Considering Costumes

While television and movies often portray actors in what we might think of as “natural” costumes, sometimes, actors within these series transcend their costumes and disrupt viewers’ understanding of their agency. Alternatively, some costumes are inherently not “natural” for us to wrap our minds around. In these cases, we have to not just suspend our disbelief when it comes to understanding how costumes impact performance, we have to believe that costumes influence the beliefs and ideologies of their performer. 

The Oxford English Dictionary Online defines costume in a number of ways. I find this definition to be the most applicable to an investigation of what we mean by “costume,”: “A set of clothes worn by an actor or performer for a particular role; the clothing, hairstyle, make-up, and other accessories used to portray a particular character.”* While this defines costume in a significantly narrow sense, we have to recognize that the choices of clothing, hair, make-up, and even prosthetic components and CGI, influence the performer by proscribing them a certain aesthetic. We may act differently when we are dressed in fancy clothes compared to when we are dressed in our pajamas. Costumes, whether by choice or implemented for a specific performance, are the starting point to how we identify with other people.

Prison Mike

Fans of The Office may remember when office manager, Michael Scott, set out to prove that working at Dunder Mifflin was not as bad as being in prison. In this scene, we see Michael’s interpretation of prison revealed not only through costume, but through what he thinks life in prison is like based off of movies he has watched. This costume ends up saying more about Michael than it does prison.

Bombalurina

Iconic popstar Taylor Swift took costume to a whole new level in Cats (2019). Not only does Cats raise questions about the intersection of costume and CGI, it asks viewers to decide if we believe performers’ abilities to anthropomorphize themselves. Cats serves as an example of costume that relies on more than just the aesthetic qualities in determining believability. Viewers have to believe in the performativity of cats as beings before even beginning to accept the translation of human to cat. 

Mr. Robinson

Recently returning to host Saturday Night Live, Eddie Murphy revisited many of his former characters including Mr. Robinson.  The Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood segment alludes to how costumes toy with stereotypes and misconceptions. When used in specific ways, costumes can add to the satire of a piece by alluding to a sense of absurdity. In this case, we see this through Eddie Murphy’s wig (suggesting he’s aged since the last time we saw Mr. Robinson) as well as his language. These subtleties add to his performance by allowing the audience to connect with the work through his costume. 

Starlight

Superheroes take costumes to another level when it comes to understanding human identity. Superheroes usually use costumes to conceal a part of themselves they don’t want others to see.  The recent Amazon Prime Series The Boys takes on our traditional conceptions of superheroes by making them publicly famous. In the series, Annie January transforms into Starlight. Her backbone of sincerity is called into question when her team decides her superhero costume needs an upgrade. The scene asks us to consider whether we have the ability to choose costumes, or if they are inevitably proscribed to us. At the end of the day, costumes become a reflection of how others see us, and that interpretation may mean more to some performers/performances than it does to others.

Bernie Sanders

It is well known among Saturday Night Live fans  that Larry David is better at being Bernie Sanders than Bernie Sanders. David’s Sanders costume often involves a sense of mimetic charisma that accentuates the charm and passion of Sanders. David’s performances allow viewers to recognize costumes as identifiably political in a comedic atmosphere. All costumes add to the politics of a performance, but with David’s embodiment of Sanders, we can see how “costume” fluidly applies to any individual’s clothing choice, body movements, and language.