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evening_tsarAnother Hallow’s Eve past – my Groucho Marx was a hit, at least with the tiny handful of people who saw it. Like all my Halloween costumes, Groucho was an idea that just popped into my head and refused to go away. For the first time in living memory (or at least recent memory) I had a second idea floating around in there (courtesy of Tetsab) – that of the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith, which I pulled off with aplomb the previous week (even the dodgy bristleboard fez worked better than expected).
The night of, I opted for Groucho over Smith, partly because I hate to throw away an idea that refuses to go away by itself, and partly because I wasn’t convinced the kids at the door would recognize Matt Smith – the oldest among them would have been barely two when he regenerated – and I was loathe for anyone to think I would wear a bow tie under other circumstances. Granted, most of them wouldn’t recognize Groucho either, but they would at least recognize that a costume was being worn.
He was remarkably easy to do – black make-up, a cigar from the variety store, a plain suit and tie. Oddly enough, the glasses were the hardest thing to acquire – where do you find glasses if you don’t wear glasses? Especially that style of glasses? The glasses were no less vital than the moustache or the cigar – you’d not believe how much the visage collapses without them. I found the perfect pair at a Spirit Halloween store, and here we get to the point of my story.
I really don’t like Spirit Halloween stores. I know I’m supposed to – a whole department store dedicated to spooky stuff! What could the problem be? But I always go in happier than I come out. They leave me feeling vaguely empty and dis-Spirited, even if they do have the perfect glasses for my costume.
If I put on my snobby-Gatekeeper hat, I suppose I could call them the Hot Topic of Halloween: a commercial shortcut to an ersatz state of being. Or, they just don’t provide what I’m looking for (and I’m not talking about phony glasses).
No holiday or festival more perfectly enables the dysfunctional marriage of creativity and commerce than Halloween. Put on a costume? Decorate a house? What could be more conducive to creativity? To imagination? At the same time, what an amazing commercial opportunity! Suddenly, everyone needs something, everyone’s looking for something, and you could probably sell anything. Sell them the props, sell them the decorations, sell them the costumes in their entirety, and pretty soon they won’t need to be creative anymore. Why spend all afternoon repurposing cereal boxes into gravestones when you can buy fancy plastic gravestones and tomb markers? Why raid old wardrobes and attics when you can slap down a credit card and get a ready-made costume in its entirety?
At Spirit, you can purchase plastic bags containing everything you need to be a pirate, a vampire, a clown, a knight in shining armour, a farm animal, a lumberjack, a football player or a cheerleader, a doctor, a nurse – sexy or otherwise. You can purchase an open hospital gown with a pair of foam buttocks for the back, in case that’s what you really want to go out as. Basically anything that occurred to anybody, all in one convenient package. The packages aren’t cheap, but the materials usually are – felt, plastic, or paper imitations
It's all super convenient, ideal for last minute I-put-no-thought-into-this considerations, but somehow offends my lingering, long since futile insistence that costumes are meant to be assembled rather than purchased.
Franchise promotion is the order of the day. Harry Potter, Sonic the Hedgehog, Goku, Minecraft this and that. Star Wars, Marvel, DC, all with laser sharp precision. What kid would bother with an approximation? Freddy, Jason, Mike Myers, Chucky, Leatherface are all there to happily disembowel you, along with newcomer Art, the Terrifier (proving again, no amount of violence against women and children can get in the way of profitable merchandizing). I’d resent the intensity of the promotion less if it weren’t so narrow in focus. Where’s the imagination? Where are the deep dives? Are the Universal monster really so out of favour? I couldn’t find them anywhere, except on a three-dollar plastic cup which I had to have.
If I’m heartbroken that Jason Vorhees has replaced Boris Karloff as the face of the season, I can on some level at least understand how it happened*. But is American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman really intended to be part of that circle? Is Scream still popular enough to warrant an entire wall display? Do that many people want a Trick r Treat poster? This all strikes me as some boardroom’s idea of what Halloween people want – someone looking in from the outside, but who’s never delved too deeply into the pool.
It seems churlish to complain about the place which did provide me with vital components of my costumes. After all, they DID provide my Groucho glasses, and my Matt Smith suspenders, to say nothing of my Universal drinking cup. I can almost hear my father say “you got what you wanted, what’s the problem?”. Isn’t that what so often deflates critiques of capitalism – “you got what you wanted”. I suppose part of me should be grateful that such a thing is available – that, no matte what suburban wasteland you find yourself in, you can find a very large department store that is sure to have at least
something (if not the very thing) for your needs. And of course, as long as other people seem to enjoy it, well, who am I to complain?
Well, who do I need to be? I’m not denying anyone else their fun, and I’m not demanding these stores shut their doors forever, and I’m not even saying I’ll never shop there; I am arguing they are not as cool as they seem, and if nothing else, hell, I’m allowed not to like things. If Charlie Brown was allowed to insist that Christmas isn’t really about lights and display contests or aluminum trees, then I’m to allowed to insist that Halloween isn’t really about plastic knives and free candy.
It's a symptom of a much wider phenomena, of a civilization that wants to convenience itself into comatosivity. Any amount of thinking or effort tends to be seen an obstacle to bypass with technology or money. On a purely consumerist level, I can’t help thinking of all the time and energy I spent tracking down old monster movies, Doctor Who merch, and Heavy Metal records, and how now I could just nab it all up with the press of a button – and how much less meaningful it seems. Or how every battle jacket I see now was almost certainly ordered online. Or how one simply buys any autograph or selfie one likes at a ComiCon. More importantly, I see AI being used to make art and music, and Grammarly openly boasting that they know the mechanics of good writing “so you won’t have to.” Press a button or spend a buck, and you need not do anything nor think anything ever again.
