Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. Hey,
Speaker 1: it is October, and we, if you haven't noticed, are
Speaker 1: covering a lot of topics that are around kind of
Speaker 1: the October theme of horror and Halloween, but also things
Speaker 1: like being dead or burials. Are for today, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get real literal with it and talk about Halloween costumes.
Speaker 1: But we also want to let you know that towards
Speaker 1: the end of the month, we're gonna be doing two
Speaker 1: kind of special things that we want our audience to
Speaker 1: know about. The first was that we're gonna be periscoping
Speaker 1: our listener mail starting on October twenty three, which is Friday.
Speaker 1: So if you're on Periscope or if you're not, sign
Speaker 1: up for it and you can check us out responding
Speaker 1: to our listener mail and kind of interacting with our
Speaker 1: audience in real time on that platform. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: you don't know what periscope is, don't worry. I didn't
Speaker 1: know to light few weeks ago. So we'll put up
Speaker 1: a blog post as well at some point here that'll
Speaker 1: give you the deeds on what exactly we're talking about exactly.
Speaker 1: We'll be pushing the information out on our social media
Speaker 1: channels as well, which include Facebook, Twitter, and tumbler on
Speaker 1: all of those platforms were known by the handle blow
Speaker 1: the Mind. And we don't just post our own stuff there.
Speaker 1: We curate content from all the kind of weird science
Speaker 1: e stuff that we find across the internet. Uh. And
Speaker 1: if you want to be included in that listener mail,
Speaker 1: don't forget that. You can always reach us at the
Speaker 1: email address Blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: The other thing that we have coming up at the
Speaker 1: end of October is the return of our video series
Speaker 1: Monster Science. Robert, you want to tell him a little
Speaker 1: bit about this? Yeah, join h Dr Anton Jessup, a
Speaker 1: kind of a daytime horror host VHS era basement creep
Speaker 1: who's going to walk us through the real world science
Speaker 1: behind us some rather outrageous monster movie nasties. Can you
Speaker 1: give us a preview of what kind of monsters we're
Speaker 1: gonna see in this? So yes, we're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 1: look at shambling mushrooms, You're gonna look at werewolves. We're
Speaker 1: gonna look into a big Trouble a little China one
Speaker 1: of the creatures from that as well. That's exciting, as
Speaker 1: well as a certain character from Mortal Kombat. So oh
Speaker 1: cool cool. So what's great about that is you've got
Speaker 1: a wear Wolf episode coming up with that. We just
Speaker 1: published the episode on Wolf Spain. Uh and, so you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to tie things together a little bit here.
Speaker 1: We also have an episode coming out about Egyptian mummification,
Speaker 1: and we have a mummy episode of Monster Science from
Speaker 1: the first season. So October, you can see, is our
Speaker 1: favorite month, which brings me to today's episode, Robert, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna be for Halloween this year? We'll see
Speaker 1: this is a this is a complicated question, um with
Speaker 1: me because I have the boy. The boy's gonna dress
Speaker 1: up and uh and and me and my wife have
Speaker 1: done kind of like combo costumes in the past, but
Speaker 1: now we have this, uh, this weird extra actor in
Speaker 1: the scenario. So like last year, we did a Twin
Speaker 1: Peaks thing where I remember that where I was um
Speaker 1: the comic clock and character the lady. Yeah, my wife
Speaker 1: was a blog lady and we dressed our son up
Speaker 1: as the dancing little guy. Um and and my my
Speaker 1: father in law played the tall man. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do remember seeing that picture. Yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: great idea. Yeah, so that one works. But now he's
Speaker 1: he's a little more insistent, like he wants to be
Speaker 1: a giraffe, and like, you know how it's hard to
Speaker 1: work a giraffe into a team costume effort. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: The only thing that comes to mind is like, what's
Speaker 1: that elephant children's story? Bob are like that? I don't
Speaker 1: want to dress like, yeah, you're not. You don't strick
Speaker 1: me as the book? Yeah I would. I would love
Speaker 1: to do a mummy like com Blue cost him, where
Speaker 1: we all dress up as different takes on money. He
Speaker 1: could be a giraffe mummy. He could. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: reason why they wouldn't have mummified a giraffe. That would
Speaker 1: have been an interesting process in bombing all those draft organs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would think so. So Yeah maybe mommy draft We'll see.
Speaker 1: How about yourself. I haven't nailed it down yet, but
Speaker 1: I have this old prison outfit that I used for
Speaker 1: a video I shot one time. So I'm kind of
Speaker 1: considering doing a Hannibal lecter thing. Uh, but it would
Speaker 1: involve me having to be strapped down to a dolly
Speaker 1: and being pushed around by somebody. And I don't think
Speaker 1: I can talk anybody into being you know, the orderly
Speaker 1: Barney from the from the asylum that pit Annibals. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing about it's about certain combo costumes. They're
Speaker 1: not all even handed. Sometimes they require somebody to be
Speaker 1: something kind of boring. Yeah, well some people are into that.
Speaker 1: I don't think my wife definitely wouldn't want to be Barney,
Speaker 1: so we'll come up with something maybe she can be
Speaker 1: Will Graham. Yeah. So the reason I ask is because
Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking about Halloween costumes and how
Speaker 1: they relate to our culture but also to our identities
Speaker 1: and how we form and change our our identities in
Speaker 1: conjunction with what we're you know, costuming at Yeah. It hard,
Speaker 1: it's a really it's a really fascinating topic because when
Speaker 1: you put on a mask, when you put on a costume,
Speaker 1: you're engaging in a in a very very power, a
Speaker 1: full act. Here you are becoming somebody else, not only
Speaker 1: externally but internally, as we'll discuss, and it's been a
Speaker 1: it's played a vital role in traditional religions throughout history. It's, uh,
Speaker 1: you can you can see both positive and negative, very
Speaker 1: negative aspects of mask and costume usage throughout time, and
Speaker 1: yet today we often just relegate it to just sort
Speaker 1: of childhood silliness. Right, Oh, the kids are gonna put
Speaker 1: on masks and go around parading through the community. Well
Speaker 1: when but if you stop and you think about it,
Speaker 1: it's it's terrifying, you know. Yeah, And I think that
Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made to that, and we're
Speaker 1: going to get into this that it's definitely over the
Speaker 1: last thirty years or so, maybe forty years or so,
Speaker 1: it's started to become an adult thing, at least in
Speaker 1: American culture, and that the rise of cosplay in sort of,
Speaker 1: I guess nerd culture, but you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: gotten to the point where cosplay is is beyond nerd
Speaker 1: culture now. I was in the grocery store the other
Speaker 1: day and there's a magazine dedicated to cosplay that can
Speaker 1: buy at your local supermarket. So I feel like that's
Speaker 1: sort of elevated past, you know, just just for geeks
Speaker 1: when you can buy it like on the shelf there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's great to hear that, especially looking back, Like
Speaker 1: I definitely remember a time when I was still trigger treating,
Speaker 1: but among my peers, I was probably too old for
Speaker 1: such nonsense. And occasionally you would run, you would trick
Speaker 1: or treat at a house and you'd see somebody your
Speaker 1: own age in they're not in costume, and the kind
Speaker 1: of at you, like, what are you doing? But then
Speaker 1: you know what they weren't doing, having fun exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, the dude in question I'm thinking about, it's
Speaker 1: like I looked him up on Facebook and he's still
Speaker 1: not having fun to this day. So I'm proud that
Speaker 1: I wore my my Halloween costumes, you know. But the
Speaker 1: thing is, is that guy and I'm sure, I'm sure
Speaker 1: anybody listening to the episode right now can identify with
Speaker 1: costuming and that sort of role play, identity change element.
Speaker 1: And there's a science to this too. This isn't just
Speaker 1: gonna be us riffing about what it's like to wear
Speaker 1: Halloween costumes. There's been a ton of studies on this way,
Speaker 1: more than I thought we would find. Actually, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a like I knew there would be a tie to
Speaker 1: the topic of inclothed cognition that we'll talk about, and
Speaker 1: a long time listeners to the show might remember an
Speaker 1: episode in the past the dealt a little bit within
Speaker 1: closed cognition, but there's there are a number of studies
Speaker 1: that deal specifically with Halloween costumes and how Halloween costumes
Speaker 1: impact both children and adults. Yeah, so there are two
Speaker 1: specific things that I want to sort of start off
Speaker 1: with us maybe like thesis statements for this episode, and
Speaker 1: we'll see if they're approved by the evidence that we
Speaker 1: go through throughout the episode. The first is that there's
Speaker 1: this idea that Halloween is a and the costumes that
Speaker 1: we see in the acts that we see during it
Speaker 1: are a reflection of what's happening in our culture at
Speaker 1: that point in time, and that it's sort of, uh
Speaker 1: is also a transgressive element, right, that there are boundaries
Speaker 1: within our society that are some of them are asking
Speaker 1: to be pushed, and Halloween is the time when that happens.
