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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to venture into the vault. This time we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be going back to an old classic October episode that

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Speaker 1: you did with Christian a few years ago. Right, that's right.

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Speaker 1: This is the Halloween costume made me do it? Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is the This is basically a study of what

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Speaker 1: happens when we put on Halloween mask. How into what

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Speaker 1: extent does it change who we are and how we behave.

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Speaker 1: Is a child wearing a Halloween mask more likely to

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Speaker 1: get into mischief than one that is not wearing a mask? Uh?

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Speaker 1: It's a fascinating area of discussion. Gets into stuff like

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Speaker 1: in clothes, cognition, etcetera. This was originally published on October.

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Speaker 1: We hope you enjoy it today. Welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. Hey, it is October,

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Speaker 1: and we, if you haven't noticed, are covering a lot

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Speaker 1: of topics that are around kind of the October theme

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Speaker 1: of horror and Halloween but also things like being dead

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Speaker 1: or burials are for today, we're gonna get real literal

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Speaker 1: with it and talk about Halloween costumes. But we also

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Speaker 1: want to let you know that towards the end of

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Speaker 1: the month, we're going to be doing two kind of

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Speaker 1: special things that we want our audience to know about.

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Speaker 1: The first is that we're gonna be periscoping our listener

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Speaker 1: mail starting on October twenty three, which is a Friday.

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Speaker 1: So if you're on periscope or if you're not, sign

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Speaker 1: up for it and you can check us out responding

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Speaker 1: to our listener mail and kind of interacting with our

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Speaker 1: audience in real time on that platform. Yeah, and if

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Speaker 1: you don't know what periscope is, don't worry. I didn't

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Speaker 1: know till life a few weeks ago. So we'll put

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Speaker 1: up a blog post as well at some point here

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Speaker 1: that will give you the deats on what exactly what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about exactly. We'll be pushing the information out

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Speaker 1: on our social media channels as well, which include Facebook, Twitter,

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Speaker 1: and tumbler. On all of those platforms were known by

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Speaker 1: the handle blow the Mind, and we don't just post

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Speaker 1: our own stuff there. We curate content from all the

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Speaker 1: kind of weird science e stuff that we find across

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Speaker 1: the internet. Uh. And if you want to be included

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Speaker 1: in that listener mail, don't forget that. You can always

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Speaker 1: reach us at the email address blow the Mind at

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Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. The other thing that we

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Speaker 1: have coming up at the end of October is the

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Speaker 1: return of our video series Monster Science. Robert, you want

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Speaker 1: to tell him a little bit about this? Yeah? Join

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Speaker 1: uh Dr Anton Jessup, a kind of a daytime horror

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Speaker 1: host VHS era basement creep who's going to walk us

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Speaker 1: through the real world science behind us some rather outrageous

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Speaker 1: monster movie nasties. Can you give us a preview of

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Speaker 1: what kind of monsters we're gonna see in this? So yes,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna you're gonna look at shambling mushrooms, You're gonna

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Speaker 1: look at werewolves. We're gonna look into Big Trouble a

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Speaker 1: little China when the creatures from that as well. That's exciting,

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Speaker 1: as well as a certain character from Mortal Kombat. So cool. Cool.

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Speaker 1: So what's great about that is you've got a wear

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Speaker 1: Wolf episode coming up with that. We just published the

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Speaker 1: episode on wolf Spain and so you know, we're trying

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Speaker 1: to tie things together a little bit here. We also

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Speaker 1: have an episode coming out about Egyptian mummification, and we

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Speaker 1: have a mummy episode of Monster Science from the first season.

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Speaker 1: So October, you can see, is our favorite month, which

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Speaker 1: brings me to today's episode, Robert, what are you going

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Speaker 1: to be for Halloween this year? We'll see this is

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Speaker 1: a this is a complicated question, um with me, because

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Speaker 1: I have the boy. The boy's gonna dress up and

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Speaker 1: uh and and me and my wife have done kind

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Speaker 1: of like combo costumes in the past, but now we

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Speaker 1: have this, uh, this weird extra actor in the scenario.

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Speaker 1: So like last year we did a Twin Peaks thing

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Speaker 1: where remember that, Yeah, where I was the comic clock

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Speaker 1: and character lady. Yeah, my wife was a clog lady

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Speaker 1: and we dressed our son up as the dancing little guy.

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Speaker 1: Um and and my my father in law played the

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Speaker 1: tall man. Oh yeah, yeah, I do remember seeing that picture. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was a great idea. Yeah, so that one works.

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Speaker 1: But now he's he's a little more insistent, like he

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Speaker 1: wants to be a giraffe and like, you know how

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Speaker 1: it's hard to work a giraffe into a team cost

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Speaker 1: him ef. Yeah, absolutely, the only thing that comes to

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Speaker 1: mind is like, what's that elephant children's story? Bob are

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Speaker 1: Ye and like that. I don't want to dress up

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Speaker 1: like ar Yeah you're not. You don't strick me as

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Speaker 1: the book? Yeah I would. I would love to do

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Speaker 1: a mummy like com bo cost him where we all

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Speaker 1: dressed up as different takes on mummies. He could be

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Speaker 1: a giraffe mummy, he could. Yeah, there's no reason why

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Speaker 1: they wouldn't have mummified a giraffe. That would have been

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Speaker 1: an interesting process in bombing all those draft organs. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would think so. So yeah, maybe mommy giraffe. We'll see.

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Speaker 1: How about yourself. I haven't nailed it down yet, but

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Speaker 1: I have this old prison outfit that I used for

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Speaker 1: a video I shot one time. So I'm kind of

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Speaker 1: considering doing a Hannibal lecter thing. Uh, but it would

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Speaker 1: involve me having to be strapped down to a dolly

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Speaker 1: and being pushed around by somebody. And I don't think

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Speaker 1: I can talk anybody into being you know, the orderly

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Speaker 1: Barney from the from the Asylum that Animals. And that's

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Speaker 1: the thing about it's about certain combo costumes is they're

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Speaker 1: not all even handed. Sometimes they require somebody to be

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Speaker 1: something kind of boring. Yeah, well some people are into that.

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Speaker 1: I don't think My wife definitely wouldn't want to be Barney,

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Speaker 1: so we'll come up with something maybe she can be

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Speaker 1: Will Graham. Yeah. So the reason I ask is because

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Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking about Halloween costumes and how

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Speaker 1: they relate to our culture but also to our identities

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Speaker 1: and how we form and change our our identities in

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Speaker 1: conjunction with what we're you know, costuming as Yeah, it hard,

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Speaker 1: it's a really it's a really fascinating topic because when

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Speaker 1: you put on a mask, when you put on a costume,

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Speaker 1: you're engaging in a in a very a very powerful act.

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Speaker 1: Here you are becoming somebody else, not only externally but internally,

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Speaker 1: as we'll discuss, and it's been a it's played a

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Speaker 1: vital role in traditional religions throughout history. It's uh, you

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Speaker 1: can you can see both positive and negative, very negative

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Speaker 1: aspects of mask and costume usage throughout time, and yet

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Speaker 1: today we often just relegate it to just sort of

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Speaker 1: childhood silliness. Right, Oh, the kids are gonna put on

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Speaker 1: masks and go around parading through the community. Well when

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Speaker 1: but if you stop and you think about it, it's

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Speaker 1: it's terrifying, you know. Yeah, And I think that there's

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Speaker 1: an argument to be made to that, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to get into this that it's definitely over the last

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Speaker 1: thirty years or so, maybe forty years or so, it's

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Speaker 1: started to become an adult thing, at least in American culture,

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Speaker 1: and that the rise of cosplay in sort of, I guess,

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Speaker 1: nerd culture, but you know, I think it's gotten to

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Speaker 1: the point where cosplay is is beyond nerd culture now.

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Speaker 1: I was in the grocery store the other day and

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Speaker 1: there's a magazine dedicated to cosplay that you can buy

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Speaker 1: at your local supermarket. So I feel like that's sort

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Speaker 1: of elevated past, you know, just just for geeks, when

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Speaker 1: you can buy it like on the shelf there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's great to hear that, especially looking back. I

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Speaker 1: definitely remember a time when I was still trigger treating,

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Speaker 1: but among my peers, I was probably too old for

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Speaker 1: such nonsense. And occasionally you would run, you would trigg

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Speaker 1: or treat at a house and you'd see somebody your

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Speaker 1: own age in there, not in costume, and they kind

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Speaker 1: of look at you like, what are you doing? But

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Speaker 1: then you know what they weren't doing having fun exactly. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the dude in question I'm thinking about, it's

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Speaker 1: like I looked him up on Facebook and he's still

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Speaker 1: not having fun in this day. So I'm proud that

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Speaker 1: I wore my my Halloween customes. But you know, but

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Speaker 1: the thing is, is that guy and I'm sure, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure anybody listening to the episode right now can identify

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Speaker 1: with costuming and that sort of role play, identity change element.

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Speaker 1: And there's a science to this too. This isn't just

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Speaker 1: gonna be us riffing about what it's like to wear

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Speaker 1: Halloween costumes. There's been a ton of studies on this way,

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Speaker 1: more than I thought we would find. Actually, Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: a like I knew there would be a tie to

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Speaker 1: the topic of in clothed cognition that we'll talk about,

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Speaker 1: and a long time listeners to the show might remember

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Speaker 1: an episode in the past that dealt a little bit

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Speaker 1: within closed cognition. But there's there are a number of

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Speaker 1: studies that deal specifically with Halloween costumes and how Halloween

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Speaker 1: costumes impact both children and adults. Yeah, so there are

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Speaker 1: two specific things that I want to sort of start

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Speaker 1: off with us maybe like thesis statements for this episode,

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Speaker 1: and we'll see if they're approved by the evidence that

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Speaker 1: we go through throughout the episode. The first is that

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Speaker 1: there's this idea that Halloween is a and the costumes

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Speaker 1: that we see in the acts that we see during

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Speaker 1: it are a reflection of what's happening in our culture

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Speaker 1: at that point in time, and that it's sort of,

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Speaker 1: uh is also a transgressive element, right, that there are

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Speaker 1: boundaries within our society that are some of them are

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Speaker 1: asking to be pushed, and Halloween is the time when

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Speaker 1: that happens. And you know, in some degrees that can

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Speaker 1: lead to social change and other degrees, as we'll talk about,

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Speaker 1: it's maybe a kind of social regression as well. But

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Speaker 1: so I want us to keep that in mind that

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Speaker 1: it it seems to be this period of time that

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Speaker 1: reflects kind of I hate using this term, but the

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Speaker 1: zeitgeist of what's going on in American culture at the time.

