JOHN THE OBSCURE ™
By John Ruch
© 2006
Projekt: Ghostmaker:
Forbidden Experiments, Anti-Semitic Costumes and Other Halloween Curiosities
Halloween is my favorite holiday, by which I mean I hate all the reasons people normally like it.
For
instance, just north of me in
I also don’t believe in ghosts and magic and such—at least, not in the crude, literal way that mushbrains use the terms. I tried really hard when I was a kid. I grew up in a semi-creepy old house that had been the scene of a horrific double murder, with one victim bleeding out in an upstairs bedroom and another half-buried in a ditch outside. If there had been a ghost to be seen, I would’ve been on it, but aside from a couple wishful-thinking hypnagogic delusions, there was naught.
As it is, I’m not sure exactly what I like about Halloween. And maybe that’s the point. It touches on something indefinable, the unnamable, the things lost in darkness.
Still, there are some definite things we can talk about. Say, premeditated murder, racist horror and the aesthetics of skinned human corpses!
Projekt: Ghostmaker
Ghosts sure
are fickle. They used to be seen constantly, defending the walls of
For some reason, the more technology available to record ghosts, the less visible they’ve become. Their visibility inexplicably plunged with the advent of photography. It’s certainly not because ghosts are camera-shy. Some excellent ghost photos were taken in those early days, almost always showing a quite corporeal, human-like form, though perhaps wearing a robe and wielding a candelabra, etc.
Now that there are spy satellites with resolutions in the centimeter range and cameras built into everybody’s cell phones whether they like it or not, ghosts are suddenly nowhere to be seen. Well, OK, they can be seen, but now only as infra-red blobs on cable TV shows or blurry dust motes in digital photos.
This drastic shift in form, from fleshly figures in ancient times to obscure technological artifacts today, would lead a cynic to conclude that ghosts are cultural myths adjusting to the times rather than objective realities. After all, look at how drastically art and technology have changed since cave-painting times, and yet humans still look pretty much the same and are depicted with similar prevalence ratios. (And we’re even different species from most cave-painters.) That’s what happens to things that exist.
Oh, but that makes me mean and negative. : ( It hurts the feelings of people who are only feelings and no brains. It makes me close-minded, though I’m willing to talk about all this stuff whereas it’s the ghosties and their ilk who are so sure of themselves.
But that’s exactly the conversation I don’t wish to have. You can debate belief in ghosts forever, and the ghosties love it.
It is much more fun to accept their beliefs, then ask them to accept their own logic.
Obviously, these people say they can detect ghosts. Fine, accepted. But the little-noticed corollary to that is that it means they also can detect the non-presence of ghosts. And that means a controlled experiment is possible.
For example, one of these Ghostfinder Generals should easily be able to declare a given area ghost-free. It would therefore be interesting to get several ghosthunters together and see if their findings agree on ghost-free-ness of a place.
But that is not extreme enough for me. Besides their ghost-detection power, ghost-hunters typically also have certitude about how ghosts are created, a process virtually always involving hideous/tragic death, or some circumstance that summons them from the netherworld. These two capacities can easily be put to the test.
I hereby propose what I call Projekt: Ghostmaker. First, ghosthunters will declare two large plots of land and/or sizeable buildings ghost-free. Then 1,000 people will be placed within one property’s bounds and killed in a hideous/tragic manner deemed most likely to create ghosts. (Being murdered for a ghost-making experiment seems inherently pretty good to me.) The properties will be extensively monitored with recording devices. If necessary, the properties will be modified architecturally, etc., to best summon forth ghosts.
Obviously, in the murder property, we should rapidly have not just ghosts, but exactly 1,000 of them. Seeing them will be no problem at all. That many ghosts would be obvious to even the most thick-skulled skeptic. Meanwhile, the control property should have no ghosts at all, or at best one or two passing through from someplace. Then we’re stuck with this annoying, high-density ghost site, so maybe we sell tickets or something.
Yes, yes, Projekt: Ghostmaker would be a horrendous crime and is thus a classic forbidden experiment. (Though it could be ameliorated by killing only ghosthunters; as believers in a return from the dead, they should have no problem with it.) But the logic of ghostmaking still holds true. And even if controls have been lacking, horrendous crimes have not.