Speaker 1: And you know, in some degrees that can lead to
Speaker 1: social change and other degree reas as we'll talk about
Speaker 1: it's maybe a kind of social regression as well. But
Speaker 1: so I want us to keep that in mind that
Speaker 1: it it seems to be this period of time that
Speaker 1: reflects kind of I hate using this term but the
Speaker 1: zeitgeist of what's going on in American culture at the time,
Speaker 1: and I understand that it's becoming more popular in some
Speaker 1: European nations as well, so um, you know, perhaps they're
Speaker 1: seeing that as well. Well. You know, just over the
Speaker 1: past ten years, you can look to one particular Halloween
Speaker 1: costume is playing a significant role in uh in social movements,
Speaker 1: that being, of course, the V for Vendetta mask, which
Speaker 1: is Halloween costume mask based on the motion picture. That's
Speaker 1: always fascinated me from the perspective of you know, and
Speaker 1: I'll talk about this later, but you know, in my
Speaker 1: outside life, I write comic books, and I attend a
Speaker 1: lot of comic book conventions throughout the year, and so
Speaker 1: I see a lot of costumes. And when the movie
Speaker 1: came out and all of a sudden, I started seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of people both at these shows and at
Speaker 1: Halloween wearing the Guy Fox mask, it really struck me
Speaker 1: as being ironic because there's such a um as you
Speaker 1: just brought up, there's such an association and symbolism of
Speaker 1: rebellion associated with that that mask that I don't know
Speaker 1: necessarily that the customers themselves even knew it necessarily even
Speaker 1: though the movie sort of presents that as a as
Speaker 1: a symbolic point. Yeah, yeah, it's been. It's been a
Speaker 1: fascinating transformation with that particular man of the particular character. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So before we start talking about these studies, which you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be working our way from nineteen seventies six
Speaker 1: up until present day, there's been so many studies. Uh,
Speaker 1: I want to just throw out this fact for you.
Speaker 1: In one point four billion dollars were spent on Halloween
Speaker 1: costumes in America alone. And that's according to the National
Speaker 1: Retail Federation. That is a tremendous sum of money. And
Speaker 1: I guess I never really stopped to think about it before.
Speaker 1: But of course, like I don't know what it's like
Speaker 1: in other parts of the country, but here in Atlanta
Speaker 1: we have these these like pop up halloween stores where
Speaker 1: like there used to be uh you know, like a
Speaker 1: department store like a Maze's or something, and it's since left.
Speaker 1: And for just the month of October, these halloween stores
Speaker 1: move in and all they sell their costumes and Halloween
Speaker 1: knickknacks and things like that. Uh. And I always it
Speaker 1: always struck me as like, wow, like can you turn
Speaker 1: a profit just in a month like that, and obviously
Speaker 1: you can if there's that much money going into it,
Speaker 1: and it's especially interesting to see that it's doing that
Speaker 1: kind of business. After all those kids melted in the
Speaker 1: Silver Shamrock mass That was a shame. That was a shame.
Speaker 1: I was young when that happened. But yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: believe in the snakes came out of their eyes. And
Speaker 1: we are, of course referring to Halloween three colon Season
Speaker 1: of the Witch, one of our favorite movies here. It'
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. In fact, last year, Uh Joe,
Speaker 1: superproducer Noel and myself got together with our partners and
Speaker 1: watched that movie. I don't know if it was on Halloween,
Speaker 1: but it was like the week of Hallow and it
Speaker 1: was great fun. Yeah, I think I watched it for
Speaker 1: the first time last year as well, um at night
Speaker 1: by myself the family was sleeping. But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's a very flawed film, but it has some
Speaker 1: It has some very just fantastic elements in it, from
Speaker 1: the just wonderful soundtrack by John Carpenter and All and
Speaker 1: Horth to Uh, the weird mix of like androids and
Speaker 1: occult magic and big scary corporations. Like on paper, it's
Speaker 1: it's a fabulous film, right. We were saying before the
Speaker 1: taping that it would be it's ripe for a remake,
Speaker 1: but it probably will never get remade. Like the idea
Speaker 1: of so the central conceit of the movie is that
Speaker 1: there's an evil magical corporation that is producing is it
Speaker 1: three Halloween masks? It's three. Yeah, it's like a witch
Speaker 1: of Skull and I don't want jack o lantern? Is
Speaker 1: that the other one? Uh? And and their children's masks
Speaker 1: and if these children wear their Halloween masks and watch
Speaker 1: a like evil magical commercial simultaneously, they will all die. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they will die and serve as some sort of a
Speaker 1: child sacrifice and they ancient ritual. It's a bizarre movie,
Speaker 1: but it's this was before Basically the idea I think
Speaker 1: was that the Halloween movies, before they were dominated by
Speaker 1: Michael Myers, were supposed to be like an anthology series,
Speaker 1: just like a kick start anthology Halloween. So each year
Speaker 1: we'd get a different Halloween film with a different plot.
Speaker 1: And sadly that didn't happen because nobody like Halloween three
Speaker 1: until it had time to uh you know to cure,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure over over the years. It's like
Speaker 1: a fine one. It is. It is a fine one
Speaker 1: that not everyone's palate is going to be susceptible to.
Speaker 1: But at heart Halloween three season of the which is
Speaker 1: about masks changing children absolutely. Now in the movie it
Speaker 1: changes them into a pile of goog and snakes and whatnot.
Speaker 1: But in reality it does seem to change our children
Speaker 1: into something else. Yeah. I wonder if, well, I wonder
Speaker 1: if those screenwriters of Halloween three were inspired by this
Speaker 1: first study, or maybe the first two studies we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about, because the first was in seventy six,
Speaker 1: the next one was in seventy seventy nine. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: the whole time when I'm reading these, I'm picturing the uh,
Speaker 1: the sort of idyllic uh nineteen late nineteen seventies setting
Speaker 1: of the at least the first two Halloween pright. Um. So,
Speaker 1: this is the ninete steady effects of d individualization variables
Speaker 1: on stealing among Halloween trick or treaters. This was published
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology again in
Speaker 1: seventy six February. So, well, this is what happened the
Speaker 1: psychologist involved covertly observed the behavior of a about a
Speaker 1: thousand trick or treaters at twenty seven different Seattle homes.
Speaker 1: So each each house has the same setup, one bowl
Speaker 1: filled with candy and an additional bowl filled with pennies
Speaker 1: and nickels, because you know you're going to you're treating,
Speaker 1: you want to get some pennies and nicols. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that strike struck me as weird. But I was also
Speaker 1: born a year after the studies conducted, so maybe it's
Speaker 1: something I missed out on. So um. The researchers answered
Speaker 1: the door when the Halloween trick repeaters show up, and
Speaker 1: sometimes the researcher asks the matt the costume children what
Speaker 1: their names are. Oh, you're the life looking which what's
Speaker 1: your name? Oh it's Susie. Other times they let the
Speaker 1: children retain their anonymity. They can continue to just be
Speaker 1: werewolves and mummies and witches. Right, and that's important because
Speaker 1: it helps to reinforce the identity. Right, Okay, are no
Speaker 1: longer Susie and yeah, instead they are you know, Broomhill
Speaker 1: to the Witch and uh, you know Oscar the money
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. So at this point, the researchers say,
Speaker 1: all right, I have to go deal with something else
Speaker 1: inside the house, and we shut the door. Only take
Speaker 1: one piece of candy and then they shut the door.
Speaker 1: But they're they're watching through the peephole the whole time.
Speaker 1: Nice scientific use of the people. They have like a
Speaker 1: nest thing that they could mount on their wall and
Speaker 1: watched through their smartphone. Yeah, they're just going around like
Speaker 1: he can through a curtain and scribbling on a notepad.
Speaker 1: The results, though, were kids who were allowed to remain
Speaker 1: anonymous stole money and extra candy roughly three times as
Speaker 1: often as those who gave up their names, and kids
Speaker 1: who came in groups, so just a complete pack of
Speaker 1: you know, short little gremlins. Um. Those who came in
Speaker 1: groups both named and anonymous were more than twice as
Speaker 1: likely to steal as those who came alone. Wow, okay,
Speaker 1: so I don't I guess the study. The findings of
Speaker 1: this aren't all that surprising, knowing what I know, just
Speaker 1: from living life and having costume before and knowing other
Speaker 1: human beings. So that the the idea of the anonymity
Speaker 1: this is pre social media too, so I think that
Speaker 1: that has something to do with it as well. Right,
Speaker 1: that we now know that anonymity leads to people doing
Speaker 1: things that they think that they won't have repercussions for it. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: But then that the group factor as well as is
Speaker 1: the really interesting one. So how the pennies come into play?
