When I was a kid, I insisted on only dressing up as one of the two characters- Dorothy or the Wicked Witch. I traded off these characters each year. Now, I do not know why I only had these two ideas in mind.
Maybe I loved Wizard of Oz, which was completely true, but maybe I was equally amazed by the appreciation I had for the good and the bad in this world.
These costumes are still very much a part of my time of Halloween. I am constantly thinking of the good of pumpkins and leaves changing, but I am also reminded of the ghosts and haunted memories that travel with people, not just on Halloween, but throughout their entire lives.
I think about this when I decide how to spend my Halloween. I mostly spend this holiday snuggling with my ESA (Emotional Support Animal), Troy, a black cat, who is inherently spooky, and watching scary movies.
I often find myself watching Scream on Halloween. These movies (there are four in total, but we do not claim the third one because it was utter trash) follow Sidney Prescott, a high schooler to a middle-aged woman when she is taunted by different people, all wearing the mask of Ghostface– a white ghost mask deemed to terrorize the teens of Woodsboro in the fictional movies– and asking her what her favorite scary movie is.
Even though viewers see these various stalkers and killers as the main bad guy of the films, we are also greeted with the ways where Sidney is her own enemy. Viewers watch her over multiple years as she slowly becomes her own enemy.
Sidney faced multiple killers across the four films of the franchise. Why wouldn’t she become flawed? Still, making her a flawed protagonist, one with literal scars and emotional ones impact her decisions in each film, adding to the depth of her character.
I think the sheer truth of Sidney’s character makes her all too real to the viewers.
Even if we all like to think that we are always Dorothy, there will always be remnants of the Wicked Witch. This is what makes us human.