Within just three months of its release, “Barbie” has climbed to the 14th highest grossing movie and counting. Not only has “Barbie” had all-time success as a movie in 2023, this year may also be a historic year for Barbie as a Halloween costume.
Some Aragon students find costuming for halloween to be a product of habit from previous years at school.
“I would say the majority of people dress up because it’s just something people have been doing since… elementary school,” said senior Pate Teaupa.
Dressing up for Halloween is almost a habit for Aragon students that have been doing it all their lives. In addition to tradition, Halloween participation may also come from Aragon’s culture.
“People at Aragon are encouraged to dress up for things like spirit points,” said sophomore Elsa Richerson.
Students don’t only dress up for tradition or for the spirit system, some students dress up purely to have fun in the Halloween spirit.
“I enjoy dressing up,” said sophomore Jack McNeely.
Many Aragon students already anticipate specific costumes being popular in a given year. One of the most common expectations around costumes this year is Barbie-related costumes, either as Barbie, Ken, or another side character.
“People have already told me to dress up as Ken,” Welch said.
Aragon students are also exposed to popular costumes through the internet and social media.
“It’s already being… promoted on TikTok [and at] Party City.” Teaupa said. “People are saying this is gonna be the costume of the year.”
McNeely was also asked about Barbie’s expected popularity.
“1,000%! There’s gonna be so many!” McNeely said. “I’m personally not going to do it… I want to be individual. I don’t want to be the same as everybody else.”
According to Visual Capitalists’ article on the most searched Halloween costumes, Cruella De Ville was the fifth most popular costume in 2021 and Harley Quinn was the third most popular costume in 2020.
If Barbie is far more popular than Cruella De Ville or Harley Quinn, and they were both top costumes in their release years, this indicates that Barbie could be the most popular costume of the year.
In addition to Barbie, there is another 2023 movie that has broken all-time records this year.
Following the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Jack Black’s “Peaches” made the Billboard Top 100 and has gained almost 15 million total streams. The movie also amassed over $1.3 billion dollars, making it the second highest grossing 2023 movie (behind Barbie) and currently the 16th highest grossing movie of all time, two spots behind Barbie.
“The Mario movie: that was a really big hit this year.” McNeely said. “I think we’re gonna see a surge of… Bowser [costumes] just because of Jack Black’s song and how popular that got for a bit.”
Similar to Barbie, McNeely believes that Mario’s historic success in 2023 will cause Mario-themed costumes to have increased Halloween popularity this year. Even though The Super Mario Bros. Movie and “Peaches” were both very successful, Barbie was still placed higher by statistics and Aragon students: both pinning Barbie as the favorite for costume of the year.