Speaker 1: Do they steal those as well? Nichols okay, And and
Speaker 1: my my reading of this, the study they didn't even say, okay,
Speaker 1: also you can take a certain amount of coins, but
Speaker 1: right the coins they just left him there. It was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is just for decoration and then these kids scrap. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's also interesting to read this thinking about my
Speaker 1: own interactions with grantities are like three year olds, but
Speaker 1: watching them feed off of each other's energy, Like you
Speaker 1: get to three year olds in a room and they'll
Speaker 1: suddenly just start feeding off each other and displaying behavior
Speaker 1: that individually they wouldn't do, but they just they just
Speaker 1: like there's a heightened susceptibility to group think and uh
Speaker 1: like you know, imaginative, Uh, the association. It's it's interesting. Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about this throughout this episode, and there's
Speaker 1: a study that's coming up that specifically refers to it.
Speaker 1: But that is like that zone that age around between
Speaker 1: three and five is sort of that own where you're
Speaker 1: still you understand sort of you know when people say, like,
Speaker 1: you're a boy, or you know, you're um, you're from Atlanta,
Speaker 1: Georgia or whatever, like you understand those words, but the
Speaker 1: actual identity part hasn't really like all glamed together yet.
Speaker 1: So the group think kind of thing seems to happen
Speaker 1: a little easier at the age I mean, you are
Speaker 1: observing it right now. Oh yeah, Like my my son
Speaker 1: and his friend Leoh, they had a time at the
Speaker 1: playground the other day where all they did is just
Speaker 1: march around and enchanted. We are daddy elephants the whole time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and they don't do that on their own,
Speaker 1: but together they engage in that. So I feel like
Speaker 1: it's the same sort of energy at work now. I
Speaker 1: miss that we need to needed to bring that back.
Speaker 1: We'll have after this. We're gonna have a weird daddy
Speaker 1: Elephants session in the office. Now. There's a nine nine
Speaker 1: study that followed this up and and and indeed the
Speaker 1: researchers here set out to replicate the results of the
Speaker 1: seventy eight study. Uh and this one is titled Halloween
Speaker 1: masks and d individualization. Uh. And this was published in
Speaker 1: Psychology Reports April nine. So this time they looked at
Speaker 1: fifty eight costume kids ages nine through thirteen, and all
Speaker 1: of them in this cases are unaccompanied by adults, so
Speaker 1: there are no adults there to, you know, to to
Speaker 1: inflict rules and regulations on the Halloween traditions. They this time,
Speaker 1: the researchers tell the children to take two and only
Speaker 1: two pieces of candy from a bowl. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: they shut the door. The same situation takes place, they
Speaker 1: peek around the corner through the people. This is what
Speaker 1: they found. Mass children were significantly more likely to violate
Speaker 1: the instructions grabbing a healthy fistful of candy sixty two
Speaker 1: percent of the time versus thirty seven percent for unmasked counterparts.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, especially because the age difference, so we're talking
Speaker 1: nine to thirteen year olds here instead of the much
Speaker 1: younger children in the first study. Also that what I'm
Speaker 1: noticing is that they're completely different authors for both studies,
Speaker 1: So this wasn't um the first team trying to replicate
Speaker 1: their efforts. It was an entirely different team, probably in
Speaker 1: a different part of the country. Well, and I think
Speaker 1: it's worth us explaining what they mean when they say
Speaker 1: d individual adan here. Right, So that is a psychological
Speaker 1: process by which a person's identity is subsumed. This is
Speaker 1: the This isn't my language, obviously, obviously I don't throw
Speaker 1: subsumed around a lot. But it's subsumed by the identity
Speaker 1: of a larger group. And in this case, the mask
Speaker 1: thing can can play into it. Right. Uh, I wonder
Speaker 1: if the kids were masked and they were by themselves,
Speaker 1: if this you know how this would play out? Well?
Speaker 1: In this uh, this is a particular study. They were
Speaker 1: they were unaccompanied by adults, so there were no adults. No,
Speaker 1: I mean no other children too. I guess, like, what
Speaker 1: creepy kid goes around all by themselves trick or treating
Speaker 1: at nine years old. Well, in the first study, they
Speaker 1: did find that kids who came in groups were more
Speaker 1: than twice as likely to see what's those who came along.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's definitely uh, you know, one is potentially
Speaker 1: a problem, but you get two together and they're just
Speaker 1: going to fall into that that group identity of the
Speaker 1: trick or treating fiends. So okay, So all right, the
Speaker 1: first thing that we're establishing here is that, uh, costuming,
Speaker 1: especially during Halloween, provides a certain amount of anonymity, and
Speaker 1: that within a group, it provides the potential for this
Speaker 1: d individual ation in which you divorce yourself from your
Speaker 1: day to day identity and allow yourself to be absorbed
Speaker 1: into the identity of this larger group. It's almost like
Speaker 1: a cult type. Yeah, I mean it's instantly. It makes
Speaker 1: me think of various and often vile scenarios where you
Speaker 1: have hooded individuals creating about and doing things. It's it's
Speaker 1: the same energy, it's the same mechanism, but entrusted to
Speaker 1: children as opposed to taken on by adults. Well, let's
Speaker 1: let's speed it forward a little bit, uh to maybe
Speaker 1: maybe a period of time that I'm sure everybody can
Speaker 1: relate to the being a child and dressing up in
Speaker 1: costume and maybe grabbing a fist full of candy. But
Speaker 1: there was a study, uh, and this was cited. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you noticed this, but this particular study
Speaker 1: was cited across the board and all the studies afterwards
Speaker 1: as like a sort of foundational sources studies. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: so it's called dressing in costume and the use of alcohol, marijuana,
Speaker 1: and other drugs by college students. So no surprise. Uh,
Speaker 1: they did this study looking at twelve hundred college students.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what area of the country it is.
Speaker 1: They might have they might have split it up. Actually, uh,
Speaker 1: and no doubt they found that those that were in
Speaker 1: costumes were more likely to consume alcohol than those that weren't. Right,
Speaker 1: and they were also more likely to use drugs over
Speaker 1: the course of the night. Now, anybody who you don't
Speaker 1: even have to have gone to college, anybody who's been
Speaker 1: over the age of eighteen and has gone to an
Speaker 1: adult Halloween party where people are in costume, I think
Speaker 1: this will probably be a common experience. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: to admit that deer in college and and uh the
Speaker 1: time period following college, the most hungover I ever managed
Speaker 1: to get. Both times it resulted from a Halloween party. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely saw some crazy stuff at Halloween parties when
Speaker 1: I was living in the Boston area. One time I
Speaker 1: went to a Halloween party. These people lived on the
Speaker 1: grounds of It was an abandoned This is going to
Speaker 1: sound made up, but it's a real thing. It was
Speaker 1: an abandoned mental institution on the grounds of a cemetery
Speaker 1: just outside of Boston top of an Indian ground. I
Speaker 1: don't know if there was an Imperial ground, but they
Speaker 1: definitely had a Potter's field next door where you could
Speaker 1: you could see it. You know what I mean by
Speaker 1: Potter's Field that they just had like the bricks with
Speaker 1: numbers on them and things like that. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: people that I knew who lived there, Uh, they were
Speaker 1: basically paying rent to the town to live in this
Speaker 1: thing and make sure people didn't come by and vandalize it. Um.
Speaker 1: So they threw this crazy Halloween party and I mean
Speaker 1: you could you went into the basement of this place
Speaker 1: and they had gurneys and strange jackets and like all
Speaker 1: the files on the patients were still there. That was
Speaker 1: the weird part to me is that the like the
Speaker 1: privacy element was not at all thought about. Essentially had
Speaker 1: a Session nine. It was very much like that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I decided to go as a f X twin this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was which incarnation of it was the window liquor
Speaker 1: I had. You know, they actually made masks or that
Speaker 1: you could print out that we're that face. I was
Speaker 1: going to ask how you maintained that smile. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had the mask and I had a white suit on
Speaker 1: the whole time. But uh, yeah, I saw some crazy
Speaker 1: stuff at that at that abandoned metal asylum. So I
Speaker 1: believe this study, I think most of us do. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't qualify this as a study that would blow your mind.
Speaker 1: This isn't stuff to blow your mind. But this definitely
Speaker 1: adds more fodder to our principle here, right, that like
Speaker 1: the costuming element, uh allows your identity to sort of
Speaker 1: be more fluid and flexible. Yeah. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: studies like this, they're not necessarily saying, hey, here's this
Speaker 1: crazy thing about your life you never noticed before, but
Speaker 1: saying hey, here's some science to back up that thing
Speaker 1: that we've all noticed. Because sometimes the thing that we
Speaker 1: think we know, when you apply the rigors of science
Speaker 1: to it, you realize, all right, this doesn't actually work
Speaker 1: the way we were thinking on surface level. So I've
Speaker 1: studies like this are just as important. Yeah. And so
Speaker 1: there's also this is when things start to get dark too.
Speaker 1: So um and no surprise, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: the older that we get that the costuming element brings along.
Speaker 1: Like I said at the top, right, it's a pushing
Speaker 1: of boundaries, so it brings along some taboo elements to it.
