Tomorrow is Halloween, I’ve made it pretty clear that I love Halloween. In a previous post, The Halloween Dilemma, I mentioned that I’ve felt uncomfortable in the past about displaying femininity in my Halloween costumes. Tonight, I’m going to fully embrace being Ms. Britney Jean, pack my Cheetos and know that at some point, I will get the inevitable comment about how I look in a dress or that I should wear makeup more often. I’ll just keep stuffing my face with Cheetos, what people think is foundation will actually be a film of Cheetos dust.
My Halloween dilemma had me reflecting on my past Halloween costumes. At this point in my life, it’s hard to imagine myself as a child, but I look back at photos of myself and see the same discomfort I feel now about being feminine. This is totally ageist of me, but I can’t even imagine how a kid could think critically about any sort of costume that they wear, but thinking back, I obviously put some thought in my choices. Since I know that I wasn’t the only smart, gifted, brilliant, child savant of the 90′s, I thought it would be interesting to ask a few friends to contribute a photo of themselves in Halloween costumes and reflect on how they felt in their costumes.
To all readers - this is a long ass post, so hold on to your butts!
When I thought about writing this post, I had a costume in mind. When I was 9 years old, and at the peak of my Nick Carter gender crisis identity, I dressed up as a soda can. Looking through my old photo albums, I stumbled onto something better:
Take note that I’m not the girl on the right who’s super pumped about having the painted nails or the weird blonde princess clown, but the “fat man” with the drawn mustache and wrinkles. That’s right, at 7 years old, I thought that it would be cool to show up to my school dressed in my dad’s old clothes likely stuffed with ratty t-shirts and socks. To be honest, I don’t have full memories of this day, I texted my mom and she said that I just didn’t want to be a princess. What I do remember is that I thought that I was the shit, super original and funny. Not to mention that I was probably pretty warm in a likely, cold last day of October in Quebec.
I don’t think that I was consciously choosing to cross-dress, I may have just wanted to dress up in my dad’s clothes. I’m bothered that I thought being over-weight was funny, but you can’t crawl out the womb being fully aware of prejudices and it’s effects on people. Although, I am really into the idea that I probably looked like Danny DeVito, both vertically and sideways.
In 1994 at the age of 8, I attempted to be Winifred (Bette Midler) from Hocus Pocus (1993), because even though I was intrigued by the witch Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker), she was clearly giving off sexy vibes that even an 8 year old can pick up on without fully understanding (and I’m sure my step-mom steered me away from).
I was pretty excited and convinced that my costume was a success (I look pretty satisfied in that photo), until several of the adults that gave me candy referred to me as a “pretty witch.” Somehow my child imagination and excitement totally blinded me to the fact that I didn’t really look like Winifred with an orangey-red, but short and limp half up-do, pink lips, and lack of velvety, gothic threads. I didn’t embody the crazy, sinister, curly-haired Bette Midler from Hocus Pocus… just a generic, pre-pubescent, pretty witch. I was so naive to believe that my very thick, short hair could transform into a nest of orange ringlets. Or at least in the time that a parent would put into such an effort.
Undoubtedly, that failure sent me on a path to a future of more unrecognizable, half-ass costume attempts that I’m unable to garner recognition for. Now that I think of it, at least I got to wear a purple cape like Sarah’s!
When I was a kid I believed with every fiber of my being that Halloween costumes should only be very serious, scary things. Witches were ok, but fairy princesses were not. And when I was eight years old I found the best, most authentic looking witch costume ever. I mean, look at it. Those sleeves! That hat! The broom! For someone whose mother dressed her as a happy clown every Halloween until she was six, choosing to be a bad witch (and doing it right) felt so good.
Just as I was leaving the house to rock trick-or-treating in my serious AF witch costume, my mom made me stop to take a picture because I looked “soooo darling!” (or something to that effect). That face I’m making is either my attempt to stay in character, or it’s me unleashing the kind of attitude only a misunderstood eight-year-old can. Maybe it’s a bit of both.
Editor’s note: I’d like to think that the attitude also came from the crock-pot soup you had to eat after trick-or-treating.
Editor’s note: Jessica, I’m sorry, you’re Halloween pictures were so great, I had to post all of them.
I don’t remember any one costume that well. What I remember most is the act of posing for a Halloween picture. That was the moment when you would reflect on what it meant to embody a new character. How did the black lipstick and choker make me feel? How did those little changes take me away from a fairy tale renaissance girl to a girl with a little more darkness? Why did I want that even? What kind of death glare would Wednesday give someone asking her to pose for a picture that she didn’t want to pose for? It’s hard to remember what was going through my head when I was a kid. Looking back I am glad I strayed from the Disney princess route. I think I liked the attitude that characters like Wednesday Adamm’s and Pippi Longstocking had. They were outspoken, independent, strong, and questioned authority. Not trying to please anyone. I think it’s a valuable exercise for kids to contemplate who their role models are, in a way getting to amplify a personality trait or traits that they are proud of or want to explore more.
