Rhett Wickham: Boo Who? - Oct 30, 2007

Rhett Wickham: Boo Who?
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by Rhett Wickham (archives)
October 30, 2007
Exactly how frightening is frightening enough? When does it cross the line from entertaining into fetish? And is there any power to scare remaining in the images and actions of the classic Disney villains? Rhett talks to Dr. Andrew Mathis, a clinical psychologist specializing in child development about these issues ... and shows off his Halloween costume.

BOO WHO?
HAVE THE DARKEST of Disney�s
Ne�er-Do-Wells Lost Their Power TO SCARE?

Editorial by Rhett Wickham

Exactly how frightening is frightening enough? When it comes to movie monsters and cinematic villainy, when is scary too scary, crossing the line from entertaining into fetish, where a dramatic depiction is so real that it isn�t even ironic and loses its validity? And is there any power to scare remaining in the images and actions of the classic Disney villains?

A couple of Hallo�ween�s back we received an invitation to an All Hallow�s Eve gathering to which the hostess instructed attendees to come dressed as their favorite film villain. I went all out, planning for weeks, shopping, even sewing, dying and modeling various prosthetic facial appliances to be poured in latex. You can judge the success of my efforts for yourself from these snapshots taken at the end of a long night of tugging an uncomfortable wig out of my mouth and sweating through layers of grease paint.


Click here for a much larger version of this picture

Not too shabby, eh? For the record, the adhesive that comes with Lee Press-On Nails is ten times better than any super glue, and two hours in a hot shower is not sufficient for coaxing spirit gum out of your pores. But the single biggest surprise of the evening was how many people were genuinely terrified at the sight of the old gal who took out Snow White with a little poison in the pectin. Seriously. At the party we were surrounded by the tasteless and the terrifying and every possible combination in-between. In Hollywood there is little to no excuse for attending a costume party in anything other than the actual costume and makeup used in the feature film. A Freddy or two, various Aliens busting forth from chests, and sundry zombies with bits and pieces of flesh hanging off in gooey and bloody clumps were boulevard fare this particular night. But for sheer creeps and authentic chills, my Joe Grant invented and Les Clark animated Hag, with her bright green lids and heavy brows outlined in black eye-liner, made more people step aside and go silent than any of the contemporary ne�er-do-wells. In fact, one soulless nymph from �The Ring� broke character and hid behind her beau, refusing to come within five feet of me � something that came in handy when I discovered the little brat hovering around my favorite artichoke dip. Thrilled with the efficacy of my guise, we made an early exit from the party so that I could delight in wandering the streets in search of similar responses. One poor woman who was cued up outside a local nightclub screamed, broke into tears and begged me to get away. (The closest I�ve come to experiencing what David Stainton must have felt when he announced the closing of Feature Animation Florida). It was amazing! And entirely unexpected. I would never have thought that the old girl still had the power to haunt after nearly seventy years, but by Jupiter, she sure as heck made people stop and stare with something more than �nice costume dude!� in their eyes. People were petrified and fascinated in much the same way they are at sideshows � willing to look, even to gawk, but not so willing to come close. It was all just a little too real � this animated witch come to life on the streets of Hollywood.

Ever since then I�ve wondered how and why it was that so many people were caught off guard by my cartoon creep come to life. How and why do the Disney villains capture our imagination, even now?

I took some of my questions to Dr. Andrew Mathis, a clinical psychologist specializing in child development. Dr. Mathis received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where his mentors were the late Bruno Bettelheim - the sometimes controversial Austrian-born psychologist whose book �The Uses of Enchantment� focuses attention on the benefits of fairy tales in helping young children gain a healthy mastery of the world around them - and the noted American psychologist Carl Ransom Rogers - whose person-centered approach had wide reaching influence in psychotherapy, education and group dynamics (a pair of educational influences that Dr. Mathis reflects on as �quite a contrast.�) Dr. Mathis spoke to me from his ranch on Florida�s Gulf Coast, where he has now retired from practice.

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