Speaker 1: So there's a study done in two thousand seven about
Speaker 1: um basically race and mother ing in Halloween costumes, and
Speaker 1: it was specifically focused on college students. So again this
Speaker 1: is a you know, isolated to the college student area,
Speaker 1: although a lot of the examples that they came up
Speaker 1: with were not necessarily isolated to that group. So this
Speaker 1: study is called Unmasking Racism, Halloween Costuming and Engagement of
Speaker 1: the Racial Other, and it was published in Qualitative Sociology.
Speaker 1: And basically the authors of this piece they present at
Speaker 1: the top in their abstract. They say that they think
Speaker 1: of Halloween as being a constructive space where people have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to engage in different identities, which includes racial concepts,
Speaker 1: and that there are some people who argue not necessarily
Speaker 1: these authors, although I think there's something to this, that
Speaker 1: Halloween is what we would think of as a tension
Speaker 1: management holiday. It's different from you know, Christmas or Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: which probably create more attention, uh. And they compare it
Speaker 1: to like New Year's or Mardi Gras, and that it
Speaker 1: allows it sort of frees us up from society Almoors
Speaker 1: and gives us, you know, an opportunity for rebellion. It's
Speaker 1: they call it a ritual of rebellion that permits possible
Speaker 1: countercultural feelings, right uh. And in this case, you know,
Speaker 1: they say, well, you know usually these holidays or the
Speaker 1: idea behind this is it's a reversal of social roles. Um. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, like subjugated groups groups and a lower position
Speaker 1: are able to assume positions of power. And they connect
Speaker 1: this too. And I'll explain this theory a little bit
Speaker 1: more later. But um, there's a Russian theorist named Michael
Speaker 1: back Team and he has the kind of the big
Speaker 1: thing that he's known for theory wise is the carnivalesque.
Speaker 1: And they connected up to that theory, this idea of
Speaker 1: medieval europe carnivals. The same kind of thing was good
Speaker 1: people are in mass parading about creating mischief. The the
Speaker 1: the shift of power that takes place where often you
Speaker 1: have a fool king or the fool leader of the festival. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yep uh. But they also say, you know, there's this
Speaker 1: idea about Halloween in particular that's connected to this. The
Speaker 1: reason why in the US we give it such a
Speaker 1: national status, uh is because it fosters that kind of
Speaker 1: social inversion. Right. So, Um, while holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: for instance, are more institutionalized and focused on tradition and
Speaker 1: family and things like that, Halloween people think of Halloween
Speaker 1: as being that one night of the year where they
Speaker 1: can let go and they can enjoy a degree of
Speaker 1: license that they could that would otherwise never be attainable. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: Basically they can get away with things that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to get away with normally. So these the
Speaker 1: authors of this piece, though, they say, Okay, that's good
Speaker 1: and fine, but there's a racial element that's coming into
Speaker 1: play here that's displaying some some disturbing patterns of how
Speaker 1: white costumers are using that opportunity to uh not identify
Speaker 1: with other races, but to sort of uh make fun
Speaker 1: of and and sort of reinforce stereotypes of other races
Speaker 1: that they have. Yeah, and in this I think you
Speaker 1: you see varying levels of this. So so it's easy
Speaker 1: to imagine a straight up racially offensive costume, you know,
Speaker 1: where you're just you're just basically dressing up like the
Speaker 1: worst kind of stereotype for a particular racial group. But
Speaker 1: then on the other hand, you see, and I've definitely
Speaker 1: seen people do this before, where you're you're going after
Speaker 1: certain cultural icons. You want to you want to be
Speaker 1: that cultural icon, and you either don't realize or you're
Speaker 1: a little numb to the to the realization that to
Speaker 1: try to become that icon as a as a white individual, UM,
Speaker 1: you're you're engaging, at least in some light racism. You know,
Speaker 1: like if you you decide, oh, well, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a big hip hop fan and I really like this
Speaker 1: particular artist, that doesn't mean you can necessarily dress up
Speaker 1: as as him or her. In fact, that they noted
Speaker 1: that stuff like that happened at such parties. UM. One
Speaker 1: example that they had was they were apparently and the
Speaker 1: way that they studied this was that they had six
Speaker 1: d and sixty three three college students across I believe
Speaker 1: it was Southeastern America collect journal entries about their costuming
Speaker 1: experience over the course of Halloween. And this isn't just
Speaker 1: what they costumed as, but what they saw at the
Speaker 1: parties that they went to. UH and what was reported
Speaker 1: that there were two white men who went in black
Speaker 1: face as Venus and Serena Williams and so this is
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, so not that long ago. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then there was, um, there were three women, all of
Speaker 1: different ethnicities who wanted to do the Charlie's Angels, the
Speaker 1: movie version of Charlie's Angels, and so um a Caucasian
Speaker 1: woman ended up doing the Lucy Luke character and was
Speaker 1: you know, like painting on makeup to make her self
Speaker 1: locastion and like you said, not really understanding it. But
Speaker 1: on the reverse side, they reported that there was a
Speaker 1: black male college student who went as Eminem. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of this playing around with race and gender
Speaker 1: and sort of you know, trying to explore identity. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, like some of some of these
Speaker 1: instances uh, as identified by the authors, weren't necessarily experimental,
Speaker 1: but we're more reinforcing ideas that they already had. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and an implicit racial bias definitely playing into a lot
Speaker 1: of these where it's it's not even happening at a
Speaker 1: at a you know, a conscious level, you're not you're
Speaker 1: not really thinking about it, but any of these various
Speaker 1: u UM, implicit biases rise to the surface. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think this would be one of those situations if and
Speaker 1: they talked about it a little bit in this study,
Speaker 1: but that like, if you called out somebody for something
Speaker 1: like this, they would probably be shocked, right, they would go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I no, I'm not racist. That's not what I was
Speaker 1: intending at all, Right, And in fact, they the whole
Speaker 1: idea here is that they thought of Halloween as being
Speaker 1: a safe context for exploring this kind of thing, but
Speaker 1: also that it's, uh, it's a time when the potential
Speaker 1: for any kind of insult is completely suspended, right, Like
Speaker 1: I think I just saw, like, not that this would
Speaker 1: be insulting, but it's just kind of stupid, like, uh,
Speaker 1: like a week or two ago that like one of
Speaker 1: the most popular costumes this year is a sexy Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: Like you can you can buy that off the rack, um,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's like I think that that's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing going on here. But at the same
Speaker 1: time as the authors are arguing that it's reinforcing racial
Speaker 1: bias and stereotypes. Yeah, it reminds me too of I
Speaker 1: believe it was the first Halloween immediately following nine eleven
Speaker 1: in which a picture made the rounds of a couple
Speaker 1: who had dressed like somebody addresses the twin hours and
Speaker 1: the other person addressed as an airplane. And it's funny
Speaker 1: that you say this go ahead because I have a
Speaker 1: personal story. I'm just saying it made the rounds. And
Speaker 1: quite clearly they were approaching this from the standpoint of
Speaker 1: it's a safe halloweens, a safe zone, and an outrageous
Speaker 1: costume is allowed, even if it is really too soon
Speaker 1: for that particular joke at that at that given point.
Speaker 1: And this was this was the month afterward, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was very very soon. So I uh, specifically remember
Speaker 1: that Halloween. Right afterward, a guy who I knew went
Speaker 1: to a Halloween party as a dead pilot, uh, and
Speaker 1: he thought it was the funniest thing ever, and that
Speaker 1: he was you know, he wasn't he was trying to
Speaker 1: be offensive, but he was also just trying to kind
Speaker 1: of like again like push the boundaries, get a rise
Speaker 1: out of people. Um. And I remember him thinking it
Speaker 1: was like this super clever, funny thing and it just did.
Speaker 1: It fell real flat with with everybody at the party. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: on the racial side of the situation, I have to
Speaker 1: admit that I'm I'm a big fan of some terrible
Speaker 1: movies and one terrible movie that I really enjoy is enough.
Speaker 1: But trouble, I know what you're talking about, really really
Speaker 1: bad film with all sorts of really cool like horror elements,
Speaker 1: sort of tales from the crypt type elements thrown throughout.
Speaker 1: And then there's a great scene where Digital Underground performs.
Speaker 1: So it's Humpty hump. Uh you know, get that? And
Speaker 1: so part of me has always wanted to be Humpty hump.
Speaker 1: But but I but I can never be Humpty Hump.
Speaker 1: I can never take that on as a costume because
Speaker 1: of the racial aspects of doing it. And I'm comfortable
Speaker 1: with that, I'm not complaining about it. But like that's
Speaker 1: an area where like the voice that says, wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be cool to dress this Humpty hump, and the other
Speaker 1: part of me has to say, theoretically, it would be cool,
Speaker 1: but you would probably be you would probably be crossing
Speaker 1: a line, and ultimately it would not be a comfortable scenario.
