MAOUYO: Reflections on a Hallow Past

This past weekend, as I was preparing for Halloween (well, technically All Hallow’s Eve because it was Friday) by eating too much candy and donning Don King, I realized I had peaked about a year earlier. Not physically, not intellectually, but Halloweenically (I dare you to come up with a better single word to fit there). It’s not that I wasn’t proud of my tacky blazer and tie combination, powdered-white hair, and short list of memorized ridiculous quotes, it’s that I went out as Macy Gray last year. (By the way, look up some Don King quotes for your personal enjoyment, and maybe a biography if you’re unfamiliar with the most legendary boxing promoter of all time.)

Not only did I dress up as Macy Gray last year, but also for the first time in years, I really put effort into the costume. I sewed together a couple of Goodwill purchases to make the body of the dress Macy wore to the Grammys in 2001, which you might remember as possibly the worst red carpet choice ever. I even lettered the dress with white duct tape to say, as hers did, ‘MY NEW ALBUM DROPS SEPT. 18 2001.’ I still treasure the dirty and shocked looks from two elderly Brookline women who caught sight of me as I exited my dorm.

This year, however, it wasn’t my cross-dressing that in some manner stole the show, but my friend’s impeccable Mrs. Doubtfire costume (and I don’t say impeccable lightly). The hair, makeup, nails, dress, shoes, breasts, glasses and jewelry created a fairly spitting image of Robin Williams in drag. I wasn’t really too surprised; my friend is a dedicated Halloweener.

I was surprised, however, at how many other guys I saw cross-dressed this year. I wouldn’t call this phenomenon uncommon in years past, but I had never seen it as prevalent as this year. Everywhere I turned, hairy legs emerged from skirts, tufts of armpit hair sprung from tank tops, and poorly supported and oddly misshapen breasts proudly proclaimed themselves under clownishly lipsticked and powdered faces.

For your intellectual betterment, a brief and incomplete history of cross-dressing (note: really, really, potentially, offensively incomplete): Cross-dressing’s all over Greek and Norse mythology. Also, in the days of yore, men used to dress in drag and play the parts of women in theater. And in more modern times, I’m sure we’re all familiar with the concept of drag queens, transvestites, etc., depicted in pop culture in movies such as ‘Tootsie’ and ‘Boondock Saints’ (no, really). Still, most cross-dressing is on the fringes of society, but of course, on Halloween, pretty much anything is A-OK.

This ‘anything’ includes scantily clad women every which way you turn. As we all know, Halloween weekend is pretty much the only time a year where it’s pretty much acceptable for a girl to go out in little more than beachwear, though of course not all do. I think there are a couple ways to look at this. First, and more ideally, Halloween could be considered the only day that a girl can be as publicly sexual as she wants, without fear of public judgment or ostracism. Sexual empowerment, then.

But that’s pretty hard to believe, right? Because if that were the case, you won’tt hear guys and girls alike judging a girl for a ‘slutty’ costume. I mean, I’ve never heard someone making fun of a girl for having a more conservative (and I’m tempted to say creative) ensemble. Not to mention, girls shouldn’t have to worry about catcalls (who came up with that word?) or anything of the like if the above reason holds. Another possibility must be considered: that girls are expected/ encouraged to dress in a manner that shows off as much skin as possible, and just deal with any negative consequences. If you’re a girl and you enjoy being sexy, there’s no problem with that. But Halloween shouldn’t force a girl to ‘put it all out there,’ per se.

Why am I discussing the conditions that can affect the Halloween choices of the ladies when I started out by talking about cross-dressing men? Because I think it’s tempting to apply a similar debate. The reason that men cross-dress on Halloween could be that it’s a different way to feel sexually empowered. But while women are encouraged to dress more wantonly, men aren’t societally expected to dress as women. And in light of the fact that most of the guys I saw dressed as women weren’t Mrs. Doubtfires or Macy Grays, but more promiscuously outfitted, it’s possible that Halloween cross-dressing either implicitly or explicitly mocks the fact that women will be dressing similarly. Like, ‘Why not just dress as a slutty girl, it’ll be funny because they’re everywhere.’ I hate to make the sweeping generalization, but it does seem apt. I will say this: it was fun to masquerade in every sense of the word last year, and a little breeze between the legs wasn’t exactly unwelcome.