Remember when Halloween was scary?
I barely do. These days, it's all "sexy" costumes for the ladies and decidedly un-sexy, not-even-funny joke costumes for the guys. And on the decorating front, instead of ghoulish graveyards or even dark and mysterious haunted houses, those of us trying to deck out our houses for the holiday get...glitter.
A clever post by Kit Pollard of the transformation of Halloween from the dark and daunting to the bright and sparkly.
For this phenomenon, I blame Stephenie Meyer and her band of chaste, "vegetarian" vampires who, instead of burning up in the sun, sparkle like a fleet of immortals dressed for a night out at Studio 54.*
The sparkle is just one more way that vampires - who used to be a genuinely scary staple of the Halloween season - have been softened. Last year on Slate, Grady Hendrix wrote a great summary of the evolution of the vampire from bloodthirsty killer to emo virgin.
The sparklefication of Halloween is not a surprise, though - it's mostly a matter of supply and demand. With Twilight moms holding a whole lot of purchasing power, it's only natural that the glitter goods would fly off the shelves. I can't blame product designers and stores for delivering what the people want.
For some reason, I don't really know why, I have never been a fan of Halloween. The dressing up part was fine, it was the overabundance of candy that I didn't care for.
Now, it has evolved from a children's holiday to every woman's excuse for wearing the slutty-est outfit she can get away with
and of course glitter galore.
I shall ignore the whole thing as I do every year.