Speaker 1: Well exactly, So I think that what the authors of
Speaker 1: this study would argue, then, right, is that like your
Speaker 1: preconception of race is that you understand that that would
Speaker 1: be crossing a line that you know is not necessarily appropriate.
Speaker 1: Whereas a Caucasian male who is in college and decides
Speaker 1: to go as Humpty hump maybe already has some preconceptions
Speaker 1: about what that means, right in fact, like that's the
Speaker 1: the kind of rapper outfit, or like the other one
Speaker 1: that they talked a lot about was that you can
Speaker 1: buy prepackage sort of like ethnic thug outfits from these
Speaker 1: Halloween stores, or at least you could at the time
Speaker 1: they were doing this. Um, that that enhances your perceptions,
Speaker 1: your stereotypes of things, right um, and that it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily allow them to have the opportunity to to find
Speaker 1: the new beliefs or to learn and change. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of interested, Like I wonder if if you
Speaker 1: do something like that and then you're sort of performing
Speaker 1: this other, this imaginary other that you have of like
Speaker 1: what it would be like to be in digital underground,
Speaker 1: Like like, uh, does that afford you the opportunity to
Speaker 1: sort of like put yourself in somebody else's shoes? I
Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, it's um. The authors of this piece
Speaker 1: certainly didn't think so. But like the Digital Underground example,
Speaker 1: I can The thing is, I can definitely imagine someone
Speaker 1: approaching that instead not even thinking about Humpty Hump as
Speaker 1: an African American man and thinking, well, it's just it's
Speaker 1: a ridiculous character with a funny nose and big fur
Speaker 1: coat and he talks in a funny voice, and he
Speaker 1: got busy in a backstage bathroom. Yeah, and yeah, loft
Speaker 1: his nose in a horrible accident. But um, yeah, but
Speaker 1: but but but in doing that, you glide right over
Speaker 1: the racial connotation. So yeah, absolutely, so, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, like I know, I've definitely seen stuff like
Speaker 1: this at parties I've gone to before. I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of people have. But they provided some very concrete
Speaker 1: examples outside of the six hundred and sixty three college
Speaker 1: students who reported for this study. Um, and one of
Speaker 1: them was I didn't know about this. Apparently in two
Speaker 1: thousand three, Louisiana State District Judge Timothy Elander went to
Speaker 1: a Halloween party in blackface and he had an afro
Speaker 1: wig on and a prison jumpsuit. I think I remember
Speaker 1: seeing when called him out on and he said, oh what,
Speaker 1: It's just a harmless joke, you know. And then you
Speaker 1: think about the connotation of like, well, this guy whose
Speaker 1: job it is is to decide whether or not people
Speaker 1: go to jail or stay free, Like this is like
Speaker 1: hugely inappropriate. Um. But then, um, there's also like you know,
Speaker 1: just dominated in the media reports of people wearing black
Speaker 1: face at Halloween parties and in such outfits, enacting images
Speaker 1: of police brutality, cotton picking and even lynching. Um. So
Speaker 1: I mean that again too, it's like clearly showing that
Speaker 1: like you don't really have all that much of an
Speaker 1: understanding for what it means to be of a different ethnicity,
Speaker 1: you know, those are the things that you associate with
Speaker 1: it like like uh So, anyways, that the third thing
Speaker 1: that I thought was really interesting where they they talked
Speaker 1: about these prepackaged costumes. There's two in particular they pointed
Speaker 1: out from two thousand to One was called the Vato Coco,
Speaker 1: which was this stereotyped mask of a Latino thug. And
Speaker 1: then the other one was called the Kung fool uh
Speaker 1: and it was like a caricature outfit, like a kind
Speaker 1: of like a a karate um what do you call him?
Speaker 1: G uh like outfit? Um, But that it also included
Speaker 1: like a mask that made your eyes look slanted and
Speaker 1: like buck teeth that you would insert in your mouth.
Speaker 1: So it was like this real like racial physical stereotype
Speaker 1: of being Asian, and this is two thousand two. This
Speaker 1: isn't like nineteen sixty two. This is this is just
Speaker 1: like thirteen years ago. Um, So you know, they point
Speaker 1: out like that they think that the Halloween has sort
Speaker 1: of been thought of as a cultural space in which
Speaker 1: they can they being the people wearing these costumes, can
Speaker 1: sort of let this racist ghost out of the box.
Speaker 1: That's how they put it, not me. Uh, it's there.
Speaker 1: They get a little metaphorical with their language and the
Speaker 1: Halloween themes and stuff in this article. I wonder would
Speaker 1: race Ghost to be an appropriate Halloween costume, though it
Speaker 1: maybe even were carried out with enough ghost of a
Speaker 1: racist on American Horror Story and the which one I
Speaker 1: didn't watch that SI, I think it was if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, I think like one of the witches was
Speaker 1: was black and she was able to use some kind
Speaker 1: of spell that summoned, um the zombies of like racist
Speaker 1: farmers from around the area or something. Somebody correct me
Speaker 1: out there if I'm wrong on this, but I remember
Speaker 1: there being a very strange Halloween themed episode where they
Speaker 1: did this. It was like the punishment for these guys
Speaker 1: being slave owners. I think was that she was able
Speaker 1: to like summon their their spirits up again later. So
Speaker 1: I mean think about that, right, Like that's on national television,
Speaker 1: and um, that's not reinforcing stereotypes necessarily, but but you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like there's these kind of like
Speaker 1: roles and identities that people are trying out and trying
Speaker 1: to understand things that are different from themselves, mothering, you know,
Speaker 1: they all kind of play hand in hand. I have
Speaker 1: to admit that I after reading enough, researching enough about
Speaker 1: which craft persecution, I'm I'm I'm a little weird about
Speaker 1: when I see like, um, which costumes, but also like
Speaker 1: you know, the new Vin Diesel which Hunter movie is
Speaker 1: the hero of this picture and and it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of unsettling when you think of witchcraft persecution and and
Speaker 1: and it and and how these these stereotypes were used
Speaker 1: to send so many innocent people to their torture and death. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean, m I yeah, I agree with you, And
Speaker 1: especially when you think about it in the context that
Speaker 1: like these prefabricated which costumes are being sold and you know,
Speaker 1: people are making what what did I say, one point
Speaker 1: for billion dollars off of this costuming industry, uh, celebrating
Speaker 1: the persecution and torture and death of this again the
Speaker 1: subjugated group, right, yeah, I mean, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: it's certainly not one to one with some of the
Speaker 1: racial issues we're talking about earlier. Uh, And it's still
Speaker 1: a lot more complicated because you have you have various
Speaker 1: you know, myths and folk tales weaving their way in
Speaker 1: their popular media, springing up out of equal parts of
Speaker 1: fiction and history. So it's it's a convoluted topic. But
Speaker 1: I I have to admit some of the witch costumes
Speaker 1: at least, you know, caudle light to go on for me. Yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that's it's again back to that whole
Speaker 1: taboo thing that uh, the symbol of the witch, both
Speaker 1: in the guilt that we kind of feel when we
Speaker 1: look back at the history of it and also the
Speaker 1: witches being like outside of the community, right, is like
Speaker 1: the perfect kind of boundary pushing taboo for Halloween. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the articles that I'm about to get into
Speaker 1: talked about how during Victorian time, Victorian time, you know,
Speaker 1: those all of the times the America can women specifically
Speaker 1: with dress dressed either as Egyptians or Gypsies, because those
Speaker 1: were the two like most taboo kind of uh exotic
Speaker 1: other costumes that they could wear. And I guess you
Speaker 1: still see people of varying races dressing up as ancient Egyptians.
Speaker 1: Like maybe enough time has passed that there's like less
Speaker 1: people don't think of ancient Egyptians as being a contemporary race.
Speaker 1: But it's more of a like almost like dressing as
Speaker 1: an elf, right right, right, dressing as a character from
Speaker 1: a movie or something. Yeah, exactly, Alright, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back, So okay, we've we've spotlighted that the masks
Speaker 1: in the costumes allow children to sort of feel like
Speaker 1: they can get away with certain things that they get
Speaker 1: subsumed into a group. We've spotlighted how it sort of
Speaker 1: can change how we think about identity and ace, and
Speaker 1: and how it can also serve for us to get
Speaker 1: more drunk and to do a lot of drugs during Halloween.
Speaker 1: But then there's obviously a gendered element to it as well. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: any buddy who's seen over the last again, like thirty
Speaker 1: or forty years there's definitely been an element of sexiness
Speaker 1: that's been brought into female attire. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: do want to point out, like one of those um
Speaker 1: sources that I'm going to use when we're talking about
Speaker 1: this is from our sister podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You.
