Bittersweet, Slightly Short: Blonde wigs on Halloween
The transformative power and peril of costume
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Blonde wigs on Halloween: The transformative power and peril of costume
The university I went to once made it on David Letterman’s Top Ten List of College Party Towns. Especially on Halloween, we were known for our elaborate parties, costumes, and other related shenanigans. It wasn’t uncommon to dress up Thursday through Sunday, a different costume for each night. After four years, I made, bought, and borrowed somewhere between 12-15 costumes and I was everything under the sun. Fuzzy owls and unicorns, a star with a gun (a shooting star, duh), part of a sexy SWAT troop complete with t-shirts that said TWAT team on the back. Of course, being one of only a handful of Asian students at the school, I felt permitted to be Yoko Ono and Trisha Takanawa (the reporter from Family Guy), which feels embarrassing in hindsight. However, if most of my peers couldn’t see why that was a problem, the hell if I cared.
One night I was stuck without a costume when my friend Ashley said she had a Marilyn Monroe costume I could borrow. The white dress and cropped blonde wig fit perfectly and I already had a beauty mark on my upper lip. I felt that was permission enough to be this icon, and so we got ready together and hit the bars. Did blondes really have more fun? For a few hours it felt that way. I was weightless, spinning around the dancefloor, accepting shots from various friends and strangers. Boys grabbed at me and danced with me; the costume was so effective I thought. I wonder what it would be like to dye my hair and dress like this every day.
There is a turn in a night out that many women know well. When you know you’ve had enough and want to leave the pack of your friends. Your decisions to cut yourself off and get to your safe, cozy bed and a glass of water, can come at the cost of walking home alone. The flowy dress and my exposed neck somehow felt inappropriate in the cold, dark night. As I clacked my white kitten heels over the train tracks, I noticed a bunch of older people in costumes smoking in a cluster, blocking my way.
It wasn’t a slow build of tension, nor an awkward back and forth. It was over before it began. A woman and a handful of men, who I did not recognize (an uncommon thing when your school’s population is 2000), asked me if I was Marilyn Monroe. Before I could answer the woman stepped close enough to me that I could smell the booze on her breath. You’re Chinese though? Japanese? And before I said a word she tugged at the wig and it slid off revealing my sweaty, matted black hair.
I grabbed the wig, tucked it under my shivering arms, and ran past them. “Where you going honey?” one of them asked laughing. Another shouted: “Marilyn was white in case you didn’t know!” Their words hurt more later than at the moment. Even once I was safely inside my bedroom, the feeling of her fingers lingered on my scalp, the pinpricks where my bobby pins plucked my strands of hair out, stung.
I have worn wigs since that night, but rarely. Every time I wear one I feel that woman’s hand on my head, peeking underneath to see what color lies beneath. When I heard my daughter ask for a wig of golden hair this year I crumpled inside, thinking about the thousands of dark-haired women who search for beauty and adoration in those yellow strands. Now, long, braided Queen Elsa and Rapunzel wigs line the shops with Marilyn Monroe costumes, still going strong. Little girls run around neighborhoods in their glittery ruffles and wands and miniature high heels. All of us parents sigh, “I know it’s dated, but how can I keep them from it?”
Last night (aka the night before Halloween), I tried the rainbow mermaid costume on my 5 year old before she went to bed. The long, wavy, purple wig she asked for nearly 6 months ago, slipped over her head. She looked just like one of the many cartoons on Disney where toddlers look more like teenagers. She looked at herself smiling for a moment before some strands fell into her eyes. Yuck, this is scratchy. She yanked it off and it flopped to the floor like a dead jellyfish. For a moment I was annoyed that this brand-new wig might go to waste. Then I saw her looking in the mirror again twirling in her mermaid tail, her little dark mullet bouncing around free.
I placed the wig up to my face and saw the young me as Marilyn all those years ago. I remembered she didn’t spin as freely as I thought, and maybe only accepted one shot from a friend. I remember she told every boy that grabbed her that she was Asian-Marilyn, not the real deal. I reminded myself that I could be her again, if I wanted to, and that we don’t speak to people like that anymore.
But we do, sometimes. Especially in costume.
