In response to “The 10 Most Overrated Halloween Costumes College Girls ALWAYS Choose,” published by The Odyssey.
Remember when you were younger and October was the one time of year that you could be anything you wanted to be? Picture the first time you chose a group costume to wear with your friends and got to go trick-or-treating Halloween night without your parents. There was a freedom in getting to dress in crazy costumes.
Everything seems to change once you reach college. The spirit of Halloween disappears as people, especially women, are judged for what they wear on this one night of the year. We need to address the articles written across all college campuses that are used to tear women down.
The Odyssey has published a number of articles about the most overrated Halloween costumes for college girls. Instead of talking about the outfits, one author attacks the women in the pictures. With captions like “I get it, Margot Robbie is hot as f***, but you’re not so…” in relation to a Harley Quinn costume and “do you even watch sports? Plus, don’t you wear this theme enough at frat parties?” in relation to a group of girls in sports jerseys. Not only is this uncalled for, but it also reinforces gender stereotypes.
Within this specific article, the author includes a link to creating creative costumes to wear; except that the linked article is comprised of children and family costumes, not suited for the college students she is addressing. The inconsistencies don’t stop there. Wonder Woman is listed in the original article as a costume to avoid for being “basic” and yet in a related article that is listed at the top of the page. Wonder Woman is considered a “no-brainer” feminist Halloween costume because “overall, Wonder Woman is a symbolic character that reminds us anyone can be a hero.”
Which brings us to the topic of feminism. The definition, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.” How you show your feminism can vary, but across the board we can agree that this means standing up for the rights of women.
The right to wear what we want and feel confident in how we look.
VALLEY found and spoke to two of the girls who were pictured in the article to get their thoughts on the topic.
“I loved my cat woman costume and there’s always going to be someone who wants to say something bad,” says Gianna Kazazian, a journalism major at Penn State. “Some of the other stuff [the author] wrote on there about other girls is hurtful and personally [I don’t know] why anyone would want to write something like that!”
Of course, no one asked Kazazian if they could use her picture, because who would say yes to being put in this article?
London Lilly, who studies at North Carolina State University, was also surprised to hear that a picture of her and her friends in their cop costumes was being used in an article written by a student all the way in Ohio. Lilly declined to comment but was appreciative of the counter article being written.
We need to take a closer look at what we are writing about our fellow students and check ourselves when we pull photos from the internet. Next time you read an article like the one published by The Odyssey, consider what standards we should have for student reporting.
