Linda Kennedy
November 1st is much better than Hallowe’en. Today, it’s ok to have hair that could scare and makeup smudged across your face. Hallowmornin’after is a female grooming holiday.
No part of this appearance requires you to have participated in any Hallowe’en activities. Sure, blame your demonic messiness on a disguise the night before that TOTALLY worked. But costume? What costume? Be a liar not a vampire. The reality is you just had an extra hour in bed, and bothered neither to cleanse nor style. On this day, November 1st, looking like death is accepted and will additionally award you a reputation of being a fun gal.
Which I am, but just not in a Hallowe’en way. I’ve long said I don’t like any festival when the main colour- orange –clashes with my hair. I usually just sit this one out.
However, next year is going to be an exception – and I start now making my costume for Hallowe’en 2019 (using some of the time freed up by the primping day off). The reason is I read statistics on the most popular female Hallowe’en costumes that were researched online. Witch. Mermaid. Wonder Woman. Princess. Fairy. Angel. Jesus Christ. That last one was an exclamation.
If Hallowe’en were a movie, it would be condemed for its stale and predictable gender roles. Apart from witch, all the female costumes aspire to be spooky-pretty. You have to look good as a ghoul.
Did anyone at least combine clichéd costumes? WonderWitch. Corsets, armlet, leg-guards plus a witch’s hat rather than a tiara. And no shield – instead, a third of a cauldron.
Male costumes researched online included Spiderman and the animal kingdom’s most muscular hero, the lion, plus other characters from movies and gaming.
Some popular searches at least left open the possibility of either gender being costumed thus. Like ‘dragon’. Maybe one woman went to a party as a ‘bingo-winged dragon – a serpent-like creature beloved of all women whose triceps have gone.’ I like to think so.
‘Dinosaur’ is another such example. Those researching a dinosaur disguise weren’t necessarily blokes pinning down whether or not T-Rex ate only meat (the party had a buffet, ok?). A woman could have gone out trick or treating as ‘Equalosaurus. A female regarded as highly as the males. Sadly extinct now.’ Or ‘Feminist-osaurus. She consumed only misogynist males, after trying to train them to change their ways. It really was the only way to reduce numbers.’
As for next year, my thoughts for feminist fancy dress are so far fledgling.
Could I dress up as a troll? I’d need a cardboard desk with a papier-mache laptop glued on top. I’d carry it, garbed as an unshaven man who’d smell badly. I’d crayon Twitter’s logo onto the laptop and intermittently hunch and pretend-write bile.
Or could I be a bank note, with a space cut in it for my head? ‘And you are?’ ‘I’m a rarity – currency featuring women.’
Or – trickier – get a pair of man jeans, stuff them and attach boots. Tape them on the outside of my legs and angle them outwards. ‘Man-Spreading Monster.’
Might I print #MeToo on the back of a T-shirt, and ferret out a whip from someone’s long abandoned Zorro costume? ‘What are you? I’m #MeToo backlash’.
All of these, I acknowledge, will require DIY materials, plus some handcraft and haberdashery skills. Hence the early start. Failing that, a fallback will be a feminist fairy whose wings feature a slogan. ‘I am a female taking up more space in the world. Not so mythical any more.’ Is that a scary costume?
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