David Morrison at Sed Contra gets the hat tip for this particularly unfortunate development: pimp and "ho" Halloween costumes for young 'uns. (Click to enlarge the photos).
These charming outfits are being sold on Yahoo; let's send them a note today and see if we can make this particular ugliness go away.
The outfits are obviously caricatures of 1970s stereotypes about pimps and prostitutes. Interestingly, the children shown modeling the costumes are all white, while the classic pimp of the popular imagination (and of these clothes) is black. It's interesting, too, that only one "ho" outift is displayed, while several variations of pimp suits are for sale. David at Sed Contra only displays the photo of the little girl, but I find the idea of little boys dressing like pimps to be at least as disturbing as that of little girls appearing as sex workers.
Raising just and moral children involves not only shielding young girls from premature sexualization, it also involves making certain that young boys are not idolizing and emulating sexually predatory men.
That Pimp Daddy costume was on sale last year for Halloween. It sold out. Ick.
Posted by: Trish Wilson | August 26, 2004 at 01:57 PM
Grrr! Civil but icy note sent-Yet another reason to hope Halloween doesn't catch on here to any great extent. We have Guy Fawkes Day at any rate-Much more healthy to damn gunpowder treason. ;-)
Posted by: John | August 26, 2004 at 03:03 PM
I hate to tell you this, but if you start looking closely at children's Halloween costumes as cultural indicators, you're going to be seriously depressed.
I think some of the discussion needs to take into account the fact that Halloween is a classic 'festival of masks' in which reversals of fortune and status are par for the course and in which permission to violate norms is implicit.
Our attempts to make Halloween 'safe' physically have wandered into the idea that it should also be psychologically and culturally bound (thus, the annual brouhaha over some student who wants to dress up as Hitler, or Yassir Arafat, or Osama bin Laden, being the scariest people anyone can think of), and frankly I think that misses the point of the holiday.
Posted by: Jonathan Dresner | August 26, 2004 at 05:10 PM
Yes and no, Jonathan. Dressing as a devil or a ghost taps into traditional symbols of fear and evil -- and because small children are so unthreatening, the kids subvert those images. Most folks, even good evangelicals, don't really believe in ghosts.
We do believe in the existence of prostitutes and Osama bin Laden. The former represent our cultural failure to come to terms with the real meaning of sex, the latter represents a very real fear. Having a child dress as Hitler is chilling, having a child dress as a "ho" is abhorrent -- especially because small children have no sense of what it is that adults really fear about those things.
My concern is with the thought processes of the parent who buys his or her child a "ho" or pimp costume.
Posted by: Hugo | August 26, 2004 at 05:46 PM
We are talking about two very different classes of children. I'm mostly talking about children who chose their own costumes (teens, who know what they're doing, within the limits of teen cognition) and you're mostly talking about those who are having costumes thrust upon them.
In other words, I think we're both right. It's scary, if you'll pardon the reference, that even in discussing Halloween we have to define our terms and classes to have a discussion.....
Posted by: Jonathan Dresner | August 26, 2004 at 08:18 PM
We are talking about two very different classes of children. I'm mostly talking about children who chose their own costumes (teens, who know what they're doing, within the limits of teen cognition) and you're mostly talking about those who are having costumes thrust upon them.
In other words, I think we're both right. It's scary, if you'll pardon the reference, that even in discussing Halloween we have to define our terms and classes to have a discussion.....
Posted by: Jonathan Dresner | August 26, 2004 at 08:20 PM
Hugo, I found the pimp and ho costumes as abhorrent as you did, though I admit to having a chuckle over it (reminded me somehow of that SNL skit with Dan Akroyd as the president of a toy company who manufactures "Johnny Switchblad" costumes and the "bag-o-glass"). I'm waiting patiently for you to see and comment on the "Limited Too" ad that hawks clothing for preteen girls. On that same note, but in a different direction, how fabulous are the women of this olympics? Watch more tv! Welcome back by the way, glad the two of you are home safely.
Posted by: kelly | August 27, 2004 at 09:09 AM
Well, hmmm.. can't say I'm terribly surprised, but it is a new low.
My kids, all older teenagers, occasionally watch a show on MTV called "Pimp My Car". The concept is great- take a car belonging to someone who can't afford to fix it up, and really make it great- new paint, top-notch engine, restored interior, etc. [Once they took a vehicle belonging to a teenage boy who had the sole job in his family (because they had just moved and it was easier for him to get one first), and because it was in such poor condition (it was actually two different car bodies welded together!) they replaced it with a new Toyota sedan equipped with a rad sound system.] Anyhow, my kids don't understand why the title of this show disturbs me.
Dana
Posted by: Dana Ames | August 28, 2004 at 12:14 PM