Plainly, a
place like Auschwitz-Birkenau was a real-life Projekt: Ghostmaker. If ghosts
are real, that area certainly wasn’t famed for swarming with them before the
1940s, but should be now. People were murdered there by the hundreds of
thousands in the most vile and hideous circumstances imaginable. Others died of
disease amid appalling despair. The architecture was nothing but frightening.
At least one ghost should be visible at
For that matter, where are the ghost-hunters? They seem to spend all their time crawling around old asylums and hotels where nobody was mass-murdered. Why not go to a death camp? Because it’s offensive? It’s not offensive if ghosts are real. Indeed, summoning forth such a ghost would be perhaps the ultimate monument to Nazi evil. The omission makes it clear that in their heart of hearts, ghost-hunters know they’re juvenile fools getting their jollies by scaring themselves.
Factor in the believers in animal spirits, and we should be swarmed by ghostly lab rats alone.
The ghosties will whine because I’m stealing some precious spooky thrill from them. But I think they’re stealing the true horror—that death is always tragic, and that no one’s coming back.
“I’m Not an
Anti-Semite, I Just Dress Up as One on Halloween”
I was innocently trolling the ’Net for Halloween costumery when I came across an item that really did give me a shock.
It’s a
greatly oversized, severely hooked nose marketed under the name “Sheik/Fagin
Nose.” That’s “sheik” as in Arab chieftain, and “Fagin” as in the infamously
anti-Semitic character in Dickens’ idiotically overvalued book “Oliver Twist.”
The product is marketed by several different companies, and apparently created
by
Huge hooked noses are used to caricature both Arabs and Jews as “ugly.” Specifically, the image has been historically used in anti-Semitic propaganda from the Nazis on down.
Thus, the product blew my mind, especially for the Fagin reference, as well as for the remarkable trick of stereotyping Arabs and Jews simultaneously. (I’m strongly reminded of the “Star Wars” character Watto, whose huge, hooked nose drew complaints of anti-Semitic caricature from many critics and complaints of anti-Arab caricature from me; we were likely both correct.)
I don’t
consider myself overly sensitive to the broad strokes of fantasy costumes and
the like. For that matter, I myself was once labeled anti-Semitic by the
Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL)
I contacted several companies that sell the nose to see how they explain or understand the nose. Most did not respond, including Cinema Secrets.
The two that did respond—Wisconsin’s Buyseasons, Inc. and Mississippi’s ABoyd Company—both suggested that I had been searching their product lines for things to get offended about, which apparently is a common problem in the Halloween costume business. With Jesus costumes, devil costumes, giant fake breasts, gore galore and a countryside full of lunatic Christian fundamentalists, I guess I can understand the cynicism.
Nonetheless, fake exit wounds or vampire fangs were not Nazi cartoon classics. Giant hooked noses were.
Buyseasons’ Jalem Getz was quick and dismissive. “…I take no offence [sic] to the item and I am Lebanese,” he told me via e-mail, adding that he is “good friends” with the operators of Cinema Secrets, who he identified as Jewish.
“Though, I’m sure you could find someone who finds the item insulting, but I suspect you can find many more who find Halloween offensive, and that’s just un-American!” he said. (He also said the product is no longer sold by the company, though I found it marked as “Sold Out for the Season.”)
To translate this into social logic: “As long as Arabs and Jews sell it, it can’t be racist. Stereotypes have nothing to do with history or objective power structures. Besides, somebody’s always offended by something, and what’s really important to me is making money! And incidentally, here’s an implication you’re un-American, just for laughs.”
Or to distill it to its true merits: “I personally don’t care, so it doesn’t matter.”
Well, money talks, and now we know what it has to say.
However, I got a much more thoughtful response from ABoyd’s Boyd Campbell.
“Actually,
I think a lot about that,”
“I spend a
lot of time considering whether or not a particular product crosses the line or
not and there’s a lot of stuff I’ve rejected for just that reason,”
Among the
products he’s rejected are several by
“There’s
also a lot of debate in the industry as to what to call curly clown wigs,”
I took a look at the latest catalogue put out by Franco American, incidentally a company run by a trio of extremely well-coiffed white women, according to a Web site bio page that looks more like the staff of a high-end real estate brokerage.
