Peter Pan, Daisy Duck, a pirate, an armadillo. No, those aren't characters from my role-playing romp last Saturday night ... those are Halloween costumes. As Halloween approaches, ideas for costumes start getting thrown around, and as people grow older, the nature of their costumes as well as their motives for wearing the costumes change.
From toddler age to about fifth grade, the mass commercialized customs of Halloween are in their prime. Children around the country become absorbed in the jack o' lanterns, fake cobwebs, and trips to the Halloween store. But probably the most important part of the holiday involves the costume.
Costumes have fed the imaginations of countless kids. For that one day, you could externalize your fantasy of being Indiana Jones, Bugs Bunny, Princess Jasmine, or Steven Segall in On Deadly Ground. Maybe you wanted to be scary and became a ghost or a vampire. Maybe you wanted to be an animal and dressed up as a giraffe, a bear, or a cow.
At that point in time, no one tried to make any statements with their costumes other than saying, "This is a person, character, or thing I like." Also, children were not very judgmental of others' costumes. Everyone just made the safe assumption that his or her costume was the coolest.
Plus, there is an unwritten rule that anyone who opens a door to trick-or-treaters must pretend to like or be scared by all the costumes. All in all, everyone felt pretty good about their costumes (unless you went as the yellow power ranger, not realizing that under the suit, the character was actually a girl named Trini and Brian McKenna let everyone know you had aspirations of being a girl).
Once you get to about sixth grade, Halloween customs shifted from fun to uncool; dressing up as your idol and trick-or-treating became lame. How could you dress up and care about candy when members of the opposite sex or same sex had entered your consciousness?
Those were the days when destruction was more important than costumes or candy. The only costume someone might wear was a werewolf, or Freddie Krueger mask so that they wouldn't be recognized. That way, they could get away with egging a house or pouring shaving cream down the shirt and knickers of an unsuspecting 8-year-old Thomas Jefferson while telling him to suck on some term he hadn't heard before.
Halloween and costume enjoyment proceeded more or less in this manner through the rest of middle school and into high school. There was the occasional awkward high school costume party that never reached the level of gratification of the earlier Halloweens.
However, a re-emergence of the costume occurs in college. All of a sudden, choosing and wearing a costume becomes fun again. There are countless costume parties where people can show off their outfits. But college students have very different reasons for their costumes than they did when they were children.
For many girls, it is an opportunity to wear an outrageously revealing costume without being considered a slut. They can become a "sexy" anything, and it is acceptable (at least guys accept it). They can be "sexy" teachers, crayons, or Patty Mayonnaises.
For many guys and girls alike, the costume is an opportunity to show how clever one can be. This takes on many different forms.
People might try for the sarcastic costume. For example, someone might go as a phrase. A person may be a "bad egg" and dress up as an egg with a leather jacket and a cigarette. I personally was thinking of going as a "fork in the road," with a lined shirt and a fork sticking out of my chest, before I realized it would have been too sardonic. Also, I don't have an ironic mustache or tight enough jeans to pull that costume off.
Others might go for nostalgic humor by wearing costumes they might have worn as a child. One might go as a ghost, a pumpkin, or as my roommate was planning, a velociraptor.
Some might try to be very witty and go as current events or issues. A person could go as the Iraqi war. They could show up to a party uninvited, proceed to be extremely sloppy, make a mess, get other people fighting, and then tell the people who hosted the party that they were doing it for their own benefit.
A person could go as an embryonic stem cell. They could dress up in a white sheet that would hide their human qualities. Then they could sit in the corner of a party surrounded by alcohol everyone might want, but not give it to anyone.
People who are dating might go the couple route. There are plenty of interesting famous couples. Couples could go as Bonnie and Clyde or Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky. Or a couple could go as George Jetson and Nala and tell people at the party not to judge.
Though the reasons for costumes and the costumes themselves have changed as we've grown older, there are some things you can be assured of seeing this Halloween. There will be costumes that make you laugh. There will be costumes that make you shake your head. And there will be "sexy" cops. Many "sexy" cops.
Bobby Bingle is a staff columnist for The Heights. He welcomes comments at bbingle@bcheights.com.
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