Any toddler knows that Halloween costumes are supposed to be scary, offensive and disgusting, right? So the professionals must have felt they hit on a winner with -- as they put it -- "this unique costume." Introducing every self-respecting woman's worst nightmare: Sexy Anna Rexia.
The costume consists of a skintight black dress with a skeleton print, accompanied by several rib-busting accessories: a choker that looks like a tape measure, an Anna Rexia heart badge and a ribbon belt resembling a tape measure! But of course, it's not supposed to be repugnant and chilling, but sexy and so, so fun. "You can never be too rich or too thin," the costume description reminds us. Ha ha ha! This is no doubt especially hilarious to those shopping the plus sizes.
Of course, a lot of costumes are offensive -- at least to someone: The pregnant nun might not get a belly laugh in some circles, just as Big Daddy Pimp and Ms. Mama Ho might not fly at the next Kwanzaa party. But in the annals of "sexy costumes," a micro-industry straddling Halloween garments and fetishwear, flogging flagrantly demeaning images of women is old hat. Along with the nasty nurses uniforms and naughty schoolgirl get-ups, there's the Brick House costume, a brick-patterned minidress with three operable apertures: a door at the crotch and two windows fixed over the breast. The Brick House's date can wear the Brick Layer costume. Funny! The Doll in a Box consists solely of a pink polyfoam box effectively turning a woman's body into a Barbie-like product. The box is labeled "Pretty Polly, the Poseable Dolly!"
Is it depraved to make light of a disease that afflicts between 0.5 percent and 1 percent of the adolescent female population and sometimes results in death by self-inflicted starvation? Sure. Even as Anna Rexia makes my skin crawl like no other Halloween costume ever has, I'm also not terribly comfortable getting worked up about a costume for a holiday that is all about embodying our fears.
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