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Speaker 1: And I understand that it's becoming more popular in some

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Speaker 1: European nations as well, so um, you know, perhaps they're

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Speaker 1: seeing that as well. Well. You know, just over the

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Speaker 1: past ten years, you can look to one particular Halloween

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Speaker 1: costume is playing a significant role in uh in social movements.

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Speaker 1: That being, of course, the V for Vendetta mask, which

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Speaker 1: is Halloween costume mask based on the motion picture. That's

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Speaker 1: always fascinated me from the perspective of you know, and

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Speaker 1: I'll talk about this later, but you know, in my

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Speaker 1: outside life, I write comic books, and I attend a

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Speaker 1: lot of comic book conventions throughout the year, and so

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Speaker 1: I see a lot of costumes. And when the movie

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Speaker 1: came out and all of a sudden, I started seeing

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Speaker 1: a lot of people both at these shows and at

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Speaker 1: Halloween wearing the Guy Fox mask, it really struck me

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Speaker 1: as being ironic because there's such a um as you

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Speaker 1: just brought up, there's such an association and symbolism of

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Speaker 1: bellion associated with that that mask that I don't know

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Speaker 1: necessarily that the customers themselves even knew it necessarily, even

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Speaker 1: though the movie sort of presents that as a as

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Speaker 1: a symbolic point. Yeah. Yeah, it's been. It's been a

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Speaker 1: fascinating transformation with that particular man of the particular character. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So before we start talking about these studies, which you know,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be working our way from nineteen seventies six

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Speaker 1: up until present day, there's been so many studies. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I want to just throw out this fact for you.

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Speaker 1: In one point four billion dollars were spent on Halloween

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Speaker 1: costumes in America alone. And that's according to the National

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Speaker 1: Retail Federation. That is a tremendous sum of money. And

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Speaker 1: I guess I never really stopped to think about it before.

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Speaker 1: But of course, like I don't know what it's like

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Speaker 1: in other parts of the country, but here in Atlanta

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Speaker 1: we have these these like pop up halloween stores where

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Speaker 1: like there used to be uh, you know, like a

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Speaker 1: department store like a Macy's or something, and it's since left.

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Speaker 1: And for just the month of October, these halloween stores

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Speaker 1: move in and all they sell their costumes and Halloween

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Speaker 1: knickknacks and things like that. Uh. And I always it

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Speaker 1: always struck me as like, wow, like can you turn

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Speaker 1: a profit just in a month like that? And obviously

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Speaker 1: you can if there's that much money going into it.

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Speaker 1: And it's especially interesting to see that it's doing that

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Speaker 1: kind of business. After all those kids melted in the

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Speaker 1: Silver Shamrock mass That was a shame. That was a shame.

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Speaker 1: I was young when that happened, But yeah, I can't

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Speaker 1: believe in the snakes came out of their eyes. And

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Speaker 1: we are, of course referring to Halloween three colon Season

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Speaker 1: of the Witch, one of our favorite movies. Here' stuff

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Speaker 1: to blow your mind. In fact, last year, Uh Joe,

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Speaker 1: super producer Noel and myself got together with our partners

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Speaker 1: and watched that movie. I don't know if it was

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Speaker 1: on Halloween, but it was like the week of Halloween

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Speaker 1: and it was great fun. Yeah, I think I watched

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Speaker 1: it for the first time last year as well at

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Speaker 1: night by myself the family was sleeping. But yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think it's it's a very flawed film, but it has

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Speaker 1: some it has some very just fantastic elements in it,

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Speaker 1: from the just wonderful soundtrack by John Carpenter now and

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Speaker 1: worth to uh the weird mix of like androids and

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Speaker 1: occult magic and big scary corporations like on paper, it's

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Speaker 1: it's a fabulous film, right. We were saying before the

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Speaker 1: taping that it would be it's right for a remake,

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Speaker 1: but it probably will never get remade. Like the idea

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Speaker 1: of so the central conceit of the movie is that

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Speaker 1: there's an evil magical corporation that is producing is it

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Speaker 1: three Halloween masks? It's three. Yeah, it's like a witch

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Speaker 1: a skull and I don't jack o lantern? Is that

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Speaker 1: the other one? Uh? And and their children's masks And

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Speaker 1: if these children wear their Halloween masks and watch a

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Speaker 1: like evil magical commercial simultaneously, they will all die. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they will die and serve as some sort of a

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Speaker 1: child sack five and they ancient ritual. It's a bizarre movie,

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Speaker 1: but it's this was before Basically the idea I think

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Speaker 1: was that the Halloween movies, before they were dominated by

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Speaker 1: Michael Myers, were supposed to be like an anthology series.

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Speaker 1: This is going to kickstart anthology Halloween. So each year

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Speaker 1: we'd get a different Halloween film on the different plot.

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Speaker 1: And sadly that didn't happen because nobody liked Halloween three

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Speaker 1: until it had time to uh, you know, to cure

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Speaker 1: and sure over over the years. It's like a fine one.

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Speaker 1: It is. It is a fine one that not everyone's

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Speaker 1: palate is going to be susceptible to. But at heart

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Speaker 1: Halloween three season of the which is about masks changing

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Speaker 1: children absolutely now in the movie, it changes them into

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Speaker 1: a pile of goo and snakes and whatnot. But in

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Speaker 1: reality it does seem to change our children into something else. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if, well, I wonder if those screenwriters of

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Speaker 1: Halloween three were inspired by this first study, or maybe

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Speaker 1: the first two studies we're going to talk about, because

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Speaker 1: the first was in seventy six, the next one was

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Speaker 1: in seventies seventy nine. Yeah, so the whole time when

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Speaker 1: I'm reading these, I'm picturing the uh, the sort of

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Speaker 1: idyllic uh nineteen late nineteen seventies setting of the at

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Speaker 1: least the first two Halloween phrase. Um. So this is

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six, Steady effects of d individualization variables

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Speaker 1: on stealing among Halloween trigger treaters. This was published in

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Speaker 1: the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology again in seventy

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Speaker 1: six February. So, well, this is what happened. The psychologist

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Speaker 1: involved covertly observed the behavior of a about a thousand

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Speaker 1: trigger treaters at twenty seven different Seattle homes. So each

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Speaker 1: each house has the same setup, one bowl filled with

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Speaker 1: candy and an additional bowl filled with pennies and nickels.

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Speaker 1: Because you know you're going triggar treating, you want to

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Speaker 1: get some pennies. And nickels. Yeah, that's that strike struck

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Speaker 1: me as weird. But I was also born a year

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Speaker 1: after the study is conducted, so maybe it's something I

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Speaker 1: missed out on. So um. The researcher answer the door

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Speaker 1: when the Halloween trick or peters show up, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: the researcher asks the matt the costume children what their

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Speaker 1: names are. Oh, you're a de life looking which what's

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Speaker 1: your name? Oh it's Susie. Other times they let the

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Speaker 1: children retain their anonymity. They can continue to just be

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Speaker 1: werewolves and mummies and witches. Right, And that's important because

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Speaker 1: it helps to reinforce the identity. Right, Okay, are no

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Speaker 1: longer Susan? Yeah, instead they are you know, broom Hill

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Speaker 1: to the Witch and uh, you know Oscar the money

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Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. So at this point the researchers say,

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Speaker 1: all right, I have to go deal with something else

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Speaker 1: inside the house. One shut the door. Only take one

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Speaker 1: piece of candy, and then they shut the door. But

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Speaker 1: they're they're watching through the peephole the whole time. Nice

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Speaker 1: scientific use of the people. Yeah, they didn't have like

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Speaker 1: a nest thing that they could mount on their wall

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Speaker 1: and watched through their smartphone. Yeah, they're just going around

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Speaker 1: like peeking through a curtain and scribbling on a notepad.

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Speaker 1: The results, though, were kids who are allowed to remain

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Speaker 1: anonymous stole money and extra candy roughly three times as

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Speaker 1: often as those who gave up their names, and kids

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Speaker 1: who came in groups, so just a complete pack of

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Speaker 1: you know, short little gremlins. Um, those who came in

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Speaker 1: groups both named and anonymous were more than twice as

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Speaker 1: likely to steal as those who came alone. Wow, Okay,

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Speaker 1: so I don't I guess the study The findings of

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Speaker 1: this aren't all that surprising, knowing what I know, just

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Speaker 1: from living life and having costume before and knowing other

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Speaker 1: human beings. So that the the idea of the anonymity

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Speaker 1: this is pre social media too, so I think that

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Speaker 1: that has something to do with it as well. Right

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Speaker 1: that we now know that anonymity leads to people doing

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Speaker 1: things that they think that they won't have repercussions for it. Right. Um,

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Speaker 1: But then that the group factor as well as is

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Speaker 1: the really interesting one. So how the pennies come into play?

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Speaker 1: Do they steal those as well? Nichols? Okay, And and

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Speaker 1: my my reading of this, the study they didn't even

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Speaker 1: say okay, also, you can take a amount of coins

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Speaker 1: the right of the coins. They just left him there.

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Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, this is just for decorations, and

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Speaker 1: these kids just grab Yeah. It's it's also interesting to

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Speaker 1: read this thinking about my own interactions with grantities are

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Speaker 1: like three year olds, but watching them feed off of

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Speaker 1: each other's energy. Like you get to three year olds

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Speaker 1: in a room and they'll suddenly just start feeding off

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Speaker 1: each other and displaying behavior that individually they wouldn't do,

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Speaker 1: but they just they're just like there's a heightened susceptibility

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Speaker 1: to group think and uh like you know, imaginative, uh,

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Speaker 1: the association. It's it's interesting. Well we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about this throughout this episode, and there's a study that

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Speaker 1: it's coming up that specifically refers to it. But that

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Speaker 1: is like that zone that age around between three and

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Speaker 1: five is sort of that zone where you're still you

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Speaker 1: understand sort of you know when people say like you're

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Speaker 1: a boy, or you know, you're um, you're from Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: George jar or whatever, like you understand those words, but

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Speaker 1: the actual identity part hasn't really like all glamed together yet.

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Speaker 1: So the group think kind of thing seems to happen

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Speaker 1: a little easier at that age. I mean, you are

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Speaker 1: observing it right now. Oh yeah. Like my my son

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Speaker 1: and his friend Leo, they had a time at the

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Speaker 1: playground the other day where all they did is just

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Speaker 1: marched around and chanted we are Daddy elephants the whole time.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, and they don't do that on their own,

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Speaker 1: but together they engage in that. So I feel like

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Speaker 1: it's the same sort of energy at work now. I

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Speaker 1: miss that. We need to we need to bring that back.

