The Scary Side of Halloween

This past weekend, I found myself in a costume shop helping a friend pick out a Halloween outfit. Picking through racks of packaged costumes, I realized that Halloween can indeed bring up some very scary realizations.

Admittedly, this is something that I have never experienced previously, as through my childhood my mom helped us make costumes or had an excellent eye for using everyday objects to encourage us to create masterful disguises. In my younger years I had the traditional costumes--pumpkin, pilgrim (I hated it, but my mom argues that it would keep me warm and perhaps felt like she was outsmarting Halloween by having me dress as a Puritan), fairy, clown, Queen Esther (the year Halloween fell on Friday night), and Pocahontas (I guess I no longer could pass as a Puritan and had to take the opposing side!). When I got older, I soon got to create my own costumes, and this led to the era of Smurfette (which most people thought resembled a blueberry), Marsha Brady, and a writer. In my opinion, my sister always had unique outfits (with the exception of Ms. America), and I can recall her being a detective and a single mom who lacked sleep complete with drawn-in eyes circles.

To me, Halloween was another extension of "dress-up" time where you got to choose crazy outfits and embrace the characterization of something within that previously you were perhaps afraid to show. My freshmen year of college, I dressed as a Gothic Girl, and put on the black lipstick, white make-up and Hot Topic clothes, and was satisfied with my "scary" image as I looked in the mirror and realized it unlocked in a little bit of a "badass" that I didn't feel comfortable showing to others.

Recently as I've chosen outfits to wear to a costume party or work, I don't have to look to hard, as most agree that my wardrobe already has many strange clothes in it already. Most recently I have been a hippy, a geisha, a flapper, and Lady Bird Johnson, and each outfit required no additional purchases. It's easy for me to reach into my closet and play "dress-up" because that is what I do most everyday!

As I stood with my friend in the costume store, I was surprised by how much the lack of creativity and imagination permeated throughout the selection. My first clue that these were not the costumes of my youth were the names of the designers entitled 'Legs" and "Sexy" (The unique names simply blew me away!). I then looked around and saw that every single costume for women had two things in common: #1: They were hardly any clothes involved (for ridiculous prices) and #2: They were all figures from fantasy, history, and mostly childhood. I saw costumes that immediately took me back 15-20 years: Strawberry Shortcake, Raggedy Anne, Rainbow Brite, and Care Bears. Then came the slutty Cinderellas and Tinkerbells, and finally a big display of Beer Maidens among the Greek Goddesses and the quintessential whorish nurse. (I also managed to see that around 5% of the costumes were for guys, and all of them were fully clothed, baggy, and matched a corresponding female outfit).

As I saw my friend try on a $60.00 Red Riding Hood outfit that was going to cost an additional $30.00 or so in accessories, I realized that my childhood dress-up game was no longer one of innocence, wonder and imagination, but rather it had morphed as an adult into a display of ultimate objectification in a way that most would disagree with if they only stopped to think (something that happens less and less in our culture unfortunately). My critique doesn't come from the fact that I am a giant prude or am against expressing confidence through clothing (my co-workers have joked about the fact that I have no qualms wearing fishnet stockings to work in what I consider a tasteful and creative display of color and texture) but I hate to see how little our imaginations are used when it comes to dressing up, and how satisfied we are to simply buy a packaged costume without thinking further about the implications it contains.

All the costumes presented in that store sold the same myth that Americans are bombarded with everyday: "Wear me, and you'll have the sexy allure that you've always wanted but never could attain wrapped up with childlike innocence that will cause all of your dreams to come true". Now that we are older, it isn't enough to simply read or watch the fairy tales that we were told as a kid, we want to embody them. The psychology behind the costumes are startling: Morph into a childhood play thing, and someone will want to pick you up and coddle you. Try your hand at being a princess, and you'll have your dreams come true. Become a courageous character from history and have people admire your cleavage, courage, ass, and strength. Take on the beer maiden and nurse persona, and you could star in your own porno. I do realize that at its core, dressing up gives us power that we desire, but I have to wonder if we are actually giving up more power through some of our choices.

As mentioned, when it comes to clothes, I do tend to wander outside of the box. Since childhood, I have been fascinated by color, texture, shape, and lines. My style was continually evolving as I experimented with the super trendy along side what some would consider the super ugly, but through the process I wasn't trying to become a different person, but rather experimenting with creating the look that reflected the person I already was. I still get varying reviews on what I choose to wear (as a teacher I find myself with 60 new critics of 7th graders who are always eager to share their views) but the bottom line is that everything I own I truly love, and it tells a story about the type of person I am as it embraces the good, bad and creative parts in unison.

As I stood in that costume shop, I was disenchanted as I realized that every single person was happy to think inside the box and accept the package they were given as they believed it would transform them to the picture of what they aspired to be like. It saddened me to think that as an adult, dress up has stopped becoming the possibility of what we could attain to and dream of being, but rather it has become a process of trying to adhere ourselves to the mold that society tells us is enticing--which arguably means showing more cleavage and legs while returning to an object that has more to do with being dominated than with being powerful. (Or getting laid...but I won't digress down that road!)

I could tell my friend was not happy with her costume the sales lady was desperately trying to sell her, and suggested that we go to a regular store where we pulled from dresses and accessories to make an outfit that exuded creativity, style and glamor for less than what she would have paid. The bonus was that she was truly happy in the process of the creation, and it was great that she could wear the pieces in her everyday life as well.

I haven't yet fully decided what I will be this year, but I'm excited to see what I'll come up with. At least I know that whatever the outcome, for one night I'll get to be someone who I choose to create, rather than trying to fit into that glass slipper that will always rub blisters on my large feet.

I guess I'd rather be outside of the box than try to fit into a pre-packaged one that boasts "one size fits all". I think in the end I'll be happier with the treat I discover, because I know I haven't been tricked.

Happy Halloween!