The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Thursday, October 31, 2019 — 3B

We all have that pair of friends who, almost-
siblings in forbidden love or not, decide to
dress up as Margot and Richie Tenenbaum
of Wes Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums”
for Halloween. She wears a pinstripe Lacoste
tennis
dress.
He
wears
a
shaggy-wig-
headband combo that falls over shoulders in
a Fila tee. Their costumes are a hit, though
nobody at the party knows who they’re
supposed to be. After they spill the beans,
the party-goer nods and smiles like they’ve
“maybe seen the end of that one on HBO,”
and the one guy they’re mutual friends with
who never stops talking about Wes Anderson
grins at all the poor uninitiated souls. When
the
Richie-and-
Margot-for-a-night
pair
get
home,
they post a picture
of their ‘fits on
Etsy and get added
to
a
government
database
somewhere of all
the people to call if
our alien invaders’
one
weakness
is
the inability to see
humans dressed as
quirky
characters
from
early-aughts
indie movies.
These
two
outfits, along with
Chas Tenenbaum’s
iconic red Adidas
jumpsuit,
make
“The
Royal
Tenenbaums”
one of the most
thematically
costumed
films
in Anderson’s catalogue. Not only do the
three
individual
outfits
feed
into
the
characterizations of the siblings who wear
them, the presence of the outfits, and how
they exist as tokens of the characters’
traumas, plays into the film’s atmosphere of a
childhood disaster that will never end.
Going one by one, the outfits Richie,
Margot and Chas wear are all tied to the grief
each of them are trying to beat. Richie wears
the remnants of his tennis ‘fit, but he hides it
under a camel-hair coat and trousers. He even
hides his face, covering it with a beard and
long hair, searching for a way to free himself
of the embarrassment of his past — both
athletically with tennis and romantically
with the adopted Margot. Chas’s red jumpsuit
(and the identical jumpsuits he makes his two
boys Ari and Uzi wear) signal a father on high
alert. Terrified of the dangers he and his kids
face at every moment after their plane crashes,
killing his wife, Chas forces the whole family
to pack light, to wear clothes that make them
ready to run or fight at a moment’s notice.
Though Margot is never seen participating
in any athletic activities, she too wears a
sporty ‘fit, usually a Lacoste dress covered by
a lush fur outercoat. Her outfit’s incongruous
link to the passion she’s never hinted at can
be explained by her lost, repressed, forbidden

love for her stepbrother, resident tennis star,
Richie. And whew, man, Wes could have done
better on this last one. Not great, giving your
one female lead an outfit that characterizes
her as being all-encompassingly hung up on
a guy while Richie and Chas’s costumes are
so individually and vocationally driven. Too
bad.
In a film about “getting over it,” everything
links back to trauma. The house on Archer
Ave. is as much a character as any of the
Tenenbaums in the film, and the way it’s
decorated (the house’s “costume”) plays a
big part in illustrating how the incidences
of the Tenenbaum’s childhood has forever
come back to haunt them. The walls in the
Tenenbaum house are covered with moments
of success from the children’s childhood.
Karate medals and trophies hang next to
colorful watercolor
paintings of family
and
friends.
In
Richie’s
room,
joyous
little
pictographs
of
his father and his
family fill the space
between a pulsing
green
and
blue.
Everything in the
house is a reminder
of what should have
been, of how things
should have turned
out, of the successes
of old that never
translated
into
the future. These
moments
exist
frozen in time in
the
Tenenbaum
house, and as the
movie
progresses,
we see it takes all
three
characters
returning
(“That
night, Etheline found all of her children
living together under the same roof for the
first time in seventeen years”) to the scene
of the crime before they’re able to exorcise
those demons, to be able to finally beat what’s
been holding them back for their entire adult
lives.
What I love most about a meticulous
director like Wes Anderson is that, with
everything in his movies so hyper-specific
— every lamp, rug, Sharpie mark on a polka-
dotted rat seemingly chosen by him — there
are these opportunities for totally tangential
meaning-making (the whole reading into the
costumes of the characters and the house
above) that might not have anything to do
with what Anderson was thinking when he
made the choice. I find this misalignment to
be incredibly exciting. To make an artistic
decision off of pure instinct and to have
it still wrap around into some theme or
characterization you’re not aware you’ve
been building along the way has to stand
as a great testament to the artist’s gut. In
the director’s commentary for “The Royal
Tenenbaums,” while talking about why
each of the characters dresses how they do,
Anderson pauses when he gets to Chas. “The
red jumpsuit, I’m not sure,” he says, “I guess I
just thought it was funny.”