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Speaker 1: We'll have after this. We're gonna have a weird Daddy

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Speaker 1: Elephants session in office. Now. There's a nineteen seventy nine

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Speaker 1: study that followed this up and and and indeed the

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Speaker 1: researchers here set out to replicate the results of the

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Speaker 1: seventy eight study. Uh. And this one is titled Halloween

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Speaker 1: Masks and d Individualization. Uh And this was published in

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Speaker 1: Psychology Reports April nineteen seventy nine. So this time they

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Speaker 1: looked at fifty eight costume kids ages nine through thirteen,

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Speaker 1: and all of them in this cases are unaccompanied by adults,

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Speaker 1: so there are no adults there to, you know, to

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Speaker 1: to inflict rules and regulations on the Halloween traditions. They

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Speaker 1: This time, the researchers tell the children to take two

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Speaker 1: and only two pieces of candy from a bowl. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and then they shut the door. The same situation takes place.

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Speaker 1: They peek around the corner through the people. This is

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Speaker 1: what they found. Mass children were significantly more likely to

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Speaker 1: violate the instructions grabbing a healthy fistful of candy sixty

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Speaker 1: two percent of the time versus thirty seven percent for

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Speaker 1: unmasked counterparts. That's interesting, especially because the age difference, so

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Speaker 1: we're talking nine to thirteen year olds here instead of

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Speaker 1: the much younger children in the first study. Also that

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Speaker 1: what I'm noticing is that they're completely different authors for

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Speaker 1: both studies. So this wasn't um the first team trying

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Speaker 1: to replicate their efforts. It was an entirely different team,

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Speaker 1: probably in a different part of the country. Well, and

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Speaker 1: I think it's worth us explaining what they mean when

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Speaker 1: they say d individual ation here, right, So that is

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Speaker 1: a psychological process by which a person's identity is subsumed.

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Speaker 1: This is the This isn't my language, obviously, Obviously I

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Speaker 1: don't throw subsumed around a lot. But it's subsumed by

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Speaker 1: the identity of a larger group, and in this case,

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Speaker 1: the mask thing can can play into it. Right. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I wonder if the kids were masked and they were

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Speaker 1: by themselves, if this you know how this would play out? Well?

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Speaker 1: In this uh, this is a particular study. They were

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Speaker 1: they were unaccompanied by adults, so there were no adults. No,

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Speaker 1: I mean no other children too. I guess, like, what

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Speaker 1: creepy kid goes around all by themselves trick or treating

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Speaker 1: at nine years old. Well, in the first study, they

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Speaker 1: did find that kids who came in groups were more

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Speaker 1: than twice as likely to steal what's those who came along.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, there's definitely uh, you know, one is potentially

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00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:01,359
Speaker 1: a problem, but you can two together and they're just

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Speaker 1: going to fall into that that group identity of the

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Speaker 1: trick or treating fiends. So okay, So all right. The

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Speaker 1: first thing that we're establishing here is that, uh, costuming,

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Speaker 1: especially during Halloween, provides a certain amount of anonymity, and

401
00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:20,800
Speaker 1: that within a group, it provides the potential for this

402
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,639
Speaker 1: d individual ation in which you divorce yourself from your

403
00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:29,040
Speaker 1: day to day identity and allow yourself to be absorbed

404
00:21:29,040 --> 00:21:31,600
Speaker 1: into the identity of this larger group. It's almost like

405
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Speaker 1: a cult type. Yeah, I mean it's instantly. It makes

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Speaker 1: me think of various and often vile scenarios where you

407
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Speaker 1: have hooded individuals creating about and doing things. It's it's

408
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:44,760
Speaker 1: the same energy, it's the same mechanism, but entrusted to

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Speaker 1: children as opposed to taken on by adults. Well, let's

410
00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:52,879
Speaker 1: let's speed it forward a little bit, uh to maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe a period of time that I'm sure everybody can

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Speaker 1: relate to the being a child and dressing up in

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Speaker 1: costume and maybe grabbing a fistful of candy. But there

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Speaker 1: was a study, uh, and this was cited. I don't

415
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Speaker 1: know if you noticed this, but this particular study was

416
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Speaker 1: cited across the board and all the studies afterwards as

417
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Speaker 1: like a sort of foundational source studies studies. Yeah. Uh

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Speaker 1: so it's called dressing in costume and the use of alcohol, marijuana,

419
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Speaker 1: and other drugs by college students. So no surprise. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they did this study looking at twelve hundred college students.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember what area of the country it is

422
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Speaker 1: they might have they might have split it up, actually, uh,

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Speaker 1: and no doubt they found that those that were in

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Speaker 1: costumes were more likely to consume alcohol than those that

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Speaker 1: weren't right, and they were also more likely to use

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Speaker 1: drugs over the course of the night. Now, anybody who

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Speaker 1: you don't even have to have gone to college, anybody

428
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:48,960
Speaker 1: who's been over the age of eighteen and has gone

429
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:52,200
Speaker 1: to an adult Halloween party where people are in costume,

430
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:56,080
Speaker 1: I think this will probably be a common experience. Yeah,

431
00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:58,960
Speaker 1: I have to admit that deer in college and and

432
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:04,639
Speaker 1: uh the time period following college, the most hungover I

433
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 1: ever managed to get. Both times it resulted from a

434
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 1: Halloween party. Oh yeah, yeah, I definitely saw some crazy

435
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: stuff at Halloween parties when I was living in the

436
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:18,880
Speaker 1: Boston area. One time I went to a Halloween party.

437
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 1: These people lived on the grounds of It was an

438
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:24,959
Speaker 1: abandoned This is going to sound made up, but it's

439
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: a real thing. It was an abandoned mental institution on

440
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:31,919
Speaker 1: the grounds of a cemetery just outside of Boston, on

441
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 1: top of an Indian area ground. I don't know if

442
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 1: there was an Imperial ground, but they definitely had a

443
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: Potter's field next door where you could you could see

444
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: you know what I mean by Potter's field. But they

445
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:42,639
Speaker 1: just had like the bricks with numbers on them and

446
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 1: things like that. Uh. And the people that I knew

447
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:49,560
Speaker 1: who lived there, Uh, they were basically paying rent to

448
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 1: the town to live in this thing and make sure

449
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:55,400
Speaker 1: that people didn't come by and vandalize it. Um. So

450
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 1: they threw this crazy Halloween party, and I mean you

451
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 1: could you went into the base into this place and

452
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:05,640
Speaker 1: they had gurneys and strange jackets and like all the

453
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:08,119
Speaker 1: files on the patients were still there. That was the

454
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:10,160
Speaker 1: weird part to me was that the like the privacy

455
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 1: element was not at all thought about, so essentially had

456
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:16,080
Speaker 1: a Session nine thing. It was very much like that. Yeah. Yeah,

457
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 1: and I decided to go as a f X twin.

458
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:25,120
Speaker 1: That was which incarnation of it was the window Liquor twin.

459
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: I had. You know, they actually made masks or that

460
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: you could print out that we're that face. I was

461
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:33,679
Speaker 1: going to ask how you maintained that smile. Yeah, I

462
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:35,439
Speaker 1: had the mask and I had a white suit on

463
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:38,640
Speaker 1: the whole time. But uh, yeah, I saw some crazy

464
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: stuff at that at that abandoned mental asylum. So I

465
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:45,639
Speaker 1: believe this study, I think most of us do. I

466
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 1: wouldn't qualify this as a study that would blow your mind.

467
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,400
Speaker 1: This isn't stuff to blow your mind, but this definitely

468
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:54,880
Speaker 1: adds more fodder to our principle here, right, that like

469
00:24:55,440 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 1: the costuming element, uh allows your identity to sort of

470
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: be more fluid and flexible. Yeah. And I mean, you know,

471
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: studies like this, they're not necessarily saying, hey, here's this

472
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 1: crazy thing about your life that you never noticed before,

473
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: but saying, hey, here's some science to back up that

474
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: thing that we've all noticed. Because sometimes the thing that

475
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 1: we think we know when you apply the rigors of science,

476
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 1: who you realize, all right, this doesn't actually work the

477
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: way we were thinking on surface level. So I've studies

478
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 1: like this are just as important. Yeah. And so there's

479
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:30,719
Speaker 1: also this is when things start to get dark too.

480
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 1: So um and no surprise, you know, I think that

481
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 1: the older that we get that the costuming element brings along,

482
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 1: Like I said at the top, right, it's a pushing

483
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,919
Speaker 1: of boundaries, so it brings along some taboo elements to it.

484
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:47,680
Speaker 1: So there's a study done in two thousand seven about um,

485
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: basically race and mother ing in Halloween costumes, and it

486
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 1: was specifically focused on college students. So again this is

487
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 1: a you know, isolated to the college student area, although

488
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:00,400
Speaker 1: a lot of the examples that they can him up

489
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:04,880
Speaker 1: with were not necessarily isolated to that group. So this

490
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: study is called Unmasking Racism Halloween Costuming and Engagement of

491
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: the Racial Other and it was published in Qualitative Sociology.

492
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: And basically the authors of this piece they present at

493
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: the top in their abstract, they say that they think

494
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 1: of Halloween as being a constructive space where people have

495
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:29,959
Speaker 1: the opportunity to engage in different identities, which includes racial concepts,

496
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,920
Speaker 1: and that there are some people who argue not necessarily

497
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: these authors, although I think there's something to this, that

498
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:39,719
Speaker 1: Halloween is what we would think of as a tension

499
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: management holiday. It's different from you know, Christmas or Thanksgiving,

500
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 1: which probably create more attention. Uh. And they compare it

501
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: to like New Year's or Mardi Gras, and that it

502
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: allows it sort of frees us up from societal mores

503
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,199
Speaker 1: and gives us, you know, an opportunity for rebellion. It's

504
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: they call it a ritual of rebellion that permits possible

505
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: countercultural feelings, right. Uh. And in this case, you know,

506
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 1: they say, well, you know, usually these holidays or the

507
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: idea behind this is it's a reversal of social roles. Um. So,

508
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: for instance, like subjugated groups, groups in a lower position

509
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 1: are able to assume positions of power. And they connect

510
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: this too. And I'll explain this theory a little bit

511
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: more later. But um, there's a Russian theorist named Michael

512
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 1: back Team and he has the kind of the big

513
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 1: thing that he's known for theory wise is the carnival

514
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:34,160
Speaker 1: esque and they connected up to that theory, this idea

515
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 1: of medieval europe carnivals, the same kind of thing people

516
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: are in mass parading about creating mischief, the the the

517
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: shift of power that takes place where often you have

518
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:49,120
Speaker 1: a fool king or the fool leader of the festival. Yeah,

519
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:53,199
Speaker 1: yep uh. But they also say, you know, there's this