Speaker 1: Kristen and Caroline have done at least two episodes on
Speaker 1: this topic, and Kristen has a really great post on
Speaker 1: the term slut owen uh and what that means in
Speaker 1: the history behind it, and I don't really want to
Speaker 1: bring that into it, but that there's there's things connected
Speaker 1: to it in that post that I think have to
Speaker 1: do with our conceit in this episode, which is that
Speaker 1: costumes allow you to perform a different identity. Okay, I
Speaker 1: mean it matches up with a lot of what we've
Speaker 1: been talking about already and that you you take on this, uh,
Speaker 1: this costume, you take on this different identity, and uh
Speaker 1: you have a little more license to be uh sexier
Speaker 1: than normal, more revealing than normal, a little more amorous
Speaker 1: than normal. Yeah. Absolutely, And in fact, there's a history
Speaker 1: professor uh that is named Nicholas is named his name
Speaker 1: is Nicholas Rogers uh, and he actually says you know,
Speaker 1: the costuming tradition of Hallow Mass goes all the way
Speaker 1: back to being both a prayer for the dead as
Speaker 1: we sort of think of it um with the Halloween connotation,
Speaker 1: but also a prayer for fertile marriages. So there was
Speaker 1: already an element of kind of gendered sexiness to it um,
Speaker 1: not as such, not as we would think of it today,
Speaker 1: but like for instance, boys inquire used to dress as
Speaker 1: female virgins for Hallow Mass. So cross dressing and sex
Speaker 1: and virginity and fertility were all elements from the start. Okay,
Speaker 1: well that's good for anybody that is planning a kind
Speaker 1: of sexy costume this year. And if somebody calls you
Speaker 1: on it, why aren't you a zombie? Why aren't you
Speaker 1: dressed up as a sexy Egyptian or something, you can say, well, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm tying into some of the I'm doing some history.
Speaker 1: This is my history project. Um. So he talks also,
Speaker 1: this is where I got the thing about the Victorian costumes.
Speaker 1: Was also this Nicholas Rogers guy, and he said that
Speaker 1: that at that point in time, just like as we
Speaker 1: were just talking about, the Halloween was thought of as
Speaker 1: a knight to do something that they wouldn't ordinarily do
Speaker 1: and to have people look at them, right, So that's
Speaker 1: why they're dressing as Egyptians or Gypsies. Then in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, this interesting thing happens where the sexy costume
Speaker 1: both for men and women emerged. Uh and Christian's research
Speaker 1: and then this article that I found in Time called
Speaker 1: the Definitive History of the Sexy Halloween Costume both points
Speaker 1: to this that there were a lot of Halloween parades
Speaker 1: in gay neighborhoods in New York, West Hollywood, and San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and out of these big, kind of raucous bacchanalia parties
Speaker 1: came this sort of genesis for what we think of
Speaker 1: now is like the modern sexy girl costume. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: so you get that, that event happens, and then, just
Speaker 1: like with anything, businessmen and marketers see that and they say, well,
Speaker 1: that seems like it's something that would make a lot
Speaker 1: of money. So they start designing these costumes, selling them
Speaker 1: and targeting adults. And so that's when we start to
Speaker 1: see sort of towards the late seventies, this emergence of
Speaker 1: the adult Halloween experience coming back. It's not just for kids, anymore.
Speaker 1: And so you and I were just talking about this earlier,
Speaker 1: like when we were kids in the early eighties. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was sort of that weird stigma of like, well,
Speaker 1: at a certain point, you shouldn't be out trick or
Speaker 1: treating anymore, you know. Like I definitely remember there was
Speaker 1: a point where like I was out and like a
Speaker 1: parent would answer the door and say like, aren't you
Speaker 1: a little old for this? You know, And I'd come
Speaker 1: up with some excuse like what you were in costumer
Speaker 1: I was, Yeah, See, that's the thing. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're an older kid and you're showing up
Speaker 1: at the doorstep and you have no you're asking for candy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's you're kind of breaking the rules here exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't care how old you are, but put them
Speaker 1: put some sort of mask on, so you you find that.
Speaker 1: So there's a two thousand six study on children's costumes
Speaker 1: done by a sociologist named Addie Nelson, and she found
Speaker 1: that not only were they distinctly gendered, but that for women,
Speaker 1: the costumes that you know, these are off the rat
Speaker 1: costumes not necessarily what people are coming up with on
Speaker 1: their own. They're usually princesses or beauty queens for the
Speaker 1: girls choices. Uh. And then there's also in two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, there was a New York Times article quoting
Speaker 1: a costume merchant and he said that since the early
Speaker 1: two thousand's, the sexy iterations of costumes have compromised nine
Speaker 1: of the female costumes that he sells at his store.
Speaker 1: So um, Christian, our colleague basically makes the point, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what's the reason behind the sexy costume boom? Because they're
Speaker 1: popular because both women and girls are buying them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know there's marketing behind it. There's money to
Speaker 1: be had there. So yes, it's a cultured identity thing,
Speaker 1: but it's also an economic thing as well. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I'll also point this out for Kristen because if any
Speaker 1: of you out there I've ever watched Kristen's video series
Speaker 1: for stuff Mom never told you, you you know that she
Speaker 1: likes to get into costume and characters. Uh. And she
Speaker 1: speculates that we're moving now from a period of just
Speaker 1: the sexy Halloween costumes to the ironic sexy costumes. So
Speaker 1: I think what she means by that is, like, I
Speaker 1: see this a lot when I go to like pop
Speaker 1: culture conventions. Uh, like like sexy Darth Vader. Yeah, people
Speaker 1: sexifying characters or costumes that you wouldn't traditionally think of
Speaker 1: as being sexy. I saw a sexy version of what's
Speaker 1: the name of the main villain from Fury Road. Oh god,
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about. Yeah, it's a thank
Speaker 1: you super producer Noel just told us that it was
Speaker 1: a Morton Joe. Yeah. I saw a picture of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He and and of course that on its own is
Speaker 1: an interesting character to see so embraced among costumers and
Speaker 1: cosplay because he said, it's a horrible guy. He's just
Speaker 1: a horrible individual that I mean to embody any aspect
Speaker 1: of him. Um, if you're thinking, you know, deep about
Speaker 1: it is troubling. I can top that. My wife just
Speaker 1: showed me the other day that a friend of a
Speaker 1: friend got a sleeve tattoo of a Morton Joe on
Speaker 1: her arm. I think consider this. That movie just came
Speaker 1: out like what three months ago. Uh, great movie, But like,
Speaker 1: what are you saying about the idea that you're like,
Speaker 1: I really like that warlord rapist who like keeps women
Speaker 1: locked up as like concubines, bastically and that's not just
Speaker 1: a for those who you haven't read it, that's not
Speaker 1: just uh, you know, subjective read of the film. Like
Speaker 1: that is that's the plot of the plot of the movie.
Speaker 1: It portrays him as such, and the the the harem
Speaker 1: that he keeps. These are not you know, sexy doll
Speaker 1: eyed individuals. These are abused and traumatized individuals based on
Speaker 1: their treatment. I'll add to that. Another thing that I
Speaker 1: see very often at conventions that I don't understand, and
Speaker 1: you know, forgive me, uh, maybe you have an alternate
Speaker 1: reading on this is um Watchman costplay when people costplay
Speaker 1: as the comedian and the Golden Age Silk Specter together.
Speaker 1: So if you've seen, if you've read the book, or
Speaker 1: if you've seen the movie, you know, I guess spoilers
Speaker 1: for it, but like those two have an abusive domestic
Speaker 1: relationship that involves sexual violence. Uh. And you you know,
Speaker 1: I see that a lot. I see a lot of people,
Speaker 1: the couples wearing those costumes together and kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: walking around like isn't this fun? Isn't this cool? And
Speaker 1: I don't I don't get it, but clearly it has
Speaker 1: something to do with with what's going on here, I
Speaker 1: mean this costuming experiences outside of just Halloween, right, So, UM,
Speaker 1: I imagine, and I'm sure there's studies that, if they
Speaker 1: haven't been published already, are being written right now furiously
Speaker 1: by some graduate student about pop culture conventions and costplay
Speaker 1: that they also allow for exploration of identity for other
Speaker 1: ring for all these kinds of things that we're talking
Speaker 1: about here, right, So what do we have next? What
Speaker 1: what's the next on the plate? Stud So sticking with
Speaker 1: the gender theme, there's two more studies I want to
Speaker 1: talk about. Um. In there was a study published in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Psychology called Age and Gender Difference in
Speaker 1: Children's Halloween Costumes. So we're bringing it back to kids,
Speaker 1: but we're sticking with the gender thing here. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it the people who wrote it predicted, uh that Halloween
Speaker 1: costumes for first and second graders would be less gender
Speaker 1: stereotyped than those for preschoolers and children in kindergarten. So again,
Speaker 1: remember when I was talking earlier that that zone of
Speaker 1: three to five, the zone that your son is in
Speaker 1: right now, Uh, that this is an area of time
Speaker 1: that the authors speculate is when identity is still in flux, right,
Speaker 1: And so there's an idea that gender really needs to
Speaker 1: be reinforced these scenarios where the toddler, or not the
Speaker 1: toddler really, but they the young child three four year old,
Speaker 1: they say they want to dress as a princess, and
Speaker 1: you say, like, hell you are, You're dressing as a
Speaker 1: cowboy because I have a lot of expectations for your
Speaker 1: your your gender preference here. Yeah, exactly, And their findings
Speaker 1: confirmed this. Uh so they found actually the older boys.
