Isabella McNutt ’27 is a Government and History double major, and she is a member of Alpha Chi Omega. She loves traveling, reading and music. Email her at immcnutt@wm.edu.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s own.
After a fun, chaotic and mildly mysterious Halloweekend, I only have one question: Do I really need to quote “Mean Girls” to you?
Picture this: It’s a cold, spooky night. You and your friends have been planning your Halloween looks for weeks, no, months, for this. The costume Pinterest boards have been made, the Amazon carts are overflowing and the group chat has been renamed something seasonally appropriate. Tonight’s look is inspired by Chappell Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova” lyric, “I’ve got a wand and a rabbit.” Your friend is the magician, top hat and all, and you’re the bunny. And because you’re a college girl on Halloween, your outfit includes that same corset that every girl in her 20s owns in at least one color. You make TikToks, you take pictures, you get compliments all night. It’s fun. Then, you know your night isn’t over, so you decide to hit the frats, and as you’re walking past Fraternity Row, you overhear someone say, “I’m so sick of girls ruining Halloween by being Playboy Bunnies.”
The best part? You weren’t even a Playboy Bunny.
Every year, like clockwork, the Bunny discourse returns. Suddenly, people have deep thoughts about corsets, ears and fishnets. And if you’ve ever cracked open a copy of Gloria Steinem’s “I Was a Playboy Bunny,” you know those critiques aren’t entirely baseless. There’s valid history and context there. But here’s the thing: My red lipstick and bunny ears on Halloween aren’t a symbol of patriarchal oppression. They’re just … a costume.
The criticism always sounds the same: Girls are “ruining” Halloween by turning every costume into a “sexy” version. Sexy princess. Sexy superhero. Sexy Abraham Lincoln (Yes, it exists.)
This isn’t about the Playboy Bunny, and for the record, that wasn’t your costume anyway. It’s about the broader discomfort people still have with women taking control of how they present their own bodies. When women make a costume sexy, people rush to analyze it: Is it objectifying? Is it empowering? Is it feminist enough?
What gets lost in that discourse is the simple truth that women don’t need to justify their choices. Making a costume sexy doesn’t erase your intelligence, self-respect or feminist credibility. Sometimes you just want to look hot while holding a Solo cup.
In contemporary feminism, one of the central ideas is the concept of bodily autonomy and freedom of choice, meaning that you should do whatever you d— well please. So, criticizing someone for their outfit feels outdated at best and hypocritical at worst. You can and should wear as much or as little as you want. You can be a ghost in a sheet or a vampire in a mini skirt. Both are valid ways of participating in the same tradition: dressing up to feel confident and having fun. You can be sexy, scary, funny or all three at once.
Even the supposedly “original” costumes (Louvre robbers, TV show characters, pirates and fairies) are recycled every year, or will be. We all gravitate toward the same ideas because we want the same feeling: to look good, feel confident and capture a moment of self-expression. Halloween is not a test of creativity or political purity. It’s a night of performance, of play, of transformation. If that means putting on a corset and bunny ears, so be it.
So if you see a girl this Halloween dressed as a sexy angel, devil or, heaven forbid a bunny, here’s a radical idea: Just let her have fun.
As Cady Heron wisely said in “Mean Girls,” “In girl world, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total sl— and no other girls can say anything about it.” And honestly? That’s how it should be.