520
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: idea about Halloween in particular that's connected to this. The

521
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 1: reason why in the US we give it such a

522
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: national status, uh, is because it fosters that kind of

523
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: social inversion. Right. So, Um, while holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving,

524
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: for instance, are more institutionalized and focused on tradition and

525
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: family and things like that, Halloween people think of Halloween

526
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: as being that one night of the year where they

527
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,639
Speaker 1: can let go and they can enjoy a degree of

528
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 1: license that they could that would otherwise never be attainable. Right, Um,

529
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: basically they can get away with things that they wouldn't

530
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 1: be able to get away with normally. So these the

531
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,400
Speaker 1: authors of this piece, though, they say, Okay, that's good

532
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 1: and fine, but there's a racial element that's coming into

533
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 1: play here that's displaying some some disturbing patterns of how

534
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: white costumers are using that opportunity to uh not identify

535
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: with other races, but to sort of uh make fun

536
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: of and and sort of reinforce stereotypes of other races

537
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: that they have. Yeah, and in this I think you

538
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 1: you see varying levels of this. So so it's easy

539
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 1: to imagine a straight up racially offensive costume, you know,

540
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 1: where you're just you're just basically dressing up like the

541
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: worst kind of stereotype for a particular racial group. But

542
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: then on the other hand, you see, and I've definitely

543
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: seen people do this before, where you're you're going after

544
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: certain cultural icons. You want to you want to be

545
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,959
Speaker 1: that cultural icon, and you either don't realize or you're

546
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: a little numb to the to the realization that to

547
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: try to become that icon as a as a white individual. Um,

548
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: you're you're engaging at least in some light racism, you know,

549
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: like if you you decide, oh, well, you know, I'm

550
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: a big hip hop fan and I really like this

551
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: particular artist. That doesn't mean you can necessarily dress up

552
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,719
Speaker 1: as as him or her. In fact, that they noted

553
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: that stuff like that happened at such parties. UM. One

554
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: example that they had was there were apparently in the

555
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: way the they studied this was that they had six

556
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,920
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty three college students across I believe it

557
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: was Southeastern America collect journal entries about their costuming experience

558
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: over the course of Halloween. And this isn't just what

559
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: they costumed as, but what they saw at the parties

560
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 1: that they went to. UH. And what was reported that

561
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: there were two white men who went in black face

562
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: as Venus and Serena Williams. And so this is two

563
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,959
Speaker 1: thousand seven, so not that long ago. UH. And then

564
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: there was um, there were three women, all of different

565
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: ethnicities who wanted to do the Charlie's Angels, the movie

566
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: version of Charlie's Angels, and so UM, a Caucasian woman

567
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: ended up doing the Lucy Luke character and was you know,

568
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: like painting on makeup to make her self location and

569
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: like you said, not really understanding it. But on the

570
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: reverse side, they reported that there was a black male

571
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: college student who went as eminem. So there's a lot

572
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: of this playing around with race, gender and sort of

573
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: you know, trying to explore identity. But at the same time,

574
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: like some of some of these instances uh is identified

575
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: by the authors weren't necessarily experimental, but we're more reinforcing

576
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 1: ideas that they already had. Yeah, and an implicit racial

577
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 1: bias definitely playing into a lot of these where it's

578
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: it's not even happening at a at a you know,

579
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: a conscious level, you're not you're not really thinking about it,

580
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 1: but then these these various um um implicit biases rise

581
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: to the surface. Yeah. I think this would be one

582
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 1: of those situations if and they talked about it a

583
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:40,479
Speaker 1: little bit in this study, but that like, if you

584
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: called out somebody for something like this, they would probably

585
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 1: be shocked, right, they would go, oh, well, I no,

586
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 1: I'm not racist. That's not what I was intending at all, Right,

587
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: And in fact, they the whole idea here is that

588
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: they thought of Halloween as being a safe context for

589
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 1: exploring this kind of thing, but also that it's, uh,

590
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 1: it's a time when the potential for any kind of

591
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: insult is completely suspended, right, Like I think I just

592
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 1: saw like not that this would be insulting, but it's

593
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: just kind of stupid, like, uh, like a week or

594
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: two ago that like one of the most popular costumes

595
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: this year is a sexy Donald Trump, Like you can

596
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,239
Speaker 1: you can buy that off the rack, um, you know.

597
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: So it's like I think that that's the kind of

598
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: thing going on here, but at the same time as

599
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 1: the authors are arguing that it's reinforcing racial bias and stereotypes. Yeah,

600
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: it reminds me too of I believe it was the

601
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 1: first Halloween immediately following nine eleven in which a picture

602
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: made the rounds of a couple who had dressed like

603
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: somebody addresses the twin Hours and the other person addressed

604
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: as an airplane. And it's funny that you say this

605
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 1: go ahead because I have a personal story. I'm just

606
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: saying it made the rounds, And quite clearly they were

607
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: approaching this from the standpoint of it's a safe halloweens

608
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 1: a safe zone and an outrageous costume is allowed, even

609
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: if it is really too soon for that particular joke

610
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: at that at that given point, and this was this

611
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 1: was the month afterward, right, yeah, this was very very soon.

612
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 1: So I uh specifically remember that Halloween right afterward, a

613
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: guy who I knew went to a Halloween party as

614
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: a dead pilot, uh, and he thought it was the

615
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: funniest thing ever, and that he was you know, he

616
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: wasn't he was trying to be offensive, but he was

617
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: also just trying to kind of like again like push

618
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 1: the boundaries people's buttons, get right, get a rise out

619
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: of people. Um. And I remember him thinking it was

620
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 1: like this super clever, funny thing and it just did

621
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: it fell real flat with with everybody at the party. Yeah.

622
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: Now on the racial side of the situation, I have

623
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: to admit that I'm I'm a big fan of some

624
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: terrible movies, and one terrible movie that I really enjoy

625
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: is Nothing but Trouble. I know what you're talking, really

626
00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 1: really bad film with all sorts of really will like

627
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: horror elements, sort of tales from the crypt type elements

628
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 1: thrown throughout. And then there's a great scene where Digital

629
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:09,359
Speaker 1: Underground performs so it's humpty hump. Uh, you know, get out,

630
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: And so part of me has always wanted to be

631
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 1: humpty hump. Yeh, but but I but I can never

632
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 1: be humpty Hump. I can never take that on as

633
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: a costume because of the racial aspects of doing it.

634
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: And I'm comfortable with that. I'm not complaining about it.

635
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,359
Speaker 1: But like that's an area where like the voice that says,

636
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be cool to address this humpty hump, and

637
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:30,280
Speaker 1: the other the other part of me has to say,

638
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: theoretically it would be cool, but you would probably be

639
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:36,840
Speaker 1: you would probably be crossing a line, and ultimately it

640
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 1: would not be a comfortable scenario. Well exactly. So I

641
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: think that what the authors of this study would argue then, right,

642
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:46,279
Speaker 1: is that like your preconception of race is that you

643
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 1: understand that that would be crossing a line that you

644
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: know is not necessarily appropriate. Whereas the Caucasian male who

645
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: is in college and decides to go as Humpty Hump

646
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 1: maybe already has some pre conceptions about what that means. Right,

647
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: In fact, like that's the the kind of rapper outfit

648
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:07,319
Speaker 1: or like the other one that they talked a lot

649
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 1: about was that you can buy prepackage sort of like

650
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: ethnic thug outfits from these Halloween stores, or at least

651
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 1: you could at the time they were doing this. Um.

652
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: That that enhances your perceptions, your stereotypes of things, right, UM,

653
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: And that it doesn't necessarily allow them to have the

654
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: opportunity to to find the new beliefs or to learn

655
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: and change. I don't know. I'm kind of interested, Like

656
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: I wonder if if you do something like that and

657
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 1: then you're sort of performing this other, this imaginary other

658
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:37,360
Speaker 1: that you have of like what it would be like

659
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: to be in digital underground, Like like, uh, does that

660
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:45,400
Speaker 1: afford you the opportunity to sort of like put yourself

661
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:49,800
Speaker 1: in somebody else's shoes? I don't know. Yeah, it's um.

662
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 1: The authors of this piece certainly didn't think so. But

663
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: like the Digital Underground example, I can. The thing is,

664
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 1: I can definitely imagine someone approaching that instead not even

665
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: thinking about how d hump as an African American man

666
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: and thinking, well, it's just as a ridiculous character with

667
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: a funny nose and big for a coat and he

668
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: talks in a funny voice and he got busy in

669
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: a backstage bathroom. Yeah and yeah, lost his nose in

670
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 1: a horrible accident. But um, yeah, but but but but

671
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: in doing that, you you glide right over the racial connotation.

672
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 1: So yeah, absolutely, so, I mean, like I'm sure, like

673
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: I know, I've definitely seen stuff like this at parties

674
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: I've gone to before. I'm sure a lot of people have.

675
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 1: But they provided some very concrete examples outside of the

676
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: six hundred and sixty three college students who reported for

677
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 1: this study. Um, and one of them was I didn't

678
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: know about this. Apparently in two thousand three, Louisiana State

679
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: District Judge Timothy Ellender went to a Halloween party in

680
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: blackface and he had an afro wig on and a

681
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,879
Speaker 1: prison jumpsuit. I think I remember seeing when they called

682
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: him out on and he said, oh what, It's just

683
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: a harmless joke, you know. And then you think about

684
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: the connotation of like, well, this is a guy whose

685
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 1: job it is is is to decide whether or not

686
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: people go to jail or stay free, Like this is

687
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: like hugely inappropriate. Um. But then um, there's also, like

688
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 1: you know, just dominated in the media reports of people

689
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 1: wearing black face at Halloween parties, in such outfits enacting

690
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: images of police brutality, cotton picking, and even lynching. Um.

691
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: So I mean that again too, it's like clearly showing that,

692
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: like you don't really have all that much of an

693
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: understanding for what it means to be of a different ethnicity.

694
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 1: You know, those are the things that you associate with

695
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 1: it like like uh So, anyways, that the third thing

696
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: that I thought was really interesting where they they talked

697
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: about these prepackaged costumes. There's two in particular they pointed

698
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 1: out from two thousand to One was called the Vato Loco,

699
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: which was this stereotyped mask of a Latino thug. And

700
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:00,359
Speaker 1: then the other one was called the Kung Fool uh.

701
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 1: And it was like a caricature outfit, like a kind

702
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 1: of like a karate um, what do you call him?

703
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: Gu like outfit? Um. But that also included like a

704
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: mask that made your eyes look slanted and like buck

705
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: teeth that you would insert in your mouth. So it

706
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:19,720
Speaker 1: was like this real like racial physical stereotype of being Asian.