Growing up Jehovah’s Witness I didn’t realize I was excluded from holidays until kindergarten when we would have class parties (that and having to stay seated during the pledge of allegiance). Since Halloween is the first holiday while you’re in school that they really decorate and dress up, I had to sit in the office while the class handed out candy and would get to have fun lunches. I think when I was 7 when this picture was taken. My parents had divorced about a year prior and my dad had come out and remarried. It was taken at the mobile home that my mom moved my sister and I into after we had to sell my childhood home. She had left to go out and my cousin, who was extremely into Marilyn Manson at the time, decided to dress us up as if we were in the band to make us feel like we were included in the festivities even if it was just at home with each other.
Editor’s Note: I am SO into that you dressed up as a jugallo as a repressed 7 year old Jehovah’s Witness.
this is me in 1997, at age 9. i’m the nerd on the right. you can tell because my mom centered me in this picture and almost cut my friend out of it. this look was more or less slapped together last minute, because that is who i have always been as a person. i recall that we had to drive a couple of towns over to the Nice head shop for all the hippie garb. it smelled like patchouli and i could feel my father’s discomfort growing with his acid flashbacks. jk, i have no idea if he had acid flashbacks. but there IS a picture of him on his high school graduation day looking exactly like me in this photo.
which, tbh, is why i liked this costume as much as i did. the Cher-length plastic wig lent an effeminate touch to what would otherwise be a pretty masc outfit. at the time, my #aspirational look was somewhere between the 4th Hanson brother, and my gorgeous older cousin from huntington beach. i’m sure she, her middle part, and her california tie dye had something to do with the conception of this costume. plus it was the ‘90s, and that shit was back. (google “delia’s catelog 1997″. go ahead, i’ll wait.) my gender presentation during mid-late elementary school was p. neutral, and honestly i’m surprised my parents didn’t predict my queerness based on this photo alone.
my memories of this day mostly consist of getting wig hairs in my mouth while i tried to eat milk duds. nerds, too. but i traded all my twizzlers, because fuck twizzlers. we were a redvines household.
(i’ll take this moment to ask for forgiveness for this display of cluelessness and cultural appropriation of the yin/yang symbol. i was a young idiot, i hadn’t yet learned.)
I have always loved Halloween and looked forward to it. Taking a break from our mundane realities and reinventing ourselves for a night or a weekend is a welcomed change. But how much do I reinvent myself every Halloween? It’s important to understand how I usually exist in life to understand why I wear certain costumes for Halloween. I identify as a “femme, cisgender” woman and haven’t really gone outside of this form of gender expression. There have been only two Halloweens that I can remember where I cross-dressed as a male character (Dennis Rodman when I was 9 and Lou Reed when I was 21) and every other Halloween I have chosen to be a “feminine, pretty, girl/woman” character or a female intellectual such as Simone de Beauvoir or Frida Kahlo.
Looking back at childhood pictures of me in Halloween costumes as Cleopatra, a ballerina (see the photo where I am digging through a makeup bag in a ballerina costume at age 6), Snow White, an angel, etc., I realized that I have always felt excited and comfortable to be “super femme/girl”. When I was a child, I didn’t really think about why I wanted to dress up a certain way for Halloween. I openly embraced my mother’s makeup, hairspray and whatever else came with being a “feminine woman”. During my childhood, all I ever wanted was to be an adult. I looked forward to and yearned to be an adult woman and my way of expressing that was through my Halloween costumes.
Now, as a fully-grown adult woman, my Halloween costume preferences have changed. I like to be disgusting, dead, alienated characters such as zombies, vampires, and Medusa. These costumes are a form of escapism because I don’t feel the pressure to be “pretty and put-together”; I can be ugly and disgusting and scoff while being in “character”. It feels liberating to be “ugly and disgusting” for a night because I am not reduced to my appearance, I am not objectified the way I am when I am not in a costume. I feel a sense of power that I usually don’t feel in my everyday existence. I can hide behind my ugliness and not be vulnerable as a cisgender, “femme” woman in a patriarchal society. It’s interesting to think about how Halloween can be a form of escapism and why we choose to escape to some costumes and gender expressions rather than other costumes and gender expressions. Do you see any similarities in your choices for Halloween costumes? Why do you think they exist?
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