By popular demand!

[Obligatory rough language warning.]

It's that time of year again!

Attention, dumbass: this is not an appropriate Halloween costume for your child. Not on this earth, nor even on the planet where your otherwise useless hatstand frequently dwells. This is really not that difficult: never dress up your children as streetwalkers.

Children? Yes, nota bene: this is marketed by the soulless corporate shitsacks at MGA as a "child costume." Nothing quite like making sure the Raincoat Crowd has an endless masturbatory buffet, I suppose. And yet we're still shocked by the latest Dateline NBC perv sting rustling up rapists rootin' and a'tootin' to get their jollies off preteen girls.

If you'd seriously consider getting your daughter this costume, you're a lousy parent. I'd like to give you credit and say you've been brainwashed by cultural decay, but you can't have a whole lot to wash now, can you?

Do the rest of us a favor by not proving it beyond all doubt by completing the purchase.

We interrupt our usual gusher of good cheer to bring you this rant.

As you know, in addition to being a national sugar high, tonight is also sacred to the nation's growing number of cognitively-impaired parents. Yes, once again it's National Tart Up Your Daughter Day! [Scroll down a bit--you'll know it when you see it.] Where parents can once again abdicate their responsibilities to a culture all too happy to commodify children and negligently send their flesh and blood off looking for all the world like a farm team for Flavor of Love.

This year, I direct my Socratic examination of the degenerating state of the Slutoween holiday wardrobe at a new audience. Not at like-minded parents praying daily for the Chapter 7 liquidation of MGA Entertainment. Nor at the corporate sellouts who market this--the people whom Chris Buckley immortalized as the employers of the American Nuremburg Defense: "I haff a mortgage."

Instead, this is for the parents who actually participate in NTUYDD.

Yes, delinquent asshats, I'm talking to you.

Come on over here and sit down. Ignore the Mossberg. Strictly ceremonial. Ditto the Louisville Slugger--a man has to have his enthusiasms, don't you know?

And no, those aren't "brass knuckles" on my right hand. Don't be silly. It's one of those magnet things that help with blood circulation. Works like a charm.

Are you sitting comfortably? Good.

What the hell is wrong with you?

No, really: what in the hell is the matter with you?

This is not "cute." This is not "funny."

This is warped.

This is wrong.

And you, more than anyone else, are responsible for it.

Because you won't get off your dead ass and be a parent--instead of a friend--to your children.

Because you think buying your kids what they want = "love."

Yeah, I know--I'm a hectoring moralist. One of those "social conservatives" the news is always warning people about. Probably even a "theocrat" (but my nuclear program is woefully behind schedule, worse luck).

Well, you see, I'm a judgmental jerk for a reason--I can't wall my family off from the world. There are only so many levees I can build against moral decay. We're all breathing the same polluted air--and I don't need you burning styrofoam next door. It affects us all, folks.

Let me put it more simply, right down to earth, in a language that everybody here can easily understand:

Cause. Effect.

Worried yet? You'd better start.

Does it matter?

Bryan notes that it has become an annual feature at this ranter's stump to lament the decay in Halloween costumes. Last year, it was the pimp--as in vintage Huggy Bear/I'm Gonna Get You, Sucka!--costumes which drew my ire.

Is it an overreaction? Perhaps--I've been known to do that, and will do so in the future--count on it.

But, quelle suprise, I don't think so. Say what you will about PimpHorama '04--at least it was full length (well, for the lads) and didn't have the cachet of a $2.5 billion multimedia conglomerate saturating so-called "kids" networks with its endless, relentless ad blitz. This is worse, and a bigger step down the road.

And, as I said last time, consider the change from even just 15 years ago--it would have been unthinkable. This is how the cultural frog gets boiled--slowly, inexorably and by the slow drift of years. What's it going to be like 15 years from now? Will Bratz be considered quaint, even prudish?

Likely so. Believe me, I'd love to see the evidence that I'm overreacting, that things are actually getting better for kids.

It's simply not there.

There are times when I can do a convincing impression of the incarnate wrath of Almighty God.

A good friend of ours told us about a costume she saw for Halloween. She was in shock--it was a French maid costume, for little girls. As in pre-school girls.

She's not one to exaggerate--her blog is here--but really? That bad?

Yep-per. It's that bad.

What soulless sacks of anything-for-a-buck dogshit thought this one up?

Why, the same responsible corporate citizens who bring you Bratz, of course.

Just when I thought it was impossible for the adamantine cyst of hatred in my heart for the entire hellish enterprise to grow any larger... Really, a boycott is now in order. Nickelodeon and Noggin, what say you?

Forget what I said at the first Bratz post--you are a bad parent if you tart your daughter up in this "costume." The best thing I could say for you is that you are an abject moral idiot of epic proportions. The worst would be a stream of expletives worthy of an episode of Deadwood.

All I can do is protect my own, and fortunately, my kids are learning. If for some reason I don't happen to notice a commercial for the skankdolls coming on, Maddie will yell: "Daddy--Bratz!" Which is followed by 30 seconds of any form of inoffensive alternative viewing, including test patterns.

