{"id":344,"date":"2014-04-10T18:08:04","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T18:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bsudlr.wordpress.com\/?p=344"},"modified":"2014-04-10T18:08:04","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T18:08:04","slug":"peeking-beneath-the-bedsheet-ghost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/dlr\/2014\/04\/10\/peeking-beneath-the-bedsheet-ghost\/","title":{"rendered":"Peeking Beneath the Bedsheet Ghost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Kameron McBride<\/p>\n<p>If you were asked to picture a ghost it would more than likely be a white creation that looks like a bedsheet with eyes cut out. When Charlie Brown needed some dorky costume in his Halloween special, he tossed a sheet over his head and cut out 17 eyeholes too many. The idea of a white bed sheet being a ghost is rooted in our cultural consciousness as the most simple portrayal of something spectral.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>So where does this trope come from? Well there are several things that may have contributed to the development of the \u201csheet ghost.\u201d Early depictions of ghosts weren\u2019t very consistent and in the theater they were often depicted by wearing older styles of clothes and even suits of armor (Jones). Shockingly, audiences did not find a slow, loud suit of armor particularly scary, so shows began using actors draped in sheets to portray ghosts instead.<\/p>\n<p>The irony, of course, is that now the \u201cwhite sheet ghost\u201d has become as unfrightening and awkward as the suit of armor before it. The bed sheet is now actually used to portray someone who is failing at being frightening to a futile level, like good \u2018ol <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5tIhwITwhSg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer lightbox-video-0\">Charlie Brown,\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0the newly dead couple in <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OeEa3gTsVDo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer lightbox-video-1\">Beetlejuice<\/a>,\u00a0<\/i>or even a young Willy Wonka, unable to enjoy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YxCKyZSZnio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer lightbox-video-2\">Halloween candy.<\/a> The sheet ghost has been completely reappropriated from being functional to being used to portray someone who is entirely unscary or even apathetic. \u00a0We laugh at Charlie because his costume is so shabby; the couple in <i>Beetlejuice<\/i> are meant to be seen as inept at being scary; Willy is seen as not enjoying Halloween to its fullest. In each case the trope is meant to point out the ridiculous, comedic, and apathetic nature of the sheet ghost.<\/p>\n<p>Given the way the sheet ghost has changed to become a joke in popular culture, soon we will probably develop another means of portraying ghosts in a simple way. Until that time, we also have a reliable way for dads to scare their children under the age of 7 with a simple bed sheet.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Works Cited<\/p>\n<p>Jones, Ann Rosalind., and Peter Stallybrass. <i>Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory<\/i>. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Kameron McBride If you were asked to picture a ghost it would more than likely be a white creation that looks like a bedsheet with eyes cut out. When Charlie Brown needed some dorky costume in his Halloween special, he tossed a sheet over his head and cut out 17 eyeholes too many. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[82,83,7,84,23,9,85],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ann-rosalind-jones","tag-beetlejuice","tag-bsudlr","tag-charlie-brown","tag-ghostly-film-and-television","tag-ghosts","tag-peter-stallybrass"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Peeking Beneath the Bedsheet Ghost - The Digital Literature Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/dlr\/2014\/04\/10\/peeking-beneath-the-bedsheet-ghost\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Peeking Beneath the Bedsheet Ghost - The Digital Literature Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Written by Kameron McBride If you were asked to picture a ghost it would more than likely be a white creation that looks like a bedsheet with eyes cut out. 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