People may not notice but pop culture has a huge effect on Halloween costumes, such as Barbie, Oppenheimer, Mean Girls and Spider-Man. Choosing and dressing up for Halloween is a tradition that has been around since the 19th century.
Some people may tend to stick to the traditional and more scary themed costumes, choosing the classic witches, zombies, and monsters. According to Web Weekly, wearing a costume at Halloween dates back to 1585 in Scotland; it came from the belief that supernatural beings roamed the Earth on October 31st. People dressed up to impersonate the dead.
Coming to theaters on October 27th, Five Nights at Freddys is an indie survival horror game that is being converted into a movie adaptation. Fans who have been interested in the media franchise are able to dress up as their favorite animatronic character. Junior Lillian Stogin, is excited for the new movie and can’t wait to see costumes based upon the film.
“I’m most excited to see Five Nights at Freddys costume. The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie is coming out next week, and so I’m really excited for that,” said Stoglin.
Ever since pictures circulated social media from the film Barbie, many fans have been obsessed with all the different outfits and different types of barbies. Many people, especially girls who have loved Barbie since childhood will take part in dressing up as the iconic Barbie. Stoglin expects people do dress up as different variations of Barbie.
“I went to go see Barbie and loved it. I do think many girls will dress up as barbies or maybe different variations of barbie. There’s Doctor Barbie, Beach Barbie, Cowgirl Barbie, all these different types of Barbies people can dress up as,” Stoglin said.
There have been some people who use their cosplay as their Halloween costume. Cosplay is when a person dresses in costumes and make-up, representing characters from anime, video games, television and film. Some people work hard on their cosplay, as well as others but on their Halloween costumes. Bre’Aundrian Nell, junior, thinks that an Anime cosplay would be a very good Halloween costume.
“I know a couple cosplayers who would dress up as an Anime character. So if someone were to do a full cosplay outfit, I think it would be very cool,” Nell said.
Halloween can also be the time to hard launch a person’s relationship with a couples costume. Some can dress up as iconic characters such as Jack and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and others may do something more out of the ordinary like the Statue of Liberty and a New York tourist. Blessed Nell, Senior, loves the dynamic of couples costumes.
“Couples costumes are adorable, cute, I love them. There can be no corny or cringey couple costumes. I think love is beautiful, I think it shows the love between them,” Nell said.
In the past, Halloween costumes were inspired by what was spooky and scary, such as witches, ghosts and vampires. But with the expansion of pop culture, costumes have been more diverse and have been based on current trends. Marisa Bonner, Family Consumers Science teacher, explains how people do costumes based on pop culture compared to other costumes.
“I feel like now people do things based on pop culture events, and they kind of dress up as them. Sometimes the costumes may not be as easily recognizable as like cartoon characters, or typical costumes,” Bonner said.
Bre’Aundrian Nell states that people get inspiration from characters for their costumes.
“I think the trendy movies influence us, and we get inspired by those characters and we want to be like them for Halloween. Also if it weren’t for trends and pop culture how would we know what we want to be,” said Nell.
Whether a person is going trick or treating or attending a Halloween party, costumes are expected to range from the iconic witch costumes to trendy pop culture trends. Ideas for this spooky holiday are already circulating widely, exciting many.
