Prom Night: A rite of passage

Jane Eisner in the Philadephia Inquirer writes about how little the ritual of prom night has changed and the security we get from its traditional structure and formality.

If the past is any guide, and it always is on Prom Night, the girls will start primping and pruning and gelling and polishing as soon as they leave school in the early afternoon.

Some will snip the price tags from new dresses moments before slipping them on. Others will shimmy into borrowed gowns and an older sister's glittery sandals, which may be the wrong size, but they never fit anyway, and who keeps shoes on at a prom?

The ritualistic upgrading of hair, toenails, fingernails, eyelids, eyebrows, lips, cheeks and other body parts can last longer than the new SAT. For girls, that is. I'm guessing the guys get dressed 10 minutes before deadline.

Some things about prom never change. Which is what I find truly poignant. Even if it seems a throwback, the continued popularity of prom suggests that it still has meaning.

This tradition of attending a formal dance at the end of the school year has maintained a remarkable shelf life, withstanding all the monumental changes to courtship, dating, and romantic relationships that have cascaded through American society in the last half century.

Yes, the prom has been forced to adapt, to become more flexible, so that in some schools a student can attend alone, and in others same-sex couples are allowed to spin around the dance floor. But in its structure, its formality, and the semblance it gives of orderliness and tradition, prom not only indulges our nostalgia but may answer our needs.

Maybe it's giving us an image of something we can never have again - or something we need to recapture.

The prom's longevity masks the chaos that now exists as the vaunted "sexual revolution" grows gray and tired and a little thick around the middle, and we can finally grapple with what's been left in its wake.

Read the rest of the article here

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