I Am Gonna Wear a Pink Tux to the Prom!

After reading the article about prom, I started thinking about my own prom experience. I think its because my mother raised me to be "frugal", that although I wanted to look great at the prom, I wasn't about to spend hundreds of dollars, even if I could have afforded it! My best friend and I bought 80's style dresses at Goodwill for about $10 each and did some redesigning, this way we definitely didn't have to worry about the dreaded "two girls in the same dress" scenario. We did each others hair and make-up and we carpooled to the event with a group of friends instead of getting a limo (*gasp!*). I wound up spending more money on the prom ticket (which was a ridiculous $90 if I remember correctly) than anything else. But I was definitely the exception at my school. Girls in my grade started talking about the prom in ninth grade and finding the perfect dress was definitely the most important part. I completely agree with the article in that girls would go far beyond their means to make prom "perfect". I heard a girl bragging once that she would be wearing the same dress that Paris Hilton had worn to some big event.

I can say that in my experience, prom did not live up to all the hype that is shown on TV and in magazines. The media makes prom out to be the best night of a high schooler’s life, and for me, well...it just wasn't, but luckily, I didn't really expect it to be. I can't even imagine the let down it would have been had I decided that the prom was going to be the best and most perfect evening of my life! Not to say that I didn't have a good time, but the day after that was spent lounging around the hotel pool with my girls was honestly the best part of the weekend.

I think that far too much pressure is put on girls to make prom their "perfect night". One girl who was interviewed even said that all she really remembers about her prom is how exhausted she was before she even got there! Like the article says, there is so much emphasis put on standing out and making a statement about who they are. Well…as long as that statement is, “Look at how perfectly feminine I can be”. The article suggests that proms “produce femininity” by taking advantage of girl’s pleasure in “self change projects”. And while I will assume that the original intent of having a prom was about celebrating graduation and being with friends for possibly the last time before heading of to college, overtime prom has become yet another example of how society dictates how girls should act. One of the girls that I went to prom with that year actually wore a suit instead of a dress, a very fitted women’s dress suit mind you, and someone asked her if she “decided to go gay for prom”. To me this is a perfect example of what people expect from girls. Boys wear suits, girls wear dresses, that’s just the way it is, and its hard for people to see past that sometimes.



On a side note, I remember hearing a story a while back about a young gay man who wore a dress to his senior prom and was asked to leave. Do any of you remember hearing about this? What are your thoughts?