Photos of a “Sexy Gandalf costume” worn by Australian student Tjitske Van Vark went viral yesterday, after the 18-year-old posted a collection of snapshots of the outfit on Tumblr. Attracting over 150,000 notes on the site, the images then made their way to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, leading to many bemused reactions from The Lord of the Rings fans who aren’t accustomed to seeing the heroic wizard wearing stockings and heels.
But in an interview with Esquire, Van Vark pointed out that the outfit was intended to parody the various “sexy” outfits we see make their way onto store shelves heading into Halloween, and wasn’t just an excuse for us to see what Gandalf would look like if he was a woman and strutted around Middle-earth with one long leg sticking out the side of his robe.
While my initial reaction to hearing that Sexy Gandalf was intended to point out sexism was an incredibly lengthy eye-roll, after hearing Van Vark’s intention behind her outfit, I’m a little more on board with her reasoning.
Speaking in the interview, she said: “While I didn’t sit down and think in depth about the social commentary this casual costume might give, it was and still is really a subtle play on the way the media and mass-produced costumes aimed at women will sexualize everything and anything we as women do.”
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She continued: “Whether that’s a policewoman or a nurse; fishnets and heels will be cheaply and boringly slapped on to create the next new Halloween costume, undermining women in that field and turning their careers, race or culture into a new objectifying sexy Halloween costume.”
I highly doubt Sexy Gandalf is going to have a major impact upon the Halloween costume-making industry (is that even an industry?) but it at least provides an interesting story behind the viral photo, and will probably make a few people think twice before they go ahead and purchase their Sexy Donald Trump costumes.
