Halloween: The Good and The Bad

Halloween is definitely the most entertaining of holidays. When done right, it is inventive, fun and at times horrifying. However, there is a bad side to the clearance people feel during Halloween. Inventive can be mistaken for other things, and costumes can easily cross lines and offend.

Let’s start with the good. Since trick-or-treating has a cutoff age, adults and college students find other ways to partake in the festivities, usually in the form of costume parties. Celebrities, with their resources of makeup artists and designer friends to create costumes for them, tend to have some incredible costumes when they put their minds to it. Here are a few of my favorite costumes from this year’s festivities:

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Greek Life: Letter-less Loser or Superficial Student?

After being on campus for only a couple months, it is clear to me, a freshman, who runs Syracuse University. But, then again, it’d be just as clear to a detached and completely uninterested bystander because it’s that obnoxiously apparent. It’s not the world-class professors, the generous alumni, the smarty-pants Newhouse students, or even the famous Division I athletes. Instead, it’s the “sisters” and “brothers” of the school.

Those who participate in Greek life here at Syracuse are at the top of the totem pole, and they are not discrete in proving this. Walking through the SU campus is like taking a lap around the “It’s a Small World After All” Disneyland ride, our student body is just that diverse. There is, however, one thread of commonality that’s visible on the ‘Cuse campus–an aspect of college culture, made obvious by its loyal society members: letters.

Big, flashy, printed, sneering letters–in Greek, of course. These letters of the Ancient Greek alphabet are used to mark the dozens of different fraternities and sororities here in the 315, and are seemingly everywhere on campus. They are staring you in the face as you make your way to class or grab a bite to eat, a brutal, stuck-up and unfair reminder that whoever has those letters plastered on his or her chest is part of an elite association that you are not a part of.

What is Androgyny?

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘androgynous?’ How about ‘male’ or ‘female?’ These may sound like stupid or rhetorical questions to some, but they are interesting to consider when you encounter Andrej Pejic. He is an Australian-Bosnian model whose career literally skyrocketed in months. The reason? He embodies one of the biggest trends in fashion.

Androgyny has been a prevalent trend in the industry ever since the end of the glamazon 90s with ups and downs from season to season. In fashion, androgyny manifests itself in men who are able to pull off very slim and ‘feminine’ garments, and who may have feminine facial features and bone structure. In womenswear, it comes across in models who may be less shapely, who have stronger jaws, and less typically ‘pretty’ features. Those are the somewhat usual markers used to describe androgynous models.

Yet, with Andrej, the lines are blurred to a new extent. There are very few ways to determine by simply looking at him, that he is indeed biologically male. He has gone through no procedures, has done nothing to alter his appearance, but can transition from male to female by simply changing from one outfit into the next. He is able to seamlessly go from walking in menswear shows to womenswear shows demonstrating that he is aware of his caché in both worlds.