Cosplay can mean many things for many people. For me, it is largely a creative outlet. I grew up doing a lot creative writing and I fell away from that. My job doesn’t allow for much creativity and I felt for a long time that I was missing the enjoyment of being creative and producing something from my imagination. I found cosplay it was such a relief to have found something to let me be creative and generate an end product I could be proud of at the same time.
For 2022, one of my goals was to take more creative steps in cosplay, a more interpretive approach. Few of my cosplays are screen or comic accurate anyway, but that isn’t my approach to this hobby to begin with. I plan, and hope, to develop more cosplays that are interpretations of characters (or concepts). I have a couple in mind, and recently I was awake all night because I was excited for a cosplay concept and spent hours mentally planning it.
I debuted my dapper Oogie Boogie at GalaxyCon and it went pretty well! This cosplay had been on my list for two years and I had the fabric for almost that long. A fully lined burlap suit was pretty warm and by the end of the day I was sweltering! I used Simplicity pattern 8528 and it went pretty well.
Not many people got my idea but the ones that did loved it. Don’t be afraid to cosplay variants or your own version of design. This was more of a challenge I posed to myself as a bigger sewing project with an unconventional material and it helped me learn some skills to use in the future.
Whatever your approach to cosplay, or whatever you hope to get out of this hobby, I hope you have success. You are creative enough to make it happen and have what it takes to be your version of successful.
Up until embarrassinly recently (within the last 4 years) I had only ever seen TNBC on VHS, so I used to think that the characters looked a lot different— Oogie and Sally’s hair was brown, Jack’s santa suit was orange, and Sally’s skin was grey. The day I learned she was blue blew my mind.
Tim Burton has gone on reccord stating that he doesnt think Oogie Boogie is evil, and I’m inclined to believe him. Let me convince you.
So, what are Oogie Boogie’s motivations?
It’s not a silly question, as I’ve found a lot of people seem to miss it. In the extended cut of Oogie Boogie’s song it is expressly stated, and heavily implied everywhere else, that he wants to cook and eat Sandy Claws (and Sally, but that’s incidental)
(The orange stuff is his “snake and spider stew,” and the 8-ball contraption appears to be blender/dicer blades flipped upside down.)
Now here’s an easier question; what is Oogie made of?
“Bugs!” Every person who has ever seen the movie shouts in their head. That’s wrong, but for the sake of simplicity, and me not wanting to write an extra lecture about insects and the like, let’s just say yes. He’s also got some spiders and a snake, and those bats in the rafters could possibly be a part of his hivemind (I don’t have proof of this other than I think it’s weird that they can sing)
So what is he made of, summed up in one word?
Carnivores.
His motivations as presented are fueled by the most basic survival instincts, eating and reproducing.
Yeah.
The thing is, while these things are in his nature, I don’t think “evil” is his nature either.
Let’s compare him to Dr. Finkelstein, the only other character shown to have these traits.
He is the only character we see actively eating (though Barrel licks a lollipop and mentions liking Oogie’s stew), and is also actively seeking a life companion, first in Sally, then in Jewel. He also seems to be the second most organic character to Oogie, with flesh and organs. While he’s mad and a stock evil scientist type, he’s not really evil. He’s antagonistic to Sally through a desire to be less lonely, not just “because.”
So no, I don’t think Oogie is acting out of “evil,” I think he’s just trying to survive in a very difficult situation.
So let’s talk about this “situation.”
Wherever he is, it’s outside of town and buried under a tree. It’s clear he can’t leave, and is imprisoned as a form of punishment for something. Whatever this was, who really knows (not really a fan of the Bug Day thing, but it could apply), but I think he’s suffering more than just imprisonment.
Take a look at the Oogie Boogie puppet from the film;
Notice how much he just sags.Burlap does not naturally fold this way (trust me, I’ve cosplayed 9) unless there’s quite a bit of slack. Also ruling out natural folds is the way his weight falls, specifically his feet— look at how slack and creased they are around the “ankles” compared to his arms. And of course, the floppy part off the top of his head that barely has dimension.
The puppet is 2 feet tall, and the Disney Magic Kingdoms app says he’s about ten feet with 12,000 “bugs” inside. 12,000 bugs… is not a lot, even with the mass that the snake would add.
He’s not full— his “body” is made to hold a lot more than we’re shown.
On top of that, he relies entirely on Lock, Shock and Barrel to bring him food. Who knows how much or how often that is? And while his “bugs” are capable of mass reproducing, you’d think that would be enough to fill him out more.
I think his bugs resort to eating each other. There are spiders in there, and many others will eat other bugs. That’s pretty messed up.
After who knows how long, years, centuries, of this imprisonment, he is desperate. So why does he toy with his victims with torture and gambling? Boredom. Torture devices are just toys to the Halloweentown denizens (the corpse kid and mummy play with a guillotine). He doesn’t know how to really interact with people, so he tries with his gambling games, tortures them because he thinks it’s normal, and eats them because he has to.
So, where does this bring us with how others see him? We don’t have a lot, but I think it’s a lot more complex than at first glance.
The general consensus is that, based on how the Mayor addressed Lock, Shock and Barrel, he and the townspeople are afraid of him. I, however, think he merely meant it about them. Why wouldn’t he? They’re canonically imps (stated in the art book), mischievous fae or demons described as “lively” and of “small stature.” They’re not evil or threatening, they just love to cause chaos and misfortune, which, if you’re in charge of organizing an important event such as a holiday, is the worst possible thing that could befall your tight schedule.
Jack doesn’t even seem to act angry at the thought of him at first, just annoyed. He calls Oogie, in front of several other people with no reaction of the mention, a “no-account;” a person of little importance or use.
Personally, I think this panel from Zero’s Journey says a lot about how the town and Jack sees him;
That’s his grave. Quite the memorium for somebody that is supposedly hated and feared, right? And it’s not even that far away from Zero’s grave!
So, I don’t believe Oogie Boogie is evil or hated, and if the og Nightmare crew ever ever had a hand in content again, I think we’d really see that.
Bbbuilding on the idea of a nightmare before christmas au. Couldn’t decide on an oogie boogie so i’m taking a nontraditional route. Theres more than one way to make halloween scary, i guess.
