Halloween is the absolute best time of the year. It’s the first holiday of the season and the temperature is perfectly between hot and cold. But the most important part of Halloween — the aspect that truly makes the holiday so special — is the costumes.
As human beings, it is so important to value and show our differences. What makes us different is what makes us special. Dressing up for Halloween is the perfect time to show exactly who you are by choosing to be whatever you have always wanted to be. What is so sacred about this tradition is the creativity and differences within our costume choices.
This Halloweekend, at least at Fordham University, there seemed to be a lack of original costumes. The most popular were princesses, pop stars or some type of animal. The reasoning behind the scarcity of creativity and effort can be debated. Some could say it’s due to student finances; many students seem to not have the ability or desire this year to spend their limited money on costumes, opting instead for a corset that they can reuse and cheap animal ears. Others may claim that the increasingly popular desire to look good trumps any potentially weird but creative ideas people may have for their costumes.
This is an issue within our society: our want to fit in and be appealing to our peers is flushing out our differences. This Halloween was one of the most boring I have experienced to date, and that was solely because of this issue. As aforementioned, the whole point of the holiday is to be creative and original. Now, the holiday has simply become a time to regurgitate popular, basic costumes to fit in.
This effect leads to confusion because as creativity in adult costumes has gone down, interest in participating in the holiday has soared. Some may believe this is due to the increase in celebration of the holiday amongst celebrities. For example, Kendall Jenner’s now-annual Halloween parties have increased the visibility of celebrities dressing up and honoring the holiday themselves. When looking at celebrity costumes, it is clear that, just like at Fordham, celebrities also seem to be hitting a wall in terms of creativity. Of those at Jenner’s party, the only really notable costumes include Emma Chamberlain as Wallace from “Wallace and Gromit,” Stephanie Shepard as Phoebe from “Hey Arnold” and Lori Harvey as The Bride from “Kill Bill.” The rest of the attendees seem to be going in basic costumes, such as angels, knights or cowgirls.
Others have a different school of thought. Marley Lien-Gonzalez, FCRH ’27, claims that party culture is growing among adults during Halloween. “It’s becoming another excuse to cut loose and have a good time,” said Lien-Gonzalez. She also shares that she gets equally as much fun out of Halloween now, as an adult, when compared to experiencing it in her childhood.
In relation to Lien-Gonzalez’s idea, students seem to want to experience as much of Halloweekend as possible because it is also the most popular time for the entire student body to be out and interact together socially. There seems to be a decline, especially as the semester progresses through midterms and into finals season, of students getting together on the weekends. This is another possible reason for the difference in the massive turnout in attendance for Halloween when compared to the originality of costumes. Students haven’t had as much time to prepare their costumes, but still want to participate.
While the majority of costumes seemed to trend toward the more basic side, there were still some original costumes circulating around Fordham this past weekend. Of those, the most notable include a rendition of Chappell Roan (but specifically from her Tiny Desk Concert), Florence Pugh from the “Midsommar” film poster, two Ruth Bader Ginsburgs and Gargamel. While I still appreciate those who celebrated the holiday, even if they couldn’t put more into their costumes, I want to send a special thanks to those who did. You’re keeping the holiday original, creative and, most importantly, fun.
