Happy Prom Season! For a lot of high schoolers across the country, that’s a big deal. Dresses, limos, corsages, dates… There’s a lot to think about this time of year. Promposals and prom pictures flood social media. Even if you don’t care about prom (which is perfectly fine), there’s really no way to escape it. With all the prom trends circulating on Twitter recently, here’s three we really need to leave behind.
- Offensive Promposals
Quite honestly, I don’t care if someone thinks it’s funny. It never is. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, here is a prime example.
https://twitter.com/br0okz/status/716711059709497344
Some other ones you may have seen floating around Twitter include a picture of a white student dressed in an offensive Muslim costume holding a sign that says “Going to prom with you would be the bomb!” among other racially and culturally insensitive “jokes”. Promposals are supposed to be a fun way to ask a date to prom. They usually include puns or food or some other grand gesture. Ones that include racism and Islamophobia are never okay.
2. Banning LGBTQ+ Couples
Anything that includes discriminating against LGBTQ+ people is bound to be a train wreck. LGBTQ+ people, for some reason, are still having some trouble getting fair treatment in their schools, from trans people fighting for bathroom rights to experiencing bullying to never being given the opportunity to learn about LGBTQ+ history. At (unfortunately) a lot of schools, this also includes not being able to take a date of the same gender to prom. Florida students Paula Goodgame and her girlfriend, Anjali Persad went viral on Twitter after Paula was told by her (Catholic) high school that she would not be allowed to take Anjali as her date. Sure, there’s diversity proms hosted by many communities or schools, but the thing is there shouldn’t have to be. Just let LGBTQ+ students go to prom with whomever they’d like.
https://twitter.com/paula_goodgame/status/847084559292387329
3. Ridiculous Dress Codes
It’s bad enough high schools in general have absurd dress codes, but the ones at prom usually tend to be even more strict. Anything from regulating hemlines to no plunging necklines to no shoulders showing may be enforced depending on the school district. Florida high school student Lily Willingham tweeted this photo of her school’s dress code for prom, causing major outrage across social media.
Good thing they told us a week before prom it's not like everyone has their dress already……. pic.twitter.com/3nOKhSTu4R
— Lily (@LILwillingham) March 27, 2017
There’s a couple things that are particularly disturbing about this flyer specifically. First and foremost, according to Willingham, these regulations were posted on incredibly short notice to students. Second, and more upsetting to me personally, is the use of “Good Girl”. It’s unbelievably patronizing and something no student should ever be called by her school or its administration. Stop treating girls’ bodies as problems and stop policing them.
Proms are longstanding tradition in the United States, and for good reason. For those students who are interested, it can be a lot of fun and one last school event to attend before graduation and the reality of college hits. But, like the puff sleeves on prom dresses from the ’80s, there are some prom trends we just have to let die already.