Speaker 1: So when they're talking older boys, they're talking about like
Speaker 1: I think over the age of eight, uh they tended
Speaker 1: to prefer less masculine and more feminine costumes than the
Speaker 1: younger boys did. And the older girls preferred more masculine
Speaker 1: and less feminine costumes than the younger girls did. So
Speaker 1: there definitely was like a between the ages of three
Speaker 1: and five, there's that like reinforcing gender thing, and then
Speaker 1: there's like a period of time where they play or
Speaker 1: maybe not play. I don't think there's like cross dressing
Speaker 1: as much as it's sort of like they're less concerned
Speaker 1: by that, right, But then it evolves by the time
Speaker 1: when we get into high school and college, as we've seen,
Speaker 1: into the sexy costume stereotype, right, you know that makes
Speaker 1: more you know sensor. You can imagine a uh, either
Speaker 1: a boy or a girl, and they're having a lot
Speaker 1: of expectations placed on them in the way that they
Speaker 1: dress every day, as well as some of these specialty costumes.
Speaker 1: Like there comes a point where you're gonna say, you know,
Speaker 1: I would like to maybe wear something that's not pink
Speaker 1: or you know, I would like to wear something that's
Speaker 1: colorful and flowing and um, you know, without and engage
Speaker 1: in that possibility without all of the adult baggage that
Speaker 1: the parents are are are possibly exactly how much of
Speaker 1: it is the parents saying I think you should be whatever,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like in your case, best
Speaker 1: and giraffe, Really how about leather face? Yeah yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's not gendered. You just want him to yeah
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, but but no, I mean, like I do
Speaker 1: see that this kind of you know, gender openness and curiosity.
Speaker 1: Even in my own son, you know, where he he
Speaker 1: likes sees somebody playing in address and it's like I'd
Speaker 1: like to run around address and you, of course, without
Speaker 1: the adult baggage we place on that scenario, why not
Speaker 1: I totally remember that period of time. There was a
Speaker 1: point when I and my you know, upbringing wasn't particularly
Speaker 1: like conservative or I think of it as not being gendered,
Speaker 1: but of course it was um and and saying like,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted a Barbie doll to play with
Speaker 1: because the the girls in my kindergarten class all have
Speaker 1: these Barbie dolls, so of course I wanted one. Uh
Speaker 1: And I was discouraged from that and and and it
Speaker 1: was really like I couldn't make sense of it at
Speaker 1: that age because you know, they couldn't explain to me, well,
Speaker 1: if you do that, that's going to say a certain
Speaker 1: thing about you, and people are gonna make fun of you,
Speaker 1: and that's going to subsequently reflect back on me, right.
Speaker 1: Uh So it was it was an interesting kind of
Speaker 1: thing to look back on that idea with any siblings.
Speaker 1: I do, yeah, but they're ten years younger than me
Speaker 1: because I I have younger sisters. So they were always
Speaker 1: Barbie dolls in the house. So like they were they
Speaker 1: were there, and you know, I would play with the
Speaker 1: Barbie house. Sometimes they had a lot of cool stuff, yeah, sure, everything,
Speaker 1: but a toilet in there, well, right exactly. And if
Speaker 1: you you know, as a as a kid of that age,
Speaker 1: if you're using your imagination with your toys, the gender
Speaker 1: element is probably not something you're even thinking of, right
Speaker 1: But anyways, so so that ties back into what we
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier with the sort of preschooler Halloween mentality.
Speaker 1: So it's it's gendered, and then it's not gendered, and
Speaker 1: then don't forget. It also encourages you to steal or
Speaker 1: take a lot of candy. There's one more study, uh
Speaker 1: that is called the Pink Dragon is Female, and it
Speaker 1: was published in two thousand and the Psychology of Women
Speaker 1: cord Quarterly, And basically what they did was a content
Speaker 1: analysis of all the children's Halloween costumes that they could
Speaker 1: find that were available, and they saw it as a categorization.
Speaker 1: They broke up into three categories, Heroes, villains, and fools,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to see whether or not these these costumes,
Speaker 1: you know, very very much like the last study we
Speaker 1: were talking about, reproduce or reiterate conventional messages of gender.
Speaker 1: And what they found was that, yes, the female costumes
Speaker 1: were clustered around examples of femininity like we talked about
Speaker 1: earlier with the princesses and the beauty queens. But also, uh,
Speaker 1: there was a higher ratio of animal costumes for girls.
Speaker 1: And maybe I just never noticed this, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: because of my age. Food stuff costumes, So if girls
Speaker 1: didn't want to have gendered costumes, they could, I guess,
Speaker 1: be a strawberry or something or or what would well,
Speaker 1: that's one of one of the costumes from Killa Mockingberg, right,
Speaker 1: was addressed as food items. I don't remember that, you know,
Speaker 1: even with animals who have these gender stereotypes that we've
Speaker 1: encountered with my son's favorite, uh animal is the giraffe.
Speaker 1: And then you go and you try and find church
Speaker 1: for boys with girafts. You don't find them. You find
Speaker 1: the boys shirts have tigers and lions, and boys are
Speaker 1: not supposed to like herbivores for some reason. That's funny,
Speaker 1: because grafts can be pretty brutal and tough when they're draft,
Speaker 1: can look after after itself, bringing that neck around and
Speaker 1: throwing in an odd kick. Well, okay, so we've got
Speaker 1: the So the animals and food stuff seem to be
Speaker 1: the compromise for young girls. For young males, the costumes
Speaker 1: are likely to feature villains, especially those that are symbols
Speaker 1: of death, which I don't know necessarily that how much
Speaker 1: I would read into that, given Halloween and the symbology
Speaker 1: of death that that you know, floats around that holiday
Speaker 1: and anything. But um, they did find in this content
Speaker 1: analysis that less than less than ten percent of the
Speaker 1: costumes in two thousand were gender neutral, so the food
Speaker 1: stuff items, I'm assuming those were the only ones, you know,
Speaker 1: And that more often that male costumes had occupational roles,
Speaker 1: right like I'm a doctor, I'm a welder, or whatever,
Speaker 1: I'm a podcaster, uh, And that the female costumes were
Speaker 1: usually based on what their appearance was in their relationships.
Speaker 1: So all right, So to summarize, we've got, uh, the
Speaker 1: Halloween costumes build gender. They are a way that we
Speaker 1: construct race and identity. And then there's also a moral
Speaker 1: element that we've talked about, including both stealing and intoxication,
Speaker 1: allowing you to engage in behavior that you otherwise, uh
Speaker 1: wouldn't engage in or wouldn't engage to that degree, you know.
