Friday, October 9, 2009
Page 11
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Halloween Costumes for the ‘Heartless’
By J’AMY PACHECO
In the good old days, my daughter chose Halloween costumes based upon which Disney princess she most wanted to be like that year.
She started with Snow White. In subsequent years, she worked her way through the regal looks of Sleeping Beauty (in the pink dress, of course); Tinker Bell, Pocahontas, Belle, Jasmine, Megara of Hercules fame, and even Elizabeth Swann, the not-quite-a-princess heroine of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise.
The gowns were fun to make, and I enjoyed sprinkling glitter in my Disney girl’s hair every year. Things changed last year when she and her pals decided to go as “The Potter Puppet Pals.”
For those not familiar with the group, the Potter Puppet Pals are an online sensation spoofing, with hand puppets, the wildly successful “Harry Potter” series. (If you haven’t seen them, search YouTube for “The Mysterious Ticking Noise” and you will, in two minutes, six seconds, learn why we often go around the house singing, “Snape, Snape, Severus Snape” and laughing.)
When the redheaded puppet pops up and identifies himself as Ron Weasley, you’ll know how my daughter looked last Halloween. A friend re-created the puppet pals’ look in life-size, and my “Ron” was accompanied by Harry himself and the dreaded Professor Snape.
We all thought it was hilarious and were profoundly disappointed when our host answered the door at the Halloween party we attended and asked, “Who are you supposed to be?” It wasn’t quite the reaction we were expecting. Poor Ron’s giant head has been stored in the hall closet ever since.
I was pretty surprised when my former princess announced this year she intended to go as one of the “Death Eaters” from Harry Potter. Although I was mildly disappointed at the thought of dressing my beautiful girl up as a dark wizard, it could have been worse. I thought she meant a “dementor;” the ghostly-looking, soul sucking creatures in the movies. Phew.
But before I started trying to figure out how to draw a dark mark on her arm, she developed a new obsession. Now, she and her friends want to go as members of “The Organization.”
The Organization, as I understand it, is a group of heartless bad guys in the Disney series of games, “Kingdom Hearts.” If I’m getting it right, the series consists of some cartoon teenagers stranded on a deserted island, some bad guys who literally have no hearts, and Disney characters like Mickey, Goofy and Donald who all do battle with and against one another.
Sounds pretty strange, eh?
I’m sure there is more to it than what I’ve indicated. The series has, after all, spawned multiple video games on various game systems, manga-style books and a lot of merchandise.
My daughter and her pals love it, and now they want to dress up like members of the Organization.
It would be great if there was a place I could go to buy an appropriate costume, but that never happens. My daughter has too many specifications to ever be satisfied with a mass-produced costume, so Mom usually ends up pulling out the sewing machine and a bunch of money for supplies.
Now I’ve got to figure out how to make a floor-length, fitted black coat with a giant zipper up the front that opens at the bottom and the top. She’ll need black boots, black gloves, silver beads and, my favorite part–a blonde mullet wig, spiked at the top, to cover her long, brown hair.
On top of that, her character carries a full-length, uniquely shaped blue sitar. I haven’t decided if I’m going to make it out of felt or foam board, but I do know it’s likely to take me until Halloween night to figure out how to pull all of this together.
The irony is that as of this moment, the girls have no idea where they’re going to show off these costumes. They haven’t been invited to any Halloween parties, and they live in three different cities, making house-to-house trick-or-treating unlikely.
They’d like to go to Disneyland, but Disneyland doesn’t let teens and adults enter dressed in costume, unless they’re cast members. And since they’re all under the age of 14, their prospects for immediate employment don’t look good.
So I’ll spend nearly every night this month creating a complex coat and instrument for no apparent reason, other than it being Halloween. Talk about all dressed up with no place to go.
But I’ll do it. And if I do a great job, maybe my newly-heartless daughter will allow me to sprinkle a little glitter in her spiked mullet hair.
No respectable dementor would allow that, so I guess I’d come out ahead.
Copyright 2009, Metropolitan News Company