An Introduction
Halloween, also often fondly called the spooky holiday or spook day, is without a doubt one of the most fun holidays of the year. This is the kind of holiday that children and adults alike enjoy this day as well as look forward to it. While some are all about the decoration and upping the spook factor, others are more into the parties and the costumes. But it cannot be denied that candies, at the end of the day, are the ultimate attraction to all and sundry. The house decorations and the costumes are only getting better and more creative each year. With all of this creativity, turning new trends into costumes for halloween, as well as the same old sexy cat girl costumes, and even couples costumes, there is one that remains an absolute classic and that is’ The Risky Business Costume’.
Origin Story
Just as the ever popular marvel heroes have an origin story, so does this Risky Business Halloween Costume. This costume is actually from the movie named ‘Risky Business’, starring Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay. Some movie buffs even claim that this is the movie that not only gave a big breakthrough but also led to the stardom of actor Tom Cruise(acted in Mission Impossible for the noobs who do not know him), but that is not what we’re here to talk about today. We are, in fact, going to be talking about a specific scene in the movie, the scene that has become a star of its own, being recreated in multiple movies and television series and a popular halloween costume choice even almost 4 decades later.
A little background, the movie is about a teenager and his adventures while his parents are off on a vacation leaving him alone at home. The scene begins as he sits alone in his dining room in the absence of his parents, a teenages almost close to ‘freedon’ feels a sense of being completely free. In order to understand why this scene has resonated with a lot of the movie watchers, one has to go back in their minds, to when they were in their late teens, plenty of feelings and emotions too big to express, want to finally be free from being under the parents wings, waiting eagerly to get out of high school and go into the real world, and imagine getting a chance at that, having the entire home to yourself as your parents are off on vacation. Now that the mood has been set, let us move on to the infamous scene itself.
The scene, so to speak, begins with the character Joel Goodson(played by multiple Academy Awards winning actor Tom Cruise) sitting at the dining table, pouring some booze into a glass with a little bit of coke. As the dinner scene, calm and quiet, comes to a close, a close up scene showing just his hands playing the ever popular classic rock song ‘ Old time rock and roll’.
Now begins the Iconic scene where he is seen sliding into the movie frame on a polished wooden floor wearing just a pink oxford shirt with boxer shorts and a pair of socks – in short the iconic Risky Business Costume.
The scene shows the freedom with which a teenager wants to express themselves, the self confidence is reflected in the scene. As he grabs a candle at first, using it as a mic going around the house singing, next picking up a fireplace poker( fire iron) and using it as a guitar, mimicking a rock star, from jumping on to the sofa and singing on the table it is meant to imply the freedom to express their hidden inner selves that a teen craves.
The Risky Business Costume in the actual movie consists of a pink oxford shirt, worn with white boxer shorts and a pair of socks.
On the other hand with the Risky Business Halloween Costume one tends to associate a white oversized shirt, worn with boxer shorts and socks as well as the popular Wayfarer which was the trend for sunglasses at the time, having now become a part of timeless fashion, by Ray-ban.
This is known as the Mandela Effect, where something either did not happen or even happened differently but a large group of people believe that it happened or that it happened in a certain way.
How to Achieve the Original look
The Risky Business Halloween Costume of course is one of the more easier halloween costume choices as it is very simple and one does not have to do any special shopping or spend large amounts of money in order to achieve this look, all that is needed is: a pink colored oxford shirt, white boxer shorts, and a pair of socks.
And thus the original look from the movie is achieved but of course, one can always opt to wear a white oversized shirt instead and add wayfarers and still be recognized as recreating the iconic movie scene.