Speaker 1: And one of the crazy things about this topic is
Speaker 1: that it's it's not just at Halloween. It's not just
Speaker 1: when we actually actively engage in the wearing of masks,
Speaker 1: be it for fun or as part of a religious
Speaker 1: ritual or what have you. But any time we put
Speaker 1: on clothing we're in, we're engaging in this kind of
Speaker 1: powerful rebecoming. Yeah, it's uh, you know, a form of communication. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how we address the things that we own, the things
Speaker 1: that we wear, even down to like what kind of
Speaker 1: car you drive, or what kind of pencil you use
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like all those things, whether we're conscious of
Speaker 1: it or not, are us communicating something about ourselves and
Speaker 1: identity to other people. Yeah. One observation that I keep
Speaker 1: coming back to whenever I dip my toe into this
Speaker 1: uh this topic. Uh. It comes from a factless book
Speaker 1: by Virginia Smith titled Clean A History of Personal Hygiene Impurity,
Speaker 1: which deals mostly with with that very concept, the idea
Speaker 1: that there's there's physical cleanliness and the societea of spiritual
Speaker 1: cleanliness and to just become irreversibly interwoven throughout history and
Speaker 1: many you know, I'm amazing and and sometimes very uh
Speaker 1: you know, missible ways. But she points out that modern
Speaker 1: cultural sociologists describe the human body as an unfinished body,
Speaker 1: a body created by nature but finished by humans. And
Speaker 1: so each of us call all upon various bodies at
Speaker 1: various times, So there's a you know, there's a cybernetic
Speaker 1: element to this. You know, we're we're inherently augmented via technology,
Speaker 1: be that wrist watch or an implant, or just the
Speaker 1: clothing we wear to tweak who we physically are and
Speaker 1: therefore tweak who we are inside. Yeah, that's interesting, especially because, like,
Speaker 1: you know, a topic that comes up on this show
Speaker 1: a lot is trans humanism or post humanism, and just
Speaker 1: thinking about it that way, like like we think of
Speaker 1: that as being a very kind of sci fi thing
Speaker 1: that's coming down the road, but just think about it. Like,
Speaker 1: my dog doesn't wear clothes other than the collar that
Speaker 1: I put around his neck so I can walk him, right,
Speaker 1: he doesn't need to express his identity within clothing. Uh,
Speaker 1: We're not the kind of people to do this, but
Speaker 1: some people put their dogs in little outfits right in
Speaker 1: order to sort of do that same thing, to project
Speaker 1: identity through that. Well, I mean, you look at the
Speaker 1: most primal example possible in a man edge. You know,
Speaker 1: some sort of a cave person in prehistory kills a
Speaker 1: wolf skins, it wears the wolf hide, and so on
Speaker 1: several different levels, Like on one level, it's it's an
Speaker 1: augmentation of the body for just purely to stay warm
Speaker 1: or even to provide some level of protection and combat,
Speaker 1: and then on on a on another level though, that
Speaker 1: individual is taking on the hide of the beast, the
Speaker 1: being of the beast, which you know we touched on
Speaker 1: a little bit in our Wolf Spane episode. That's one
Speaker 1: of the models for wear wolf transformation. Is you wear
Speaker 1: a magical hide, yeah, or or the right exactly like
Speaker 1: the kind of barbarian wearing like half hides, or or
Speaker 1: even like wearing like the fur over their head or
Speaker 1: something like in taking on the role of the beast
Speaker 1: in combat. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. So when this we
Speaker 1: get into the idea of embodied cognition, which is a
Speaker 1: philosophical model in which an agent's cognition, the way you think,
Speaker 1: the way you engage, the way you interpret the world
Speaker 1: is strongly influenced by aspects of an agent's body beyond
Speaker 1: the brain itself. So you know that entails not only
Speaker 1: how you feel about your body and how you appear,
Speaker 1: but then how you augment it through clothing. And to
Speaker 1: reiterate too, there is an episode of Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind from a couple of years ago that that
Speaker 1: you guys did specifically about in clothes cognition. So if
Speaker 1: you know we're going to touch on it here, but
Speaker 1: if you really want to take a deep dive, go
Speaker 1: back and check that out, and I'm sure we'll link
Speaker 1: to it and then we'll have a link to that
Speaker 1: one on the landing page for this this episode. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you see this idea of the body as a constraint,
Speaker 1: like your body is holding you back from being who
Speaker 1: you are inside. The body is a regulator, so in
Speaker 1: this case, the the body's functions are are regulating cognitive activity.
Speaker 1: You can get into this whole mind body problem with
Speaker 1: it pretty pretty quickly. And this leads into an additional
Speaker 1: take on an embodiment that deals particularly with garments, and
Speaker 1: this is enclothed cognition. And this stems from three initial
Speaker 1: studies by Hajo Adam and Adam Glanski from Northwestern University
Speaker 1: and they've been examining the psychological and performance related effects
Speaker 1: that wearing specific articles of clothing have on the person
Speaker 1: wearing them. And they actually coined this term in clothed cognition.
Speaker 1: And this is where we get the sort of doctor
Speaker 1: cosplay experiment, right, Yeah, Yeah, So in fact, they're their
Speaker 1: primary experiments out with this. So in in in one experiment,
Speaker 1: they they found that people physic physically wearing a lap
Speaker 1: coat and that's key, not just looking at and at it,
Speaker 1: not just thinking about it. If they physically put it on,
Speaker 1: it increases selective attention compared to when they're not wearing
Speaker 1: a lap coat. So it's like putting on a thinking cap.
Speaker 1: I thinking cap powered entirely by the symbolic nature of
Speaker 1: the cap. We think of the doctors being who serious
Speaker 1: and an observant, And then when we put it on,
Speaker 1: even though we have no illusions that we are becoming
Speaker 1: a doctor, but we are. It's like we're wearing the
Speaker 1: hide of that wolf. We're wearing the hide of that
Speaker 1: doctor and in doing so becoming them a little bit cognitively. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on there, just in that one
Speaker 1: small experiment in that it speaks to the kind of
Speaker 1: human nature, uh, adherence to cultural narratives and imagination. And again,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking back on Halloween and this idea of
Speaker 1: like is it for kids is it for adults? It's
Speaker 1: like we as adults every day are imagining and playing
Speaker 1: out these games scenarios in our head. As we dress
Speaker 1: up the way we do. Yeah, and they found in
Speaker 1: some follow up experiments that it specifically had to be
Speaker 1: a doctor's coat if they call it was the same
Speaker 1: lab coat and they said, oh, it's a painter's coat.
Speaker 1: Didn't have the same effect. And in all cases it
Speaker 1: was the symbolic meaning of the the outfit plus the
Speaker 1: physical experience of wearing it. And uh So I think
Speaker 1: that's key to pretty much every model we've looked at
Speaker 1: here that you're taking on not just the appearance of
Speaker 1: the monster or the sexy Egyptian or what have you.
Speaker 1: You were taking on some aspect of at least what
Speaker 1: you presume to be the mind of that end of dual,
Speaker 1: of that racial group, all of that type of person,
Speaker 1: or that just straight up monster. Yeah. And again I
Speaker 1: think that that, you know, explains the surge and popularity
Speaker 1: of costuming and cosplay, uh in American popular culture right now.
Speaker 1: It's that has a lot to do with it. And
Speaker 1: maybe Halloween that one day year isn't enough for that
Speaker 1: kind of experimentation. People want to have more occasions in
Speaker 1: which they can do that and not have it be taboo,
Speaker 1: right So, and I mean that's why you see more
Speaker 1: and more of that these days. You see, like just
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, UM, we were going to talk about
Speaker 1: Crampus a little bit. Maybe we'll do a Crampus episode
Speaker 1: later on. There there's a local Crampus UH pub crawl
Speaker 1: situation that goes on. People dress up like this hornted
Speaker 1: um germanic monster and parade about. They've got this thing
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta too. It's like they probably have it
Speaker 1: another cities now as well. But it's a zombie walk
Speaker 1: and U doesn't really I mean, I think it's during
Speaker 1: October maybe, but I think it has more to do
Speaker 1: with that the Walking Dead is shot here than it
Speaker 1: has to do with Halloween necessarily. But I mean they
Speaker 1: get like five people like all marching down the street
Speaker 1: through the city in zombie garb. So the rest of
Speaker 1: the year you go to you go to various carnival situations,
Speaker 1: go to New Orleans, you go to to various cons
Speaker 1: and dress up as these individuals. So so yeah, we're
Speaker 1: kind of creating more and more opportunities for UH, for
Speaker 1: adults to engage in costume play and in costume recreation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it speaks to UH. Like I said at
Speaker 1: the top again, like, so Halloween is like a way
Speaker 1: to sort of reflect back what's going on in culture
Speaker 1: at the time and our sort of need for more
Speaker 1: opportunities to costume and uh play around with these identities.
Speaker 1: Seems to be a reflection of that as well, right,
Speaker 1: that there's more fluidity and flexibility, uh and acceptance of
Speaker 1: playing around with identity than the baby was when we
Speaker 1: were kids. Yeah. Yeah, back back then they were still
Speaker 1: into you know, you're taking on a particular identity, but
Speaker 1: it was the one you had to keep for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life, right everything else. Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: so yeah, I'm all in favor of donning those costumes. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: that's why October is my favorite month of the year.
Speaker 1: You know, I love I love October, not just for Halloween,
Speaker 1: but for all the things that kind of come along
Speaker 1: with it, the the autumn, the corn mazes, uh, hay rides,
Speaker 1: all that stuff, Apple bobbing, and the podcast episodes and
Speaker 1: the related blog post. Absolutely nice segue. So again to
Speaker 1: remind you, we're gonna be doing uh podcasts all month
Speaker 1: that are fairly tied into the month of October and
Speaker 1: too Halloween themes. But also we've got coming up at
Speaker 1: the end of October, will be answering your listener mail
Speaker 1: on ten twenty three during our first periscope session. Uh
Speaker 1: And and you know, as I've said before, we haven't
Speaker 1: periscoped yet, but I've leave you can interact directly with
Speaker 1: us there too. You can type in questions for us,
Speaker 1: and you know we'll try to answer them. Uh And
Speaker 1: Monster Science. So we're big monster fans around here, and
Speaker 1: we've got four brand new episodes of Monster Science coming
Speaker 1: up at the end of the month. All through the month,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be posting the first two seasons of Monster
Speaker 1: Science to our social media accounts Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler,
Speaker 1: where you can find us with the handle below the Mind.
Speaker 1: And finally, if people want to reach out to us
Speaker 1: and let us know about their costuming experience and whether
Speaker 1: what kind of effects has had on their identity or
Speaker 1: what they've seen with other people's identity, where can they
Speaker 1: reach out to us at and maybe we can respond
Speaker 1: to that during the periscope session. We just reach out
Speaker 1: to us at blow the Mind at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com