707
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,240
Speaker 1: And this is two thousand two. This isn't like nineteen

708
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 1: sixty two. This is this is just like thirteen years ago. Um.

709
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: So you know, they point out like that they think

710
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 1: that the Halloween has sort of been thought of as

711
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: a cultural space in which they can they being the

712
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 1: people wearing these costumes, can sort of let this racist

713
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 1: ghost out of the box. That's how they put it,

714
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 1: not me, Uh, it's there. They get a little metaphorical

715
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 1: with their language and the Halloween themes and stuff of

716
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: this article. I wonder it would racist ghost be an

717
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 1: appropriate Halloween costume, though it maybe if it were carried

718
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 1: out with enough ghost of a racist Wasn't it thought out?

719
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:02,240
Speaker 1: You know? Em on American Horror Story and the which

720
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: one I didn't watch that season, I think it was

721
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, I think like one of the

722
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 1: witches was was black, and she was able to use

723
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: some kind of spell that summoned, um, the zombies of

724
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: like racist farmers from around the area or something. Somebody

725
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: correct me out there if I'm wrong on this, but

726
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 1: I remember there being a very strange Halloween themed episode

727
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: where they did this. It was like the punishment for

728
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 1: these guys being slave owners, I think was that she

729
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:33,439
Speaker 1: was able to like summon their their spirits up again later.

730
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 1: So I mean think about that, right, Like that's on

731
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 1: national television, and um, that's not reinforcing stereotypes necessarily, but

732
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, like there's these kind

733
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: of like roles and identities that people are trying out

734
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,480
Speaker 1: and trying to understand things that are different from themselves, mothering,

735
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: you know, they all kind of play hand in hand.

736
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:57,320
Speaker 1: I have to admit that I after reading enough, researching

737
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: enough about witchcraft persecution, I'm I'm I'm a little weird

738
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: about when I see like um which costumes, but also

739
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: like you know, the new Vin Diesel which Hunter movie

740
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: is the hero of this picture, and and it's it's

741
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:15,280
Speaker 1: kind of unsettling when you think of witchcraft persecution and

742
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: and and and the and how these these stereotypes were

743
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: used to send so many innocent people to their torture

744
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:29,839
Speaker 1: and death. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, I yeah, I agree

745
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 1: with you, And especially when you think about it in

746
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: the context that like these prefabricated which costumes are being

747
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: sold and you know, people are making what what did

748
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: I say, one point for billion dollars off of this

749
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: costuming industry, Uh, celebrating the persecution and torture and death

750
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: of this Again, it's a subjugated group, right, Yeah, I mean,

751
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 1: you know it's not it's certainly not one to one

752
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 1: with some of the racial issues we're talking about earlier.

753
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 1: In it's still a lot more complicated because you have,

754
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: you know, you have various you know, myths and folk

755
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: tales weaving their way in their um popular media, springing

756
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: up out of equal parts of fiction and history. So

757
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: it's it's a convoluted topic. But I I have to

758
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: admit some of the witch costumes at least, you know,

759
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: causele light to go on for me. Yeah, yeah, well,

760
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that's it's again back to that whole

761
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: taboo thing, that the symbol of the witch, both in

762
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: the guilt that we kind of feel when we look

763
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 1: back at the history of it, and also the witches

764
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: being like outside of the community, right is like the

765
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 1: perfect kind of boundary pushing taboo for Halloween. In fact,

766
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: one of the articles that I'm about to get into

767
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: talked about how during Victorian time, Victorian time, you know

768
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:54,760
Speaker 1: those all of times, the American women, specifically withou dreps

769
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 1: dress either as Egyptians or Gypsies because those were the

770
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 1: two like most tab who kind of uh exotic other

771
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: costumes that they could wear. And I guess you still

772
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 1: see people of varying races dressing up as ancient Egyptians,

773
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 1: Like maybe enough time has passed that there's like less

774
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: people don't think of ancient Egyptians as being a contemporary race.

775
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: But it's more of a like almost like dressing as

776
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: an elf, right right, right, dressing as a character from

777
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 1: a movie or something. Yeah, exactly, Alright, We're gonna take

778
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back. All right,

779
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:41,400
Speaker 1: we're back, So okay. We've we've spotlighted that the masks

780
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 1: and the costumes allow children to sort of feel like

781
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:46,719
Speaker 1: they can get away with certain things that they get

782
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:50,239
Speaker 1: subsumed into a group. We've spotlighted how it sort of

783
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,720
Speaker 1: can change how we think about identity and race, and

784
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: and how it can also serve for us to get

785
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,280
Speaker 1: more drunk and to do a lot of drugs during Halloween.

786
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:01,359
Speaker 1: But then there's obvious slay a gendered element to it

787
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: as well. Right, Um, any buddy who's seen over the

788
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:07,279
Speaker 1: last again, like thirty or forty years, there's definitely been

789
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:12,360
Speaker 1: an element of sexiness that's been brought into female attire.

790
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 1: And in fact, I do want to point out like

791
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: one of those um sources that I'm going to use

792
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: when we're talking about this is from our sister podcast,

793
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,760
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You. Kristen and Caroline have done

794
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 1: at least two episodes on this topic, and Kristen has

795
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:30,800
Speaker 1: a really great post on the term slut oweing uh

796
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: and what that means in the history behind it, and

797
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: I don't really want to bring that into it, but

798
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:39,800
Speaker 1: that there's there's things connected to it in that post

799
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:42,880
Speaker 1: that I think have to do with our conceit in

800
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,960
Speaker 1: this episode, which is that costumes allow you to perform

801
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: a different identity. Okay, I mean it matches up with

802
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: a lot of what we've been talking about already and

803
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: that you you take on this uh, this costume, you

804
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 1: take on this different identity, and you have a little

805
00:43:56,160 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 1: more licensed to be uh, sexier than normal, more revealing

806
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 1: than normal, and more amorous than normal. Yeah. Absolutely, And

807
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:07,680
Speaker 1: in fact, um, there's a history professor uh that is

808
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 1: named Nicholas is named his name is Nicholas Rogers uh

809
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: and he actually says you know this, The costuming tradition

810
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:18,800
Speaker 1: of hallow Mass goes all the way back to being

811
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: both a prayer for the dead as we sort of

812
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: think of it um with the Halloween connotation, but also

813
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: a prayer for fertile marriages. So there was already an

814
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 1: element of kind of gendered sexiness to it. Um, not

815
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 1: as such, not as we would think of it today,

816
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 1: but like for instance, boys inquire used to dress as

817
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:43,720
Speaker 1: female virgins for Hallow mass. So cross dressing and sex

818
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:48,239
Speaker 1: and virginity and fertility were all elements from the start. Okay, well,

819
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: that's good for anybody that is planning a kind of

820
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,239
Speaker 1: sexy costume this year. And if somebody calls you on

821
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:55,839
Speaker 1: it at all parts, why aren't you a zombie? Why

822
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 1: aren't you dressed up as a sexy Egyptian or something,

823
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 1: you can say, well, actually, I'm tying into some of

824
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: the I'm doing some history. This is my history project. Um.

825
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 1: So he talks also, this is where I got the

826
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: thing about the Victorian costumes. Was also this Nicholas Rogers guy,

827
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: and he said that that at that point in time,

828
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 1: just like as we were just talking about, the Halloween

829
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:22,800
Speaker 1: was thought of as a knight to do something that

830
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 1: they wouldn't ordinarily do and to have people look at them, right,

831
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:30,359
Speaker 1: So that's why they're dressing as Egyptians or gypsies. Then

832
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: in the nineties seventies, this interesting thing happens where the

833
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: sexy costume both for men and women emerged. Uh, and

834
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: Christian's research and then this article that I found in

835
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 1: Time called the Definitive History of the Sexy Halloween Costume

836
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:46,719
Speaker 1: both points to this that there were a lot of

837
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 1: Halloween parades and gay neighborhoods in New York, West Hollywood

838
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:55,319
Speaker 1: and San Francisco, and out of these big, kind of

839
00:45:55,400 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 1: raucous bacchanalia parties came the sort of genesis for what

840
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 1: we think of now is like the modern sexy girl costume. Right. Um,

841
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: so you get that, that event happens, and then, just

842
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 1: like with anything, businessmen and marketers see that and they say, well,

843
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 1: that seems like it's something that would make a lot

844
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: of money. So they start designing these costumes, selling them

845
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,440
Speaker 1: and targeting adults. And so that's when we start to

846
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 1: see sort of towards the late seventies, this emergence of

847
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 1: the adult Halloween experience coming back. It's not just for

848
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: kids anymore. And so you and I were just talking

849
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: about this earlier, like when we were kids in the

850
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:41,240
Speaker 1: early eighties. Uh, there was sort of that weird stigma

851
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 1: of like, well, at a certain point you shouldn't be

852
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:46,840
Speaker 1: out trick or treating anymore, you know. Like I definitely

853
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 1: remember there was a point where like I was out

854
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:52,359
Speaker 1: and like a parent would answer the door and say like,

855
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: aren't you a little old for this? You know, And

856
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 1: I'd come up with some excuse like what you were

857
00:46:57,200 --> 00:46:59,279
Speaker 1: in costume? Right? I was, Yeah, that's the thing. I mean,

858
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: if you're if you're older kid and you're showing up

859
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:02,960
Speaker 1: at the doorstep and you have no when you're asking

860
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:05,280
Speaker 1: for candy, Yeah, and thin, that's you're kind of breaking

861
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 1: the rules here exactly. I don't care how old you are,

862
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 1: but you put them put some sort of mask on,

863
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: so you you find that. So there's a two thousand

864
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:17,840
Speaker 1: six study on children's costumes done by sociologists named Addy Nelson,

865
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:22,239
Speaker 1: and she found that not only were they distinctly gendered,

866
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 1: but that for women, the costumes that you know, these

867
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 1: are off the rat costumes, not necessarily what people are

868
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: coming up with on their own. They're usually princesses or

869
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:34,760
Speaker 1: beauty queens for the girls choices. Uh. And then there's

870
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:36,359
Speaker 1: also in two thousand and six, there was a New

871
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 1: York Times article quoting a costume merchant, and he said

872
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 1: that since the early two thousand's, the sexy iterations of

873
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:50,600
Speaker 1: costumes have compromised nine of the female costumes that he

874
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:55,319
Speaker 1: sells at his store. So Kristen, our colleague, basically makes

875
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:58,720
Speaker 1: the point, Okay, well, what's the reason behind the sexy

876
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:01,719
Speaker 1: costume boom. It's because they're popular because both women and

877
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:04,839
Speaker 1: girls are buying them. Uh and you know the there's

878
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: marketing behind it. There's money to be had there. So yes,

879
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 1: it's a cultured identity thing, but it's also an economic

880
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: thing as well. Uh. And I'll also point this out

881
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: for Christian because if any of you out there I've

882
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:21,279
Speaker 1: ever watched Kristen's video series for stuff mom never told you,

883
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:24,720
Speaker 1: you know that she likes to get into costume and characters. Uh.

