I was eyeballing my bookshelf for a quick-n-dirty costume, because I putzed on doing anything interesting for Halloween, and might find myself in need of one. I came to a disturbing realization about the relative distinctiveness of male and female major characters in media I’m fond of. <\/p>\n
Some examples:<\/p>\n
Millennium Trilogy:
\nLisbeth Salander: Black clothes, black wig\/temp dye, and some costume punk jewelry. Best with a couple sheets of inkjet temporary tatoo stock for wasp and dragon. Recognizable to anyone who knows the character.
\nMikael Blomkvist: No matter how hard you try, just a dude in a suit.<\/p>\n
Lolita:
\nDolores Haze: White top, white skirt, $2 heart-shaped sunglasses. Done. Plaid skirt and white button down with said glasses would work too. (Fun fact: those glasses are from the Kubrick movie, not the book.)
\nHumbert Humbert: Dude in a suit. (Unless you do something creative and likely to end in a public indecency charge)<\/p>\n
Various William Gibson Pieces: Ready Player One: Note that this isn’t total lack of ideas: there are some excellent costumes I can think of, especially from old video games, but not many fall into the “Less than $20 in readily available parts” range that my level of give a fuck supports. It doesn’t help that Female-As-Male-Character costumes are, as a rule, cute, and Male-As-Female-Character costumes are, as a rule, creepy. When we were kids we made jokes about Halloween parties always degenerating to girls in costumes and guys in indistinct black outfits. It’s true because it’s our culture. <\/p>\n Pretty sure if I end up needing a costume, my laser printer, a piece of elastic, and some poster stock will be making a rage comics face<\/a> happen at the last moment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was eyeballing my bookshelf for a quick-n-dirty costume, because I putzed on doing anything interesting for Halloween, and might find myself in need of one. I came to a disturbing realization about the relative distinctiveness of male and female … Continue reading
\nCayce Pollard (Pattern Recognition): Black tube skirt, black bomber jacket, clunky boots. Recognizable to anyone who knows the character – Hell, major plots<\/em> are based on her taste. (sidenote: you can now get a black MA-1 lookalike for less than $50, instead of $600 for the Buzz Rickson\u2019s<\/a> in the book. Rothco even makes them in long to get around the “bomber jackets look like halter tops on my frame” issue.)
\nMolly Millions (Neuromancer) – Silvered dollar-store sunglass lenses adhered to your eye-sockets, unpainted aluminum-can nail extensions. Done.
\nHenry Dorsett Case (Neuromancer): Not even a memorable physical description.
\nHubertus Bigend (most recent three novels): Granted, he’s recognizable, but an International Klein Blue suit isn’t exactly easy to come by, even as fabric stock. <\/p>\n
\n[Redacted for thpoilerth<\/a>]<\/p>\n