Enough with Richie: Let’s
all dress as Chas this year

STEPHEN SATARINO
Daily Film Editor

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In theory, performance should be based on
ability and ability alone. In practice, however,
there are many other factors at play. For example,
appearance often has just as large an impact on
performance as ability does. As the great Deion
Sanders once said, “Look good, feel good. Feel
good, play good. Play good, (they) pay good. Pay
good, live good. Live good, eat good. Die good.”
He’s right: If you look the part, you’re most
likely going to perform better, which will lead
to improvements in all areas of life. That is, in
everything but metal.
In metal, you have to look the part to play the
part, but that does not mean you end up rich in
the end. In fact, it often means that you have
to work a real job in addition to performing in
a metal band. But do these acts really care? Of
course they don’t. They’re in the business of
metal music to make art, not make millions, and
the best way for them to make their art is to get
into costume.
Costumes, whether the artists want to admit it
or not, are a crucial aspect of metal. Hair metal
relied on it (you really think these guys dressed
like this when they weren’t touring?). Black metal
relied on it (it really sells the image that these
guys might actually be the dead reincarnate).
Nu-metal relies on it (if the music is going to
suck, they have to make it interesting somehow).
Whatever this kind of metal is relies on it (words
cannot describe the favors these costumes do
for the music). Despite this, few bands lean as
heavily into their costumes as Ghost does.
For Ghost, anonymity is key. The members
want to release as little personal information
as possible and focus solely on the music, and to
do so, they all adorn costumes to maintain their
namelessness. What’s more, Ghost uses their
costumes to create their own mythology, a sort of
storyline surrounding the band and their music.
Their live shows take themes and rituals from
the Roman Catholic Church and reinterpret them
through a Satanic lens. The typical crosses are
inverted, white is converted to black and rather
than praise the Holy Trinity, the band worships
Satan.
Every member of Ghost has their own
character. The lead singer and guitarist assumes
the role of Papa Emeritus, a mysterious figure
shrouded in face paint meant to resemble a skull
and dressed in Satanic “Papal” garb. The other
four members — the bassist, guitarist, keyboardist
and drummer — are part of an ensemble known
as “A Group of Nameless Ghouls,” a group of
underlings dressed in dark robes and metallic
masks subservient to Papa Emeritus. They
assume no individual identities, distinguished
on stage by an alchemical symbol — when one of
them speaks to the media, the quote is attributed
to “A Nameless Ghoul.” Nothing more, nothing
less.
The lead singer, on the other hand, is a whole
lot more interesting. He has undergone several
transformations as his Papa Emeritus character.
In fact, there have been four incarnations of
the character: Papa Emeritus I, Papa Emeritus
II, Papa Emeritus II’s younger brother Papa
Emeritus III and the much older Papa Emeritus
0, each with their own unique and convoluted
backstory and specific costume. For example,
Papa Emeritus II was replaced by Papa Emeritus
III because II was fired for lack of productivity
in overthrowing churches and governments.

Though the costumes were meant to conceal
identities, one of the members was bound to have
their identity revealed, and ultimately, it was
Papa Emeritus.
After being faced by a lawsuit set forth by
former members of Ghost who claimed they
lacked adequate compensation for their roles
in the band, Papa Emeritus decided that it was
time to oust himself. In 2017, after seven years of
mystery, Tobias Forge, previously of Repugnant
and Crashdïet, revealed himself to be the
mastermind behind Ghost and all iterations of
the mysterious Papa Emeritus character. Once
the dust surrounding the lawsuit settled, Forge
announced a new character: Cardinal Copia.
Cardinal Copia is a figure once thought to be
Papa Emeritus IV, yet he shares no relation to
any manifestation of the Papa Emeritus lineage.
He sports a plain mask with black eye sockets,
complete
heterochromia
and
blacked-out
vestments, and according to Forge, has not yet
earned his face paint yet.
In addition to Cardinal Copia, Ghost also added
several new members. In 2018, a third guitarist
joined the “Group of Nameless Ghouls,” two new
keyboardists known only as the “Ghoulettes”
appeared, and, surprisingly, the artist formerly
known as Papa Emeritus 0 returned and is
currently known as the saxophone-wielding
Papa Nihil. Forge plans for Cardinal Copia to be
around for only five years, and after that, there’s
no telling where the band might go next.
The
elaborate
costumes,
innumerable
characters
and
Byzantine
lore
may
seem
distracting, but they really add a lot of
dimensionality to Ghost. It makes the music seem
that much more real. Songs like “Stand by Him”
and “Rats” are inhuman rockers, and if the songs
are performed by blatant humans, a lot of the
band’s charm would be lost. Consider lines like
this, “Them rats! / Into your sanctum, you let
them in / Now, all your loved ones and all you kin
/ Will suffer punishments beneath the wrath of
God / Never to forgive, never to forgive.” These
lines wouldn’t pack nearly the same punch if,
instead of a Satanic cardinal priest, an ordinary
metalhead complete with a black tee, pasty skin
and wispy, greasy hair said it. In fact, it would
be comical, even farcical. The costumes are what
allow the band to make the music that they do.
It may all seem like a gimmick, but Ghost’s
act is more than a mere schtick. A quote from A
Nameless Ghoul (presumed to be Tobias Forge
himself) states that “(h)ad not the music been
rocking, I don’t think that people would have
gone gaga just about our looks. Had we not had
the looks, I’m not sure we would have gotten the
same attention.” This is to say that, regardless
of looks, the music will always be good, but the
costumes are what elevate and separate Ghost
from the more pedestrian heavy metal acts of
today. The costuming and lore allow the band
to transcend reality, and, in a way, become even
more metal.
Appearance
doesn’t
always
dictate
performance, but in the case of Ghost, the
appearance of each members most certainly
enhances their performance. Their appearance
makes them that much more convincing, even
when the band can’t be seen. The very thought of
Ghost in full dress is enough to lure listeners into
their Satanic world. When in costume, the band
sinks fully into the music, unaware of the human
world around them.
If Ghost feels Satanic, they’ll play Satanic; If
they play Satanic, they will make some of the
most notable heavy metal out today.

Ghost: Anonymity matters

JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer

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To make an artistic
decision off of pure
instinct and to have
it still wrap around
into some theme
or characterization
you’re not aware
you’ve been building
along the way has
to stand as a great
testament to the
artist’s gut.