884
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: And she speculates that we're moving now from a period

885
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: of just the sexy Halloween costumes to the ironic sexy costumes.

886
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 1: So I think what she means by that is, like,

887
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 1: I see this a lot when I go to like

888
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: pop culture conventions, uh, like like sexy Darth Vader. Yeah,

889
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 1: I've definitely seen people sexifying characters or costumes that you

890
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 1: wouldn't traditionally think of as being sexy. I saw a

891
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: sexy version of what's the name of the main villain

892
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:58,839
Speaker 1: from Fury Road. Oh god, I know what you're talking about. Yeah,

893
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: it's a thank you super producer Noel just told us

894
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: that it was a Morton Joe. Yeah. I saw a

895
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 1: picture of that. Yeah. He and and of course that

896
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 1: on its own is an interesting character to see so

897
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 1: embraced among costumers and cosplay because he said, it's a

898
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: horrible guy. He's just a horrible individual that I mean

899
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 1: to embody any aspect of him. Um, I can think

900
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:25,720
Speaker 1: if you're thinking, you know, deep about it is troubling.

901
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 1: I can top that. My wife just showed me the

902
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 1: other day that a friend of a friend got a

903
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 1: sleeve tattoo of a Morton Joe on her arm. I

904
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: think consider this. That movie just came out like what

905
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:40,960
Speaker 1: three months ago. Uh, great movie, But like, what are

906
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: you saying about the idea that you're like, I really

907
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:48,320
Speaker 1: like that warlord rapist who like keeps women locked up

908
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: as like a concubine snastically And that's not just for

909
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: those of you haven't read it. That's not just uh,

910
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 1: you know, subjective read of the film like that is

911
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:58,319
Speaker 1: that's the plot of the plot of the movie. It

912
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 1: portrays him as such, the the the harem that he keeps.

913
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 1: These are not you know, sexy doll eyed individuals. These

914
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 1: are abused and traumatized individuals based on their treatment. I'll

915
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 1: add to that. Another thing that I see very often

916
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:19,359
Speaker 1: at conventions that I don't understand, and you know, forgive me, Uh,

917
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 1: maybe you have an alternate reading on this is um

918
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:27,239
Speaker 1: Watchman costplay when people costplay as the comedian and the

919
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 1: Golden Age Silk Specter together. So if you've seen, if

920
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 1: you've read the book, or if you've seen the movie,

921
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 1: you know, I guess spoilers for it, but like those

922
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 1: two have an abusive domestic relationship that involves sexual violence. Uh.

923
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:44,759
Speaker 1: And you you know, I see that a lot. I

924
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: see a lot of people, couples wearing those costumes together

925
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 1: and kind of, you know, walking around like, isn't this fun?

926
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 1: Isn't this cool? And I don't I don't get it,

927
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,120
Speaker 1: but clearly it has something to do with with what's

928
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:01,360
Speaker 1: going on here. I mean, this costuming and experiences outside

929
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 1: of just Halloween, right, So, um, I imagine, and I'm

930
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 1: sure there's studies that if they haven't been published already

931
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:11,280
Speaker 1: are being written right now furiously by some graduate student

932
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:15,840
Speaker 1: about pop culture conventions and costplay that they also allow

933
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:19,879
Speaker 1: for exploration of identity for other ing, for all these

934
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: kinds of things that we're talking about here, right, So

935
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:23,840
Speaker 1: what do we have next? What what's up next on

936
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:26,839
Speaker 1: the plate study? So sticking with the gender theme, there's

937
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: two more studies I want to talk about. In There

938
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:33,000
Speaker 1: was a study published in the Journal of Psychology called

939
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: Age and Gender Difference in Children's Halloween Costumes. So we're

940
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 1: bringing it back to kids, but we're sticking with the

941
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:41,319
Speaker 1: gender thing here. Uh, and it the people who wrote

942
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 1: it predicted, uh that Halloween costumes for first and second

943
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:49,800
Speaker 1: graders would be less gender stereotyped than those for preschoolers

944
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:52,360
Speaker 1: and children in kindergarten. So again, remember when I was

945
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:54,919
Speaker 1: talking earlier about that that zone of three to five,

946
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 1: the zone that your son is in right now. Uh,

947
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:01,360
Speaker 1: that this is an area of mine that the authors

948
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 1: speculate is when identity is still in flux, right, And

949
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: so there's an idea that gender really needs to be reinforced.

950
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:15,440
Speaker 1: So this scenario where the toddler or not the toddler

951
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 1: really but they the young child three four year old,

952
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 1: they say they want to dress as a princess, and

953
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:22,239
Speaker 1: you say, like, hell you are, You're dressing as a

954
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:26,479
Speaker 1: cowboy because I have a lot of expectations for your

955
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 1: your your gender preference here, Yeah, exactly, And their findings

956
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: confirmed this. Uh So they found actually the older boys,

957
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:35,480
Speaker 1: so when they're talking older boys, they're talking about like

958
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:38,720
Speaker 1: I think, over the age of eight, uh, they tended

959
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:42,799
Speaker 1: to prefer less masculine and more feminine costumes than the

960
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:47,799
Speaker 1: younger boys did. And the older girls preferred more masculine

961
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,440
Speaker 1: and less feminine costumes than the younger girls did. So

962
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 1: there definitely was like a between the ages of three

963
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:56,600
Speaker 1: and five, there's that like reinforcing gender thing, and then

964
00:52:56,640 --> 00:53:00,000
Speaker 1: there's like a period of time where they play, uh

965
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:02,920
Speaker 1: or maybe not play. I don't think there's like cross

966
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:05,799
Speaker 1: dressing as much as it's sort of like they're less

967
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: concerned by that, right, But then it evolves by the

968
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 1: time when we get into high school and college, as

969
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 1: we've seen, into the sexy costume stereotype all right, you know,

970
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:17,359
Speaker 1: and that makes more you know sense that you can

971
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:21,399
Speaker 1: imagine a either a boy or a girl, and they're

972
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 1: having a lot of expectations placed on them in the

973
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 1: way that they dress every day, as well as some

974
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:29,399
Speaker 1: of these specialty costumes. Like there comes a point where

975
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:31,160
Speaker 1: you're gonna say, you know, I would like to maybe

976
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 1: wear something that's not pink or you know, I would

977
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 1: like to wear something that's colorful and flowing and um,

978
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:40,359
Speaker 1: you know, without and engage in that possibility without all

979
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:43,799
Speaker 1: of the adult baggage that the parents are are are

980
00:53:43,800 --> 00:53:47,240
Speaker 1: possibly exactly how much of it is the parents saying

981
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:50,839
Speaker 1: I think you should be whatever, you know what I mean,

982
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:58,319
Speaker 1: Like in your case, bastion giraffe, Really, how about leather face? Yeah, yeah,

983
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,239
Speaker 1: it's a it's not gendered. You want him to yeah, yeah, yeah,

984
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 1: but but no, I mean, like I do see that

985
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:07,879
Speaker 1: this kind of you know, gender openness and curiosity. Even

986
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:10,000
Speaker 1: in my own son, you know, where he likes ses

987
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:11,520
Speaker 1: somebody playing in address and it's like I'd like to

988
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:15,200
Speaker 1: run around address. And of course, without the adult baggage

989
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: we place on that scenario, why not I totally remember

990
00:54:19,080 --> 00:54:21,359
Speaker 1: that period of time. There was a point when I

991
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:25,399
Speaker 1: and my you know, upbringing wasn't particularly like conservative or

992
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 1: I think of it as not being gendered, but of

993
00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:31,080
Speaker 1: course it was um, and and saying like, you know,

994
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 1: I wanted a Barbie doll to play with because the

995
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:36,359
Speaker 1: the girls in my kindergarten class all have these Barbie dolls,

996
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: so of course I wanted one. Uh And I was

997
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:40,799
Speaker 1: discouraged from that and and and it was really like

998
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:43,840
Speaker 1: I couldn't make sense of it at that age because

999
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:46,960
Speaker 1: I was you know, they couldn't explain to me, well,

1000
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:48,960
Speaker 1: if you do that, that's going to say a certain

1001
00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:50,839
Speaker 1: thing about you, and people are gonna make fun of you,

1002
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:53,520
Speaker 1: and that's going to subsequently reflect back on me. Right.

1003
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 1: Uh So it was it was an interesting kind of

1004
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:58,720
Speaker 1: thing to look back on that NoDEA with any siblings

1005
00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 1: I do, Yeah, there ten years younger than me. Okay,

1006
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:05,319
Speaker 1: so because I I have younger sisters, so they were

1007
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:07,399
Speaker 1: always Barbie dolls in the house. So like they were

1008
00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:08,719
Speaker 1: they were there, and you know, I would play with

1009
00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:12,040
Speaker 1: the Barbie house. Sometimes they had a lot of cool stuff. Yeah, sure, everything,

1010
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: but a toilet in there. Well right exactly. And if

1011
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:17,239
Speaker 1: you you know, as a as a kid of that age,

1012
00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 1: if you're using your imagination with your toys, the gender

1013
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:22,880
Speaker 1: element is probably not something you're even thinking of, right.

1014
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: But anyways, so so that ties back into what we

1015
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:31,839
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier with the sort of preschooler Halloween mentality.

1016
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:34,759
Speaker 1: So it's it's gendered, and then it's not gendered, and

1017
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:37,800
Speaker 1: then don't forget. It also encourages you to steal or

1018
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:41,640
Speaker 1: take a lot of candy. There's one more study, uh,

1019
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:45,480
Speaker 1: that is called the Pink Dragon is Female, and it

1020
00:55:45,560 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 1: was published in two thousand in the Psychology of Women,

1021
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:51,920
Speaker 1: Cord Quarterly. And basically what they did was a content

1022
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:55,279
Speaker 1: analysis of all the children's Halloween costumes that they could

1023
00:55:55,320 --> 00:55:58,480
Speaker 1: find that were available, and they saw it as a categorization.

1024
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:02,960
Speaker 1: They broke up into three categories, Heroes, villains, and fools,

1025
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:06,080
Speaker 1: and they wanted to see whether or not these these costumes,

1026
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 1: you know, very very much like the last study we

1027
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:11,800
Speaker 1: were talking about, reproduce or reiterate conventional messages of gender.

