Anti-Wall Streeters inspire Halloween costumes

Mitch Robin­son is seen on the floor hold­ing a sign that reads “Occupy Bard­wil” while at a Hal­loween party at the home of his friend Mark Bard­wil in Tacoma, Wash. Among the 99 per­cent or those rolling in money, Hal­loween is sure to have a con­tin­gent of Occupy Wall Street-inspired cos­tumes this year. (Cour­tesy | Michael Ritchie)

LEANNE ITALIE

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK — Dressed as pro­test­ers, com­plete with toy mega­phone, Mitch Robin­son and his wife unrolled a sleep­ing bag and “occu­pied” their friends’ Hal­loween party. Unlike the real-life Occupy Wall Street demon­stra­tors, they had a detailed, num­bered list of demands for their hosts.

Among them: Equal time on the karaoke machine, more meat on the grill and extra alco­hol in the drinks.

So went the party in Tacoma, Wash., last Sat­ur­day night — Robin­son in jeans, flan­nel shirt and a “Live Free or Die” cap and wife Mary Boone in beret, baggy sweater and a “Peace, Love Bieber” button.

“We were a big hit,” said Robin­son, 48, a mar­ket­ing exec­u­tive. “We tried to incite the other par­ty­go­ers. Plus I loved that basi­cally what I wore was per­fect for rak­ing leaves the next day.”

Among the self-proclaimed 99 per­cent, the anti-Wall Street protests that began in New York and spread across the coun­try are inspir­ing lots of cos­tume ideas this Halloween.

“We’re ready to go,” said Kris Ruby in Green­wich, Conn. She is dress­ing her 7-year-old golden retriever, Mor­gan Stan­ley, as a 1 per­center in busi­ness suit, red tie and tweed hat. “My dad works for Mor­gan Stanley.”

Ricky’s NYC, with an online shop and 56 stores through­out the city, stocked up on extra “V for Vendetta” masks, those plas­tic faces pop­ping up on pro­test­ers around the world. The com­pany iParty reports an uptick in requests for dollar-sign jew­elry, play money, sus­penders and glasses among young peo­ple look­ing to go as bankers and CEOs.

Actual pro­test­ers have been invited to take part in the huge Green­wich Vil­lage Hal­loween parade, not far from their home base in Zuc­cotti Park. Occupy Wall Streeters have set up a web­site with some cos­tume ideas for the parade, call­ing on sup­port­ers to dress as Wall Street zom­bies, cor­po­rate vam­pires, “lais­sez fairies,” unem­ployed super­heroes, or the top-hatted plu­to­crat from Monop­oly, Rich Uncle Pennybags.

“Occupy Hal­loween,” the site urges. “Because the top 1 per­cent shouldn’t get all the candy.”

Ellen Freuden­heim, a blog­ger and About.com spe­cial­ist on Brook­lyn, sug­gests cheap and easy cos­tumes ripped from the head­lines. Times are tough — duh — so tape a dol­lar bill to your mouth as actual pro­test­ers have done, paired with a hand-scrawled “End Cor­po­rate Greed” card­board sign, she said.

Or, she added, don a dark sweat­suit and plas­ter your­self with slo­gans, such as “Do You Feel It Trickle Down?”

Will the rev­el­ers be mock­ing the pro­test­ers? Or express­ing their sym­pa­thy for the movement?

“I think it could be all of the above,” Freuden­heim said. “I think peo­ple who would never, ever in their wildest dreams be caught in Zuc­cotti Park will dress up.”

Jen Doll, a blog­ger at the Vil­lage Voice, sug­gests dress­ing up as Deputy Inspec­tor Anthony Bologna, the white-shirt New York cop dis­ci­plined for allegedly pepper-spraying some penned-in protesters.

“Alter­na­tively, you could be a slightly less demo­nized mem­ber of the force, put on a blue shirt and go around say­ing, ‘My lit­tle nightstick’s gonna get a work­out tonight,’” she wrote. “Add a glee­ful laugh and you’re in.” The remark, by a real NYPD offi­cer as he put up bar­ri­cades, is mak­ing the rounds in a YouTube video.

If all of that sounds too in-the-box for Hal­loween, Doll sug­gested, dress up as pep­per spray.

With Hal­loween less than a week away, the V masks ranked No. 2 on Amazon’s list of best-selling nov­elty cloth­ing, behind a “Where’s Waldo” out­fit for adults. The mask was used by the shad­owy rev­o­lu­tion­ary V of comic book and movie fame, and is based on Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century Eng­lish­man who tried to blow up Parliament.

Josh Paz, a sopho­more and eco­nom­ics major at Wake For­est Uni­ver­sity in Winston-Salem, N.C., thinks he might “zombie-fy” his look when he pairs a Fawkes mask with a busi­ness suit on Halloween.

“I was plan­ning on pur­chas­ing a few stacks of fake hundred-dollar bills and pro­ceed to bribe peo­ple for candy and drinks,” he said.

Freuden­heim thinks Occupy Wall Street will be a big Hal­loween theme in Park Slope, her lib­eral, socially con­scious neigh­bor­hood in Brooklyn.

But “I don’t know what peo­ple will do in Green­wich, or wher­ever,” she said, refer­ring to the rich Con­necti­cut town that is home to invest­ment bankers and hedge fund man­agers. “I guess they’ll just ignore it, I sup­pose. Or be a clown or a witch or something.”

Of course, the real 1 per­centers could put on a busi­ness suit, carry a brief­case and “shout things about smelly hip­pies,” Doll said.

Posted by AP News on Oct 25 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.