Happy Halloween, Says Half of Me ;)
Every year, I consider dressing up for Halloween, look at lots of costumes, consider what I could put together myself, but I rarely end up dressing up. I’ve realized this year that from my normal wardrobe, I could pull together a Dorothy costume in less than two minutes, which I find pretty funny. I have a blue gingham sundress, a blue version of the orange one I’m wearing in my entry Future’s So Bright II. I have red sparkly ballet flats I bought at the Nine West clearance store a few years ago. I could wear a basic white fitted tee under the dress and little gauzy white socks, wear my hair in pigtails, put my little cat Pippa in a basket, and Voilà!
I remember in high school, every pair of shoes I wore were hailed as "Dorothy shoes" by everyone I knew. I never actually wore red sparkly shoes, though. They were often purple or pink or white or wine-colored, and not sparkly. Mostly mary janes. All of my female friends wore Doc Martens at the time, but they just weren’t me. Too bulky. Still are, for me. I’ve always liked small colorful girly shoes on myself. But anyway, two years ago, a few months after seeing Black Swan in D.C. at its premiere, I saw a black leotard with feathers on it and dark iridescent tulle at the top and bottom, and knew I had to wear it. Paired it with some old torn black fishnets with red back-seams, lacy armbands, and black patent stilettos for going out. Had a lot of fun with the eye makeup, but just ended up making my rounds giving out Halloween cupcakes and then going to a friend’s house to watch horror movies. I’m really not much for parties, loudness, drunks, etc. But wearing that costume was a lot of fun.
Here I am in it:
I think I was drawn to it and initially to the movie because I have a fascination with anything even remotely related to doppelgangers. My favorites are classic stepping-out-of-the-mirror doppelgangers. The emotional base of the mythological figures I imagine stems from the feeling you get when you look in the mirror sometimes, and even though you know it’s your own image looking back at you, it can seem like someone else. The distance, the coldness, between a person and an image of a person. And the fact that a reflection is your image backwards. A doppelganger is supposed to be you backwards, basically, personality and all. I also love the notion that a doppelganger is envious of the person it reflects, because that person gets to have a real life, and the mirror image of the person only exists while he or she is in front of the mirror, facing it or not, and even in those moments, is trapped in the confines of the mirror.
When I’m brushing my teeth or washing my face or doing anything in front of the bathroom mirror, I sometimes find it odd and unsettling to be staring into a reflection of my own eyes. It begins to feel like someone else staring back at me, a cold version of myself, and I wonder, fleetingly, when I turn my eyes or my face away from the mirror for a few seconds and cannot see the mirror, if the eyes in the mirror have really turned away with my own or if they have taken the opportunity to remain staring coldly at me, watching my every move enviously, without my knowledge. I’ve creeped myself out with this on multiple occasions and had to get out of view of the mirror.
What I like about the movie Black Swan is that the ballerina’s dark version of herself that she runs into on a couple of occasions seems to have been born from her own head, from her insecurity that she’ll never be able to embody those dark and sensual qualities needed for her new role. A part of the madness surrounding her obsession with perfection. I also love in itself that her ballet role requires her to fully be each of two opposites, the concept that it’s the same girl as the sweet innocent swan and the evil conniving swan. The complexity of identity and internal desire. And that the other ballerina, her understudy, is kind of like her doppelganger as well, her opposite.
About the picture above, I feel I should note that those are NOT my Scooby Doo magnets.