sexy costume category. We can’t decide if we love it or hate it.

I’ve never heard a guy at a Halloween party complain that he’s sitting next to a miniskirt-wearing pirate. He’s probably busy sending a mental thank-you note to whoever designed the costume.

But any other day of the year, the same guy will describe Halloween as “the one day a year girls get a free pass dress like sluts.”

Really, guys? You came to the party as Justin Timberlake from the SNL skit “[fill in the blank] in a box” and you’re judging us about having too sexual a costume on Halloween?

Girls can be just as bad. Instead of enjoying the party, some of them will spend the whole time talking about how that sexy firefighter girl is just desperate for attention.

Let’s be clear: if you show up to a Halloween party and wear a costume of any kind, then you want attention. If you didn’t want people looking at your costume then you would have stayed home watching YouTube clips all night.

This is our one chance to wear whatever we want. If we keep judging each other and making up all of these costume rules then we’re missing the point.

I don’t care if you show up as a sexy librarian, a homemade and historically accurate Charlemagne or if you just draw dark circles around your eyes and call yourself a zombie. It’s only a costume.

So let’s forget about insulting others’ costumes and get back to what really matters: jumping out of corners wearing ski masks to scare our roommates half to death.

Happy Halloween, everyone.