Welcome to Woke-we’en: be very afraid!
Scared your trick or treat’s about to break every ‘with it’ rule in the book? Don’t fret. Guy Kelly has the key to fright-on festivities
Hallowe’en used to be so simple. Throw a sheet over yourself, cut out eye holes and call yourself a ghost. Pick up some red food colouring, apply it liberally, and tell everyone you’ve quarrelled with a chainsaw. Roll some black card into a cone, pop it on your head and, hey – double double, toil and trouble, etc – you’re a witch.
Then, 20 or so years ago, we began to take influence from the Americans, with their ability to take any holiday and commodify every last element of it. Suddenly parties required more decorations than Versailles at Christmas. Trick or treat became a logistical exercise to rival D-day. And we had to dress not in cheap, homemade “spooky” costumes but as celebrities or figures from the news. Being American and predictable, they’d dress as Disney princesses and still-alive pop stars. Being British and predictable, we’d dress as the prime minister or Harold Shipman.
Now it’s been complicated again. As the febrile, uberwoke political environment of recent years has intensified, “doing” Hallowe’en has become a minefield. The decorations are an environmental nightmare. The events are increasingly right-on (a pub in Kennington, south London, is advertising a “Brexorcist” party for next week, complete with “Do or
Die!” and “Dead in a Ditch!” daubed on its windows) and, at a time when nobody is more than one poorlyjudged Aladdin outfit away from eternal cancellation, choosing a costume is just about impossible.
Consider it. Is dressing as a ghost not insensitive to the still grieving fans of Patrick Swayze? Can anybody get away with being a “witch” when Rebekah Vardy was compared to one in the tabloids just last week? And that’s all before we get started on chainsaw victims, or even the term “Hallowe’en” itself, which celebrates some rather problematic saints (your Dismases, your Augustines, your Pelagias – expect #Notallhallows to be trending next week) if you look into it.
It’s exhausting to even think about, but help is on hand in the form of this fail-safe guide to navigating Hallowe’en in 2019. Like the living dead, the key is to stay woke. I mean awake.
Topical costumes
Politics, you’ll have noticed, is so hot right
now, but it’s also more divisive than ever. So if you’re going down that route for parties or trick or treat, be careful. Boris Johnsons will be ten-a-penny this year (drag your suit through a hedgerow before putting it on, place the head of a mop on to your own – job done) but, really, there are more original options available.
How about Baroness Hale? Giant spider brooch over a black dress, silver bob and the ability to send anybody you meet back to work. Or John Bercow? Gown, loud tie, ruffled hair and the constant bellowing of “ORRRDAAAAIIIRRRR.”
Others? Coleen Rooney isn’t a bad idea – Scouse facelift, pram, spray tan, deerstalker hat, monocle, tiny Belgian moustache. Or perhaps Simon Cowell, after his 2019 makeover. For that to be terrifying, literally just go as Simon Cowell.
Absolute no-gos
As a university fresher drunk on the folly of youth I once thought it would be extraordinarily funny to dress as one of the then-trapped Chilean miners. A few years earlier, in sixth form, I went to a party as a “generic paedophile”. Those decisions have likely already precluded me from ever running for high office (shame), but these days they’d see me crucified for several days on social media, before having to issue a poorly-written public apology via the Notes app on my phone, then forced to go to ground as Piers Morgan and Janet Street-porter take it upon themselves to defend me on daytime television, while Owen Jones and Jameela Jamil do the reverse on Twitter. So bear that future in mind, as you cobble together a quick Emiliano Sala costume. Or go outfit-within-anoutfit as Justin Trudeau as he dressed at The Arabian Nights-themed party in 2001. (Don’t, it’s still not OK.) In a different vein, avoid Extinction Rebellion too, lest you want your trick or treat to descend into an almighty row – especially if you’ve glued yourself to their Mondeo.
The decorations
If you’d like to feel depressed this Hallowe’en, just look up statistics for the amount of pumpkins that end up in landfill every October – it’s around eight million which, piled together, is quite a lot heavier than the Shard. So you’d better cook every scrap of that spherical orange gourd (see overleaf for one recipe), or freeze it for next year, or take advantage of the increasing number of council-run “pumpkin rescue” services, which pick them up for composting. Be mindful of the rest of the decorations, too. They’re traditionally plastic or filled with the kind of toxic ingredients that could see you expelled from the parents’ Whatsapp group until well beyond nativity season if you exposed other children to them. “Make your own scary bunting” guides are all over the internet, and mercifully the Ethical Superstore has you covered for edibles. They’re offering “Thickest Human Snot” lemon preserve made with free-range eggs, “organic and Fairtrade Chocolate Eyeballs”, and even “Cubed Earwax” (cream fudge), “made in the traditional way in copper pans above a gas flame, with absolutely no human bodily fluids used.” All are palm oil free, vegetarian and support childrens’ charities.
So, have fun. But not too much fun – remember, competition involves winners and losers, which is not OK; trick or treat involves stranger danger, which is not OK; and pumpkin carving involves sharp objects, which is not OK. Actually, I retract my earlier comment. Don’t have fun.
The parties
Now we’ve ensured our own parties will be free from plastic, sustainablysourced, gender neutral, offence-free and devoid of competitive games, what woke events are being put on for the ticket-buying public? London is rife with them. Perhaps you fancy Kennington’s Brexorcist party, but don’t have anyone to go with? Never fear: a few miles away, a Brexit-themed Hallowe’en speeddating event, at which organisers try to match across the referendum aisle, is taking place earlier in the week. “The question is, are you ready to leave the single market forever and meet someone worth remaining for?” adverts ask, confusingly.
Elsewhere in the capital, “Little Gay Brothers Hallowe’en” promises to “tackle the four horsemen of the oncoming apocalypse” – which they name as “Brexit, Trump, Straight Pride, single-use plastic”. But you may wish to give party politics a swerve entirely, in which case you could head over to Feminist Wicked Witch Storytelling. There, audiences are urged to “Forget hubble bubble toil and trouble, warts and broomsticks,” because “these wicked witches are sassy, clever, and not to be messed with”. Traditional witches being famously meek, stupid and to be messed with, of course.
Or maybe you’ve read all that and want the night in. Either way, Happy Hallowe’en. And good luck – it’s a scary world out there.