"Pull up your pants" I used to say to my son, barely into his teens, fifteen years or so ago. It was the style in the 90s for guys to wear their jeans down past their hips with their boxers exposed for all to see. It used to drive me nuts. I often wondered how my son walked without stepping and tripping on his pant legs. It was a rapper-inspired thing. I chalked it up to the difference in generations. In the 60s my generation used to wear tight jeans and we didn't listen to rap but it was music that drove our parents nuts just the same.
It made me think back to that old Dan Akroyd routine on Saturday Night Live from the 70s when, as the refrigerator repairman he'd bend over exposing his butt crack. Back then it wasn't exactly a fashion statement. Back then it was more a financial statement. Akroyd was portraying a guy who couldn't afford a proper pair of pants...and for comic effect.
Well guess what? Guys still aren't pulling their pants up. I'm not talking about guys like me who have lost weight and are too lazy to punch another hole in their belt. Although imagine me, on the lean side of 60, still in fashion.
No, I'm talking about school kids. And while sagging pants have long ago stopped offending my sartorial sensitivities there are others who think something needs to be done.
Take New York State Senator Eric Adams. He's so bothered by sagging pants that he's cut a video and taken out billboards to "Stop the Sag".
And he's not alone. People like Bill Cosby and Barack Obama have spoken out against saggy slacks. Uh-huh. I wonder though if they should be looking at the younger generation...or the older generation?
Comments
Pants on the ground
Lookin' like a fool
With your pants on the ground
That little tune, performed at an American Idol audition, went viral. Why? Because they're lookin' like a fool with their pants on the ground!
My son and his cronies don't wear their pants like that (thank GOD) but their belt of choice is, wait for it, a shoelace. Seriously. A shoelace for a belt.
A town in south FL that has a bit of a gang problem tried to ban the low-riding pants as a way of discouraging gang crime and violence. Town council voted down the proposal (perhaps with a little help from the ACLU).
I didn't come up with that, but had the pleasure of reading it. It made me laugh and now we tell our daughter we see her Y Gen.
Loved the cartoon too. Perfect.
Loved the cartoon too!