1028
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:14,720
Speaker 1: And what they found was the yes, the female costumes

1029
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 1: were clustered around examples of femininity like we talked about

1030
00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:21,319
Speaker 1: earlier with the princesses and the beauty queens. But also, uh,

1031
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: there was a higher ratio of animal costumes for girls.

1032
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 1: And maybe I just never noticed this, or maybe it's

1033
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:32,520
Speaker 1: because of my age. Food stuff costumes. So if girls

1034
00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 1: didn't want to have gendered costumes, they could, I guess,

1035
00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:39,400
Speaker 1: be a strawberry or something or what would well this

1036
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:42,000
Speaker 1: one at one of the costumes from Killen Mockingberg, right,

1037
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 1: was it addressed as food items? I don't remember that.

1038
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:47,959
Speaker 1: You know, even with animals, you have these gender stereotypes,

1039
00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:51,280
Speaker 1: even we've encountered with my my son's favorite UH animal

1040
00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:52,919
Speaker 1: is the giraffe. And then you go in you try

1041
00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:56,359
Speaker 1: and find UH shirts for boys with giraffes. You don't

1042
00:56:56,400 --> 00:56:59,080
Speaker 1: find them. You find that the boys shirts have tigers

1043
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 1: and lions. Boys are not supposed to like herbivores for

1044
00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:05,960
Speaker 1: some reason. That's funny, because traps can be pretty brutal

1045
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:10,000
Speaker 1: and tough when they want, draft can look after after itself. Yeah,

1046
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:13,640
Speaker 1: bringing that neck around and throwing in an odd kick. Well, okay,

1047
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:17,160
Speaker 1: so we've got the So the animals and food stuff

1048
00:57:17,200 --> 00:57:21,000
Speaker 1: seemed to be the compromise for young girls. For young males,

1049
00:57:21,120 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 1: the costumes are likely to feature villains, especially those that

1050
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 1: are symbols of death, which I don't know necessarily that

1051
00:57:29,120 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: how much I would read into that, given Halloween and

1052
00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:34,840
Speaker 1: the symbology of death that that you know, floats around

1053
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:39,120
Speaker 1: that holiday and anything. But um, they did find in

1054
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 1: this content analysis that less than less than ten per

1055
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:47,040
Speaker 1: cent of the costumes in two thousand were gender neutral,

1056
00:57:47,560 --> 00:57:51,400
Speaker 1: So the food stuff items, I'm assuming, h those were

1057
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 1: the only ones, you know, And that more often that

1058
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:58,360
Speaker 1: male costumes had occupational roles, right like I'm a doctor,

1059
00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: I'm a welder, or whatever, I'm a podcaster, uh, And

1060
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:05,520
Speaker 1: that the female costumes were usually based on what their

1061
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: appearance was in their relationships. So all right, So to summarize,

1062
00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:14,360
Speaker 1: we've got, uh, the Halloween costumes build gender. They are

1063
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:16,760
Speaker 1: a way that we construct race and identity. And then

1064
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:20,680
Speaker 1: there's also a moral element that we've talked about, including

1065
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:25,640
Speaker 1: both stealing and intoxication, allowing you to engage in behavior

1066
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:28,760
Speaker 1: that you otherwise, uh, wouldn't engage in or wouldn't engage

1067
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 1: to that degree, you know. And one of the crazy

1068
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:34,680
Speaker 1: things about this topic is that it's it's not just

1069
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:38,560
Speaker 1: at Halloween. It's not just when we actually actively engage

1070
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:42,040
Speaker 1: in the wearing of masks, be it for fun or

1071
00:58:42,040 --> 00:58:44,640
Speaker 1: as part of a religious ritual or or what have you.

1072
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: But any time we put on clothing we're in we're

1073
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:54,240
Speaker 1: engaging in this kind of powerful rebecoming. Oh yeah, it's uh,

1074
00:58:54,560 --> 00:58:57,480
Speaker 1: you know, a form of communication. Yeah, how we dress,

1075
00:58:57,800 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 1: the things that we own, the things that we wear,

1076
00:59:00,240 --> 00:59:02,280
Speaker 1: even down to like what kind of car you drive,

1077
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:04,920
Speaker 1: or what kind of pencil you use or whatever, Like

1078
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 1: all those things, whether we're conscious of it or not,

1079
00:59:07,480 --> 00:59:11,960
Speaker 1: are us communicating something about ourselves and identity to other people. Yeah.

1080
00:59:12,040 --> 00:59:14,680
Speaker 1: One observation that I keep coming back to whenever I

1081
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:18,560
Speaker 1: dip my toe into this h This topic, uh, comes

1082
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:22,280
Speaker 1: from a fatuleus book by Virginia Smith titled Clean A

1083
00:59:22,360 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 1: History of Personal Hygiene Impurity, which deals mostly with with

1084
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:29,600
Speaker 1: that very concept, the idea that there's there's physical cleanliness,

1085
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:32,360
Speaker 1: and there's societea of spiritual cleanliness, and the to just

1086
00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:37,760
Speaker 1: become irreversibly interwoven throughout history and many you know, I'm

1087
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:42,040
Speaker 1: amazing and and sometimes very uh you know, missible ways.

1088
00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:47,200
Speaker 1: But she points out that modern cultural sociologists describe the

1089
00:59:47,280 --> 00:59:50,680
Speaker 1: human body as an unfinished body, a body created by

1090
00:59:50,800 --> 00:59:52,920
Speaker 1: nature but finished by humans. And so each of us

1091
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:57,440
Speaker 1: called upon various bodies at various times. So there's there's

1092
00:59:57,440 --> 00:59:59,880
Speaker 1: a you know, there's a cybernetic element to this. You know,

1093
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:05,440
Speaker 1: here we're inherently augmented by our technology, be that wristwatch

1094
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:08,000
Speaker 1: or an implant, or just the clothing we wear, to

1095
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 1: tweak who we physically are and therefore tweak who we

1096
01:00:12,480 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 1: are inside. Yeah, that's interesting, especially because, like, you know,

1097
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:18,000
Speaker 1: a topic that comes up on this show a lot

1098
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:22,880
Speaker 1: is transhumanism or post humanism, and just thinking about it

1099
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:25,240
Speaker 1: that way, like like we think of that as being

1100
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:27,520
Speaker 1: a very kind of sci fi thing that's coming down

1101
01:00:27,600 --> 01:00:30,320
Speaker 1: the road, But just think about it, Like, my dog

1102
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:32,760
Speaker 1: doesn't wear clothes other than the color that I put

1103
01:00:32,800 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 1: around his neck so I can walk him, right, he

1104
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:40,760
Speaker 1: doesn't need to express his identity within clothing. Uh, We're

1105
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:42,440
Speaker 1: not the kind of people to do this, but some

1106
01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:45,720
Speaker 1: people put their dogs in little outfits right in order

1107
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:48,960
Speaker 1: to sort of do that same thing, to project identity

1108
01:00:49,640 --> 01:00:51,560
Speaker 1: through that. Well, I mean, you look at the most

1109
01:00:51,600 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 1: primal example possible and imagine, you know, some sort of

1110
01:00:54,280 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: a cave person prehistory kills a wolf skins, it wears

1111
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:01,240
Speaker 1: the wolf hide. It's on several different levels, Like on

1112
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 1: one level, it's it's an augmentation of the body for

1113
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:07,160
Speaker 1: just purely to stay warm or even to provide some

1114
01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:10,000
Speaker 1: level of protection in combat. And then on on a

1115
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 1: on another level though, that individual is taking on the

1116
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:16,720
Speaker 1: hide of the beast, the being of the beast, which

1117
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:18,360
Speaker 1: you know we touched on a little bit in our

1118
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:21,040
Speaker 1: Wolf Spain episode. That's one of the models for wear

1119
01:01:21,080 --> 01:01:24,760
Speaker 1: wolf transformation. Is you wear a magical hide, yeah, or

1120
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:28,000
Speaker 1: or the right exactly like the kind of barbarian wearing

1121
01:01:28,120 --> 01:01:31,000
Speaker 1: like wolf hides, or or even like wearing like the

1122
01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: fur over their head or something like in taking on

1123
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 1: the role of the beast in combat. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

1124
01:01:37,040 --> 01:01:39,840
Speaker 1: So when this we get into the idea of embodied cognition,

1125
01:01:39,920 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 1: which is a philosophical model in which an agent's cognition,

1126
01:01:43,640 --> 01:01:45,400
Speaker 1: the way you think, the way you engage, the way

1127
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:48,160
Speaker 1: you interpret the world, is strongly influenced by aspects of

1128
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:51,560
Speaker 1: an agent's body beyond the brain itself. So you know

1129
01:01:51,640 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 1: that entails not only how you feel about your body

1130
01:01:56,280 --> 01:01:58,760
Speaker 1: and how you appear, but then how you augment it

1131
01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:02,440
Speaker 1: through clothing. And to iterate too, there is an episode

1132
01:02:02,560 --> 01:02:04,400
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow your Mind from a couple of

1133
01:02:04,480 --> 01:02:08,040
Speaker 1: years ago that that you guys did specifically about in

1134
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:11,040
Speaker 1: clothed cognition. So if you know we're going to touch

1135
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:12,560
Speaker 1: on it here, but if you really want to take

1136
01:02:12,560 --> 01:02:14,560
Speaker 1: a deep dive, go back and check that out, and

1137
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll link to it and we'll have a

1138
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:17,720
Speaker 1: link to that one on the landing page for this

1139
01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:20,960
Speaker 1: this episode. But yeah, you see this idea of the

1140
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:23,680
Speaker 1: body as a constraint, like your body is holding you

1141
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:26,600
Speaker 1: back from being who you are inside. The body is

1142
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:31,480
Speaker 1: a regulator, so in this case, the the body's functions

1143
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:35,080
Speaker 1: are are regulating cognitive activity. You can get into this

1144
01:02:35,160 --> 01:02:38,440
Speaker 1: whole mind body problem with it pretty pretty quickly. And

1145
01:02:38,520 --> 01:02:43,800
Speaker 1: this leads into an additional take on embodiment that deals

1146
01:02:43,880 --> 01:02:47,400
Speaker 1: particularly with garments, and this is in clothed cognition. And

1147
01:02:47,480 --> 01:02:50,400
Speaker 1: this stems from three initial studies by Hajo Adam and

1148
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:54,240
Speaker 1: Adam Glanski from Northwestern University, and they've been examining the

1149
01:02:54,320 --> 01:02:59,120
Speaker 1: psychological and performance related effects that wearing specific articles of

1150
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 1: clothing have on the person wearing them. And they actually

1151
01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:06,280
Speaker 1: coined this term in clothed cognition. Okay, and this is

1152
01:03:06,320 --> 01:03:10,680
Speaker 1: where we get the sort of doctor cosplay experiment, right, yeah, yeah,

1153
01:03:10,800 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 1: So in fact, they're their primary experiments dealt with this.