If I take Bradbury’s contention seriously, that Halloween is a direct successor to all of history’s Deal with the Dead festivals, then I reserve the right to get a little grouchy.
I also maintain I could have found those glasses and suspenders somewhere else.
The night of, I opted for Groucho over Smith, partly because I hate to throw away an idea that refuses to go away by itself, and partly because I wasn’t convinced the kids at the door would recognize Matt Smith – the oldest among them would have been barely two when he regenerated – and I was loathe for anyone to think I would wear a bow tie under other circumstances. Granted, most of them wouldn’t recognize Groucho either, but they would at least recognize that a costume was being worn.
He was remarkably easy to do – black make-up, a cigar from the variety store, a plain suit and tie. Oddly enough, the glasses were the hardest thing to acquire – where do you find glasses if you don’t wear glasses? Especially that style of glasses? The glasses were no less vital than the moustache or the cigar – you’d not believe how much the visage collapses without them. I found the perfect pair at a Spirit Halloween store, and here we get to the point of my story.
I really don’t like Spirit Halloween stores. I know I’m supposed to – a whole department store dedicated to spooky stuff! What could the problem be? But I always go in happier than I come out. They leave me feeling vaguely empty and dis-Spirited, even if they do have the perfect glasses for my costume.
If I put on my snobby-Gatekeeper hat, I suppose I could call them the Hot Topic of Halloween: a commercial shortcut to an ersatz state of being. Or, they just don’t provide what I’m looking for (and I’m not talking about phony glasses).
No holiday or festival more perfectly enables the dysfunctional marriage of creativity and commerce than Halloween. Put on a costume? Decorate a house? What could be more conducive to creativity? To imagination? At the same time, what an amazing commercial opportunity! Suddenly, everyone needs something, everyone’s looking for something, and you could probably sell anything. Sell them the props, sell them the decorations, sell them the costumes in their entirety, and pretty soon they won’t need to be creative anymore. Why spend all afternoon repurposing cereal boxes into gravestones when you can buy fancy plastic gravestones and tomb markers? Why raid old wardrobes and attics when you can slap down a credit card and get a ready-made costume in its entirety?
At Spirit, you can purchase plastic bags containing everything you need to be a pirate, a vampire, a clown, a knight in shining armour, a farm animal, a lumberjack, a football player or a cheerleader, a doctor, a nurse – sexy or otherwise. You can purchase an open hospital gown with a pair of foam buttocks for the back, in case that’s what you really want to go out as. Basically anything that occurred to anybody, all in one convenient package. The packages aren’t cheap, but the materials usually are – felt, plastic, or paper imitations
It's all super convenient, ideal for last minute I-put-no-thought-into-this considerations, but somehow offends my lingering, long since futile insistence that costumes are meant to be assembled rather than purchased.
Franchise promotion is the order of the day. Harry Potter, Sonic the Hedgehog, Goku, Minecraft this and that. Star Wars, Marvel, DC, all with laser sharp precision. What kid would bother with an approximation? Freddy, Jason, Mike Myers, Chucky, Leatherface are all there to happily disembowel you, along with newcomer Art, the Terrifier (proving again, no amount of violence against women and children can get in the way of profitable merchandizing). I’d resent the intensity of the promotion less if it weren’t so narrow in focus. Where’s the imagination? Where are the deep dives? Are the Universal monster really so out of favour? I couldn’t find them anywhere, except on a three-dollar plastic cup which I had to have.
If I’m heartbroken that Jason Vorhees has replaced Boris Karloff as the face of the season, I can on some level at least understand how it happened*. But is American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman really intended to be part of that circle? Is Scream still popular enough to warrant an entire wall display? Do that many people want a Trick r Treat poster? This all strikes me as some boardroom’s idea of what Halloween people want – someone looking in from the outside, but who’s never delved too deeply into the pool.
It seems churlish to complain about the place which did provide me with vital components of my costumes. After all, they DID provide my Groucho glasses, and my Matt Smith suspenders, to say nothing of my Universal drinking cup. I can almost hear my father say “you got what you wanted, what’s the problem?”. Isn’t that what so often deflates critiques of capitalism – “you got what you wanted”. I suppose part of me should be grateful that such a thing is available – that, no matte what suburban wasteland you find yourself in, you can find a very large department store that is sure to have at least
something (if not the very thing) for your needs. And of course, as long as other people seem to enjoy it, well, who am I to complain?
Well, who do I need to be? I’m not denying anyone else their fun, and I’m not demanding these stores shut their doors forever, and I’m not even saying I’ll never shop there; I am arguing they are not as cool as they seem, and if nothing else, hell, I’m allowed not to like things. If Charlie Brown was allowed to insist that Christmas isn’t really about lights and display contests or aluminum trees, then I’m to allowed to insist that Halloween isn’t really about plastic knives and free candy.
It's a symptom of a much wider phenomena, of a civilization that wants to convenience itself into comatosivity. Any amount of thinking or effort tends to be seen an obstacle to bypass with technology or money. On a purely consumerist level, I can’t help thinking of all the time and energy I spent tracking down old monster movies, Doctor Who merch, and Heavy Metal records, and how now I could just nab it all up with the press of a button – and how much less meaningful it seems. Or how every battle jacket I see now was almost certainly ordered online. Or how one simply buys any autograph or selfie one likes at a ComiCon. More importantly, I see AI being used to make art and music, and Grammarly openly boasting that they know the mechanics of good writing “so you won’t have to.” Press a button or spend a buck, and you need not do anything nor think anything ever again.
If I take Bradbury’s contention seriously, that Halloween is a direct successor to all of history’s Deal with the Dead festivals, then I reserve the right to get a little grouchy.
I also maintain I could have found those glasses and suspenders somewhere else.