For the record, Maddie wants to be a butterfly for Halloween, Dale is going as Bob the Builder, and Rachel is going as a ladybug (her intentions being unclear and the ladybug costume being the best fit). And the parents of kids who show up in Bratz paraphenalia on Halloween will be chased down the street by me, dressed as a torch-and-pitchfork-wielding outraged mob.

"That guy needs to be beaten with a sock full of wood screws."

[Another Language Alert. Been that kind of week, so continued apologies.]

One of the great regrets of my life is that I never had the opportunity to meet my wife's father. He died in 1993, two years before I started dating his daughter. Heather assures me that he would have (actually, does, but that's a story for another time) approved of me. Since the above quote is from him and I happen to love it, I agree.

That quote came to mind as I read James Lileks' bleat for today, (no, it's not directed at him) and had to stop myself from roaring in full-throated approval:

Earlier today a commercial for “Star Wars” came on, and Gnat was unimpressed. I did my Darth Vader impersonation: no impact. “But he’s evil! He used his michondian concentration for personal gain!”

“It’s just a commercial, daddy. Oh! Look!”

I froze. The Bratz are now Baby Mommaz.

Yes, the hooker-in-training dolls have children. Bratz are the main reason I do not keep a supply of bricks around the house, because everytime the commercials come on I wish to pitch something kiln-fired through the screen so hard it beans the toy exec who greenlighted these hootchie toys. The Baby Bratz are as bad as you can imagine: “Bottles with Bling.”

Judas on a stick, why not just refit the Bratz so they have Real Oozing Gonorreal Flow Action?

“They know how to flaunt it, and they’re keeping it real in the crib.”

What exactly is the penalty for failing to keep it real in the crib? Someone busts a cap in yo Pamper? I know I am old and so out of step it’s a wonder I don’t just appear as an indistinct smear, but was it really necessary to push the Age of Sultry Hussyism down to the infant stage? And who, exactly, are the Babyz flaunting it for? Are we going to see a commercial with Elmo in sunglasses, sitting with his legs sprawled, spanking some pliant Babyz with one hand while gumming down some mashed crack?

It is a deranged fantasy of mine to one day be able to write with about 1/100th of the brilliance and verve of Mr. Lileks.

But the finisher, following his description and links to another set of toys being sold to the kids, is the capper:

Pimp culture. Brought to you by people who want their daughters to go to college and get law degrees!

I hate Bratz. I hate them with a visceral passion. I stab the remote when the commercials come on. I am appalled by the fact they are ridiculously huge sellers. I'm sure the manufacturers would express shock that they are perceived as offering "pimp culture," and would coo that their products are simply harmless dolls for a new generation.

To which I offer the following rebuttal lifted from Cicero:

"Bullshit."

The best--best--thing that can be said for them is that they are shoving a shallow superficial consumer culture down the throats of young girls, telling them that they only matter if they have the latest and best fashions, are attractive and can hold the attention of equally superficial cute guys. Take a look at the toys at your local store: there is no other message, and slang from the butt end of rap culture features prominently on the product. It's not like there's a "Bratz Engineers" set in the works--"the girls with a passion for slide rules."

Or is that "rulz"?

"Well, don't buy them, then."

To which I offer another rejoinder from the vaults of Socrates:

"Pull your head out of your ass for thirty seconds."

This is just another facet of what I call the Skank Factory for Girls--the requirement that every girl who matters has to remake herself for the Maxim/FHM (official newsletters of the Skank Factory for Boys) crowd. When Hillary Duff became popular, I wondered how long it would take for the inevitable Britneyization to take place. For the most part, it hasn't, though she was on the cover of Maxim once. Hopefully just a slip. No reason to be confident, though.

For a prime example of the Skank Factory for Boys, check out the Homies Dogs in the Lileks link--if you haven't already.

Look--do I think you're a rotten parent if you get your kids this stuff? No. Just ask yourself whether a development exec would have even contemplated something like Bratz or Homies Dogs or Pimp/Ho Halloween costumes as recently as 15 years ago. It's pretty tough to answer "yes," and that says a lot about where we are. And where we are going.

It would be nice--but apparently it's asking too much--if the SFfG/B wasn't pitched to pre-teens. My greater point is that even if--if--I protect my kids from it, it's still percolating everywhere else. The ten year olds in rap couture who scream "m----rf----r" (see? I have standards) at each other as they walk down the street (we actually got a fulsome and sheepish apology out of one group of girls who did this, mirabile dictu) in the middle of summer--what am I supposed to do for them?

"If you don't like it, keep your kids in sensory deprivation tanks"?

The lowest common denominator keeps getting a little lower, and no parent can fight every battle and hope to win.

All I want is for my children to enjoy as innocent (note: not "isolated," thank you) a childhood as possible. It's not asking the guys driving the Engines of Consumerism too much to show a little decency and regard for the culture they are shaping and the children they are influencing.

Or is it? I'm thinking Jeff Culbreath has a point. But the bigger problem is dealing with the wider world, alas.

In the meantime, I'm going to be running over to Home Depot for a box of wood screws. See you there!

[Update: Added the "Look" paragraph. I'm not trying to smack around fellow parents trying the best they can.]