To my
surprise, I only found one product that is probably just wholly, patently
offensive—the “
There are other products that dance close to or over the line, such as large false moustaches sold as “Mexican” and “Chico”; a Chinese-style pointed straw hat sold under the name “Coolie” and modeled by a white guy folding his hands Asian-bow-style; a “Chinese Hat” with a built-in braid; a “Lil’ Cocoa” wig that appears intended to duplicate curly/kinky African-American hair; a “Lil’ Pow Wow” Native American costume; and an entire Native American costume line sold under the name “Native Charm.” (I note only things that reflect racial disparity, not things that could be considered generically offensive or offend dominant cultures or religions.)
Even more debatable items might be “Apache” and “Squaw” wigs.
Franco American also indeed markets its clown wigs as “afros,” including a glow-in-the-dark model.
Some of the above smells a bit funny to me. Some of it doesn’t really bother me, such as the “afro” wig term.
Only the
Back to
“I decided to carry the ‘Fagin’ nose by Woochie [the particular Cinema Secrets product line] specifically for customers doing the stage version of ‘Oliver’ or some of Shakespeare’s plays. We also carry the ‘Cyrano’ nose by the same company, for customers doing ‘Cyrano [de Bergerac]’ or one of the plays with Cyrano in it.
“You have to remember that the product isn’t made to stand by itself but be a part of an actor’s larger presentation along with his costume, wig, voice, etc. The product wasn’t meant to stand by itself as a representation of Jews or Arabs. Done well, you’re not even supposed to be able to tell if someone is wearing prosthetic make-up at all.
“I also decided to carry it because I didn’t think it [was] made to appear hateful or mean and not so exaggerated to be ridiculous. It can be used to create a fairly natural look.
“We’ve also had customers who bought this prosthetic nose to play non-Semitic characters as well as one who wanted to use it for a more realistic Cyrano.
“So, why
would Dickins [sic] make Fagin a Jew? Was it because
he hated Jews or because he recognized that at his time Jews were hardly
allowed to make an honest living in
“Ultimately, it’s up to the performer using these products to decide whether their portrayal is sympathetic or hateful. I carry the product so our customers can make that decision for themselves.”
The most
striking thing to me is how much
The
literary references are clever. What’s interesting to me is that Dickens was
shocked when told he held anti-Semitic notions. The idea that stereotypes can
simply be reflected by the creations of a dominant culture, instead of
necessarily being deliberately malignant, never occurred to him, and apparently
not to
Likewise,
it’s interesting that
It seems like what should be the most important point is that, whatever Dickens’ intention, the book was reviled as anti-Semitic in its own day and still is in ours. “Fagin,” like “Shylock,” is widely used as an anti-Semitic caricature and slur. You can debate controversial books forever. But the anti-Semitic history of the term “Fagin” and the image of big hooked noses is indisputable and very well-known. Pairing the two in such a product is mind-boggling. (Ditto for the Sheik/Arab element, and for the argument that this is just like any generic big fake nose.)
Would ABoyd sell giant black lips under the name “Uncle Tom”? To me, the only difference here is the chosen ethnic group and that some stereotypes remain more acceptable than others.
In talking
about the caricature-based nature of the business,
The
implication here is that white males are stereotyped, too, so all is good:
equal-opportunity discrimination. Is it, of course, true that all stereotyping
is ultimately the same thought process. But if you stop there and ignore history
and current societal context, you misunderstand the entire nature and power of
stereotypes and slurs. Being pegged as nerdy may be quite painful, even deadly
in certain schools. But it’s nothing like being subjected to anti-Semitism, or
anti-Arab sentiment in modern
“People can
find offense in this if they’re looking to be offended. It is not our
intention,”
Is That a Human Skin
Purse or a Gigantic Tumor?
Is it possible to end with something that ties together dead people, costumes, sick allusions to Nazi atrocities and Halloween thrills? Only if we talk about backpacks, skirts and whatnot crafted out of artificial human skin. I can’t do it justice, and wouldn’t care to anyhow, so see the whole wacky marketing stunt for yourself at SkinBag.net.
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