Let's Talk Dress Up

In light of our most recent holiday, Halloween :), I began thinking about the concept of dressing up in costume. Why do we look so forward to a day where we get to pretend to be something we are not? This led me to Lebowskifest. Not only do these people congregate to share their love for The Big Lebowski film, but they dress up as one of the characters. I find it interesting that people look forward to dressing as a character that, for the most part, is not someone people would typically aspire to be. Walter, for example, is a common costume choice. But, why? Walter is an angry, lonely war veteran that does not do well with social interaction. He is way too opinionated and often gets in heated dilemmas with people around him. He always seems to act without thinking and it leads him and his friends to a lot of problems. And then there's the Dude. He is an unemployed, sloppy hippie in a robe who drinks a whole bunch of White Russians. But I guess that's the whole point. It is fun to dress up as something that you wouldn't be able to be in real life but you wish you could. To us in this busy, go-getter society, it must be nice to think about sitting in a robe all day drinking and thinking about bowling. And so maybe, these people love dressing in costume so much because they feel closer to these characters. They have one day where it IS okay to behave in the way of their character and no one will be disapproving. Or, they see qualities in the characters that they notice in themselves as well and like to express those on this one day of fun. I guess dressing up is a way to escape into the realm of fantasy and also escape the stresses of adulthood and revert back to a more child-like mentality of pretending.