Campus Reflections: Playing Dress-Up at 21

Editor's Note: What will TCU Magazine intern Molly Mahan be for Halloween? Staying true to her comic book and philosophy roots, she tells us why playing dress-up is meaningful:

As with every year, I get excited about Halloween the moment autumn officially begins on September 22. Usually, I already have at least one costume in mind, with a backup already in my closet. I begin planning on what I will be doing for Halloween on the first of November of the previous year. Last year, I went to three different Halloween parties dressed as my favorite feline fatale, Catwoman (a la Julie Newmar from the 60’s "Batman" television show). This year, I settled upon the ideal costume in September: Stevie Nicks, the rock n’ roll queen of the 70’s who wrote and performed music with the band Fleetwood Mac.

Over the course of September, when I wasn’t drowning in reading and writing papers, I surfed the Internet, scouted out dancewear shops around town and preened through fabric shops until I had, in my mind and on paper, crafted the perfect costume. However, as the days rolled by and it looked as if none of my friends were holding any parties and the only word on campus was homecoming, I began to doubt whether or not I wanted to spend money on a costume I may or may not be able to wear. Last week was the cutoff date for costume purchasing, and I didn’t hear a peep from anyone, so I scrapped all my work and began to sulk about a Halloweenless year.

Then, Monday rolls around and TCU announces all sorts of activities, the philosophy club proclaims their meeting will be held in costume this week and a friend of mine in the Classics minor sent me an invite to her house for a party the night before Halloween.

Figures.

Luckily for me, I have a backup plan and because I am oh-so-clever, it looks like the backup costume will suffice. I will be Supergirl, as per my comic book nerdiness. Although nothing particularly original itself (at least not in the way the Stevie Nicks costume would have been), I will be able to play with the name of the character a bit. Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th century philosophy, spoke about a kind of person that is beyond good and evil and called him the Ubermensch, which is often translated as Superman. So when I go to the philosphy club meeting, I will be able to make plays on Nietzschean thinking using comic book lore. For example, Nietzsche is most remembered for proclaiming “God is dead,” likewise, I will proclaim “Zod is dead.” Zod being a Superman villain that is, in fact, dead.

I wish I knew why I liked dressing up so much. Sometimes I wonder if dressing up is something that only children should do, so college is my last chance to get it out of my system (although I know the English department recently had a faculty costume party, so maybe I’m just trying to mature too fast). This may be why I was so worried and disappointed at the thought mid-October that none of my friends would be up to anything in town. Either way, if it’s just for kids or if grownups can play too, I am very pleased that my last Halloween as an undergrad will be costume filled, and while I won’t be able to put on the costume I put most effort into, I will still be in a costume that I am proud to wear and is somewhat fitting of my persona and interests.