Now there's Sexy Ken Bone? It's really time we ditched the 'sexy' Halloween costume
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/contributor/2015/4/8/1428483802789/**rielle-Jackson-L.png?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=837c4516f92a6d630ac504d86f4ea1aa **rielle Jackson
Halloween serves up a cartoon cliche version of sexy that is pretty much the only choice for female costumes, even for eight-year-old girls
‘I’m all for girls and women dressing like “total sluts” any day of the year, and of course, that’s what makes Mean Girls so good.
Never has the tradition of sexy Halloween outfits looked so shallow.’ Picture: publicity still from the movie Mean Girls.
@**riellecj
Friday 28 October 2016 12.25 AEDT Last modified on Friday 28 October 201614.33 AEDT Comments
When I first heard of the Sexy Ken Bone Halloween outfit, a Mean Girls scene immediately came to mind.
“In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy.
In girl world, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.”
I’m all for girls and women dressing like “total sluts” any day of the year, and of course, that’s what makes Mean Girls so good. Never has the tradition of sexy Halloween outfits looked so shallow. FacebookTwitterPinterest
This year’s most popular Halloween costumes include: sexy nurse, sexy secretary, sexy Pokémon, sexy devil, sexy skeleton, sexy cop, sexy hippie (seriously – that is a thing), sexy pirate, sexy Tinkerbell, sexy lion tamer, sexy lion, sexy cougar, oh God I am so bored already.
In a case of spectacular bad taste, there’s even a sexy Ebola nurse costume. FacebookTwitterPinterest
Photograph: PR Company Handout
When retailers do bother to turn a male (of course) superhero into a costume made for women, they have to sex it up.
This sexy Donatello ... we mean, Donatella costume will have all the guys saying “Cowabunga!” And now we have Sexy Ken Bone, promoted with a “wink, wink” by Esquire and many nudges about his name.
Ken Bone, for those not up on the latest internet memes, is a man fond of a red sweater who asked an anodyne question about energy policy in the second presidential debate.
Salon claimed he “represented the humanity lacking in this year’s election”. It follows, therefore, that this internet hero had to become a sexy Halloween costume.
In so far as we need to find humanity in the crappy year that is 2016, then Ken Bone is a great character to dress up as for Halloween.
But we don’t need to sex him up to do so.
There is no sexy Ken Bone for men. There is no sexy nurse for men.
And let’s face it, for singletons, there is no better strike rate for pulling than a drunken dress-up party, in which case we should all dress in the sluttiest, sexiest, most flattering costumes we can find.
But those three adjectives are not the same thing, and that’s my point.
What we are now served up for Halloween is a cartoon cliche version of sexy that is pretty much the only choice for female costumes, even for eight-year-old girls.
Right now, we’re having a moment.
Donald Trump has exposed in all its ugliness the deep-seated misogyny that exists in our society.
His crude treatment of women has forced thousands of women to talk about their harassment and humiliation at the hands of men.
What struck many of us about the infamous Trump-Billy Bush recordings were not just how disgusting it was but also how common it was.
We can’t put all this back in the closet. We can no longer ignore how women have been treated as not quite equal, and judged – always – first and foremost on how we look.
We’re more than our bodies.
No matter how hilarious sexy Ken Bone is, now seems the right time to ditch the sexy Halloween costume and just dress up as some awesome women, scary or not.
And what a year for it – we’ve had female Ghostbusters, and Jane Got a Gun, Alice Through the Looking Glass and Eleven from Stranger Things.
And none of these are exactly a turn-off.
I decided to ditch the sexy Halloween costumes in 2010 when I dressed up as Margaret Thatcher, complete with a remarkably life-like latex mask I pulled on over my head.
I expected to be a bit like Cady from Mean Girls and have people horrified at my terrifying costume.
I didn’t expect the horror to begin before I arrived at the party.
Walking down Shoreditch High Street in London, people beeped their car horns and screamed out windows, “F off”, “Die!” (Thatcher was in hospital with flu at the time), some flipped me the bird.
At the party, a man approached me, pointed his finger in my face and growled, “You ruined my family’s life.”
In retrospect, the latex mask may have been a step too far.
But the mask did not go to waste.
Upon discovering my friend was marrying a Tory with quite strong affections for the Iron Lady, I passed on the mask to her as a wedding gift.
She appeared in it as a surprise (and nothing else), morning after wedding night, and well, let’s just say that the moral of the story is that there are all sorts of sexy in this world and they don’t have to come in thigh-high boots and a skin-tight costume on Halloween.