1154
01:03:13,640 --> 01:03:16,919
Speaker 1: So in in one experiment, they they found that people

1155
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:19,240
Speaker 1: physic physically wearing a lap coat, and that's key, not

1156
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:21,160
Speaker 1: just looking at and at it, not just thinking about it.

1157
01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:25,160
Speaker 1: If they physically put it on, it increases selective attention

1158
01:03:25,280 --> 01:03:27,840
Speaker 1: compared to when they're not wearing a lap coat. Right.

1159
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:29,959
Speaker 1: So it's like putting on a thinking cap, but thinking

1160
01:03:29,960 --> 01:03:32,680
Speaker 1: cap powered entirely by the symbolic nature of the cap.

1161
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:36,120
Speaker 1: We think of the doctors being who serious and an observant,

1162
01:03:36,280 --> 01:03:38,120
Speaker 1: And then when we put it on, even though we

1163
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:41,200
Speaker 1: have no illusions that we are becoming a doctor, but

1164
01:03:41,400 --> 01:03:43,920
Speaker 1: we are. It's like we're wearing the hide of that wolf.

1165
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:46,760
Speaker 1: We're wearing the hide of that doctor and in doing so,

1166
01:03:47,520 --> 01:03:50,640
Speaker 1: becoming them a little bit cognitively. Yeah, there's a lot

1167
01:03:50,720 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 1: going on there, just in that one small experiment, in

1168
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:58,440
Speaker 1: that it speaks to the kind of human nature. Uh.

1169
01:03:59,600 --> 01:04:03,800
Speaker 1: And he rants to cultural narratives and imagination. And again,

1170
01:04:03,880 --> 01:04:05,760
Speaker 1: you know, thinking back on Halloween and this idea of

1171
01:04:05,880 --> 01:04:07,680
Speaker 1: like is it for kids is it for adults? It's

1172
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:11,920
Speaker 1: like we as adults every day are imagining and playing

1173
01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:14,600
Speaker 1: out these games scenarios in our head as we dress

1174
01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:17,000
Speaker 1: up the way we do. Yeah, And they found in

1175
01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:21,520
Speaker 1: some follow up experiments that it specifically had to be

1176
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:23,280
Speaker 1: a doctor's coat. If they told it was the same

1177
01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:25,040
Speaker 1: lab coat and they said, oh, it's a painter's coat,

1178
01:04:25,680 --> 01:04:28,040
Speaker 1: didn't have the same effect. And in all cases it

1179
01:04:28,160 --> 01:04:31,520
Speaker 1: was the symbolic meaning of the the outfit plus the

1180
01:04:31,640 --> 01:04:35,360
Speaker 1: physical experience of wearing it. And so I think that's

1181
01:04:35,480 --> 01:04:37,960
Speaker 1: key to pretty much every model we've looked at here

1182
01:04:38,400 --> 01:04:41,560
Speaker 1: that you're taking on not just the appearance of the

1183
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:45,760
Speaker 1: monster or the sexy Egyptian or what have you. You

1184
01:04:45,880 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 1: were taking on some aspect of at least what you

1185
01:04:50,120 --> 01:04:53,760
Speaker 1: presume to be the mind of that individual, of that

1186
01:04:53,960 --> 01:04:57,480
Speaker 1: racial group, of that type of person, or that just

1187
01:04:57,640 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 1: straight up monster. Yeah. And again I think that that,

1188
01:05:00,600 --> 01:05:05,560
Speaker 1: you know, explains the surge and popularity of costuming and

1189
01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:10,040
Speaker 1: cosplay in American popular culture right now. It's that has

1190
01:05:10,080 --> 01:05:12,640
Speaker 1: a lot to do with it. And maybe Halloween that

1191
01:05:12,840 --> 01:05:16,880
Speaker 1: one day year isn't enough for that kind of experimentation.

1192
01:05:17,240 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 1: People want to have more occasions in which they can

1193
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:23,040
Speaker 1: do that and not have it be taboo, right, So,

1194
01:05:23,240 --> 01:05:25,440
Speaker 1: and I mean that's why you see more and more

1195
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 1: of that these days. You see like just here in Atlanta, Um,

1196
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:30,640
Speaker 1: we were going to talk about Crampus a little bit,

1197
01:05:30,680 --> 01:05:33,120
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do a cramp this episode. Later on there

1198
01:05:33,320 --> 01:05:38,520
Speaker 1: there's a local crampus uh pub crawl situation that goes on.

1199
01:05:38,720 --> 01:05:42,720
Speaker 1: People dress up like this horned um Germanic monster and

1200
01:05:43,080 --> 01:05:45,800
Speaker 1: parade about. They've got this thing here in Atlanta too.

1201
01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:48,880
Speaker 1: It's like they probably have it in other cities now

1202
01:05:48,960 --> 01:05:53,440
Speaker 1: as well. But it's a zombie walk and it doesn't

1203
01:05:53,640 --> 01:05:56,200
Speaker 1: really I mean, I think it's during October maybe, but

1204
01:05:56,840 --> 01:05:58,120
Speaker 1: I think it has more to do with that the

1205
01:05:58,160 --> 01:06:00,440
Speaker 1: Walking Dead is shot here than it has to do

1206
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:03,640
Speaker 1: with Halloween necessarily. But I mean they get like five

1207
01:06:04,080 --> 01:06:06,840
Speaker 1: people like all marching down the street through the city

1208
01:06:07,520 --> 01:06:09,760
Speaker 1: in zombie garb. So the rest of the year you

1209
01:06:09,840 --> 01:06:12,560
Speaker 1: go to you go to various carnival situations, go to

1210
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:16,080
Speaker 1: New Orleans, you go to various cons and dress up

1211
01:06:16,120 --> 01:06:18,880
Speaker 1: as these individuals. So so yeah, we're kind of creating

1212
01:06:18,920 --> 01:06:22,840
Speaker 1: more and more opportunities for UH, for adults to engage

1213
01:06:23,160 --> 01:06:27,520
Speaker 1: in costume play and in costume recreation. Yeah, I think

1214
01:06:27,560 --> 01:06:31,320
Speaker 1: it speaks to UH. Like I said at the top, again,

1215
01:06:31,440 --> 01:06:34,880
Speaker 1: like so Halloween is like a way to sort of

1216
01:06:35,000 --> 01:06:37,200
Speaker 1: reflect back what's going on in culture at the time

1217
01:06:37,360 --> 01:06:42,280
Speaker 1: and our sort of need for more opportunities to costume

1218
01:06:42,480 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: and uh play around with these identities. Seems to be

1219
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:48,200
Speaker 1: a reflection of that as well, right, that there's more

1220
01:06:48,320 --> 01:06:52,080
Speaker 1: fluidity and flexibility, uh and acceptance of playing around with

1221
01:06:52,160 --> 01:06:56,320
Speaker 1: identity than the baby was when we were kids. Yeah yeah,

1222
01:06:56,400 --> 01:06:58,680
Speaker 1: back back then there they were still into you know,

1223
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 1: you're taking on a particular idea, nity, but it was

1224
01:07:00,600 --> 01:07:01,880
Speaker 1: the one you had to keep for the rest of

1225
01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:06,400
Speaker 1: your life, right and everything else. Yeah yeah, so so yeah,

1226
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:09,880
Speaker 1: I'm all in favor of donning those costumes. Yeah. Well,

1227
01:07:09,960 --> 01:07:12,160
Speaker 1: that's why October is my favorite month of the year.

1228
01:07:12,200 --> 01:07:15,200
Speaker 1: You know, I love I love October, not just for Halloween,

1229
01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:16,880
Speaker 1: but for all the things that kind of come along

1230
01:07:16,960 --> 01:07:23,120
Speaker 1: with it, the the autumn, the corn mazes, uh, hay rides,

1231
01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:27,400
Speaker 1: all that stuff, Apple bobbing, and the podcast episodes and

1232
01:07:27,560 --> 01:07:31,560
Speaker 1: the related blog post. Absolutely nice segue. So again to

1233
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:36,040
Speaker 1: remind you, we're gonna be doing uh podcasts all month

1234
01:07:36,160 --> 01:07:38,720
Speaker 1: that are fairly tied into the month of October and

1235
01:07:38,840 --> 01:07:42,480
Speaker 1: to Halloween themes. But also we've got coming up at

1236
01:07:42,520 --> 01:07:45,640
Speaker 1: the end of October, we'll be answering your listener mail.

1237
01:07:45,920 --> 01:07:50,000
Speaker 1: On ten twenty three during our first periscope session. Uh

1238
01:07:50,080 --> 01:07:52,280
Speaker 1: And and you know, as I've said before, we haven't

1239
01:07:52,280 --> 01:07:54,480
Speaker 1: periscoped yet, but I believe you can interact directly with

1240
01:07:54,640 --> 01:07:56,880
Speaker 1: us there too. You can type in questions for us

1241
01:07:56,920 --> 01:07:59,520
Speaker 1: and you know we'll try to answer them. Uh And

1242
01:07:59,800 --> 01:08:02,880
Speaker 1: moster Science. So we're big monster fans around here, and

1243
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:06,040
Speaker 1: we've got four brand new episodes of Monster Science coming

1244
01:08:06,080 --> 01:08:08,479
Speaker 1: up at the end of the month. All through the month,

1245
01:08:08,760 --> 01:08:11,320
Speaker 1: we're gonna be posting the first two seasons of Monster

1246
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:15,240
Speaker 1: Science to our social media accounts Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler,

1247
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:17,960
Speaker 1: where you can find us with the handle blow the Mind.

1248
01:08:18,600 --> 01:08:22,360
Speaker 1: And finally, if people want to reach out to us

1249
01:08:22,479 --> 01:08:25,759
Speaker 1: and let us know about their costuming experience and whether

1250
01:08:25,960 --> 01:08:28,160
Speaker 1: what kind of effects it's had on their identity or

1251
01:08:28,200 --> 01:08:30,240
Speaker 1: what they've seen with other people's identity, where can they

1252
01:08:30,280 --> 01:08:32,040
Speaker 1: reach out to us at and maybe we can respond

1253
01:08:32,080 --> 01:08:34,160
Speaker 1: to that during the periscope session. Oh, we just reach

1254
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:36,639
Speaker 1: out to us at Blow the Mind at how stuff

1255
01:08:36,720 --> 01:08:42,519
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of

1256
01:08:42,560 --> 01:08:44,800
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com