Superheroes? A tale of ‘Superhero play’, the world (and a lot of plastic tables and chairs) turned upside down, and some ‘boring’ darts champions. With help from The Jean Genie and 50,000 drunk Australian men in fancy dress!
Date posted: Monday 12th January 2015
This is the shortest post I have ever written! But I have just seen possibly the most bizarre displays of adult male behaviour since I was at an airport in France, when a group of 20 English men, each dressed as Pluto the dog, arrived at customs and were astonished that French Customs officers insisted on searching all their luggage and, would you Adam and Eve it, demanded to know the reason for their visit to France.
Is this the real life, or just fancy dress? Australian ‘Superheroes’ and Oompa Loompas slug it out. (And can you see Wally in amongst the Santas, Ninja Turtles and men in dodgy Hawaiian shirts?)
This is not April 1st, but January 10th! A major darts tournament was interrupted yesterday by scenes of ‘absolute mayhem’ that erupted when over 50,000 ‘darts fans’, many of them dressed as ‘superheroes’ got bored with the darts, had too much to drink and started throwing plastic chairs at each other.
Apparently things started to get silly when a section of the crowd got ‘bored’ and decided to build a massive ‘plastic chair and table pyramid’ in the middle of the auditorium (as you do).
The last time I saw a ‘superhero’ in public was when a man from ‘Fathers for Justice’, dressed as Superman, scaled an enormous crane near the M40 outside London during the rush hour one morning and caused chaos. (Oh, and I nearly forgot the dad dressed as Batman sitting on top of a post box outside the shopping centre in Luton. He was staging a ‘protest’ about his lack of access rights, but fell off after 10 minutes and several women, including one pushing a double buggy who seemed to know the man intimately, helped him to get first aid in Mothercare for his twisted ankle.)
Lots of children, (male and female) like to pretend to be superheroes. They (male and female) also like to dress up like Disney Princesses or wear tutus (and I’m not talking about wearing robes like a certain South African human rights campaigner with first name Desmond. Though if you look closely I think you can see a cobber dressed as an archbishop brandishing a plastic chair.)
I like to see children having fun and using their imaginations, including saving the world from baddies. We are supposed to encourage this superhero play as part of ‘best practice’ in early years. But are we making a mistake? Did all these blokes (many of whom will be fathers) get involved in superhero play as kids? We need more research before we can continue making capes and paper masks for little children, or going to ASDAs to buy a ‘Batman’ outfit for the little nipper so he can wear it to school during ‘Book Week’.
Local Melbourne darts legend Simon Whitlock seen here in action (and sporting the dodgiest mullet ever seen in a championship since Chris Waddle) during the final between Michael van Gerwen. Reports don’t give details about whether his match clinching shot, like poor Waddle’s infamous penalty, went over the bar. I imagine he could score ‘double tops’ with a plastic chair though.
Seriously though, violence is wrong. I know that and you know that. So is superhero play a bad thing? I don’t know. What I do know is that it can be an exclusively boy thing unless we actively get girls involved (though now I’m wondering if we might be rearing a generation of female ‘plastic chair pyramid’ builders.) So I went to find out how why girls don’t tend to dress up as superheroes and tear around the nursery for 30 minutes every day, during what is sometimes described as ‘The Half Hour from Hell’. This coincides, from my observation, with the exact time that the little children’s lunch or tea has been digested and entered their bloodstream. You can read about my findings here.
The next time I’m running a training day, remind me to make sure all the chairs are made of heavy wood, so the delegates don’t decide to ‘build a chair pyramid’ once their lunchtime buffet of vol au vents and cheesecake has hit their bloodstreams.
Are there any real superheroes out there? Here’s a bit of vintage David Bowie in fancy dress (and he did write ‘Heroes’), so hopefully that will do for our musical link.
Take care out there
Michael
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4xoxFrRA2Q
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Hello Michael.
As ever. eye-opening observations.
Yes people’s behaviour wearing fancy dress can be bizarre. I once went to a disco dressed as the invisible man. I remember stupidly arguing with the guy at the door that I should be allowed in free because I was invisible.
I had to pay!
Yesterday a friend told me that he had attended a burial service at the crematorium. A man dressed in a gorilla suit arrived and sat down for the service. Didn’t say a word to anyone and left immediately afterwards. The deceased person was in the arts.
Keep the blogs coming. Can we have more Janis Joplin videos?
Remember: Live on your back and love chimney-stacks.
Very best wishes
Simon
‘The deceased person was in the arts.’ That is a sentence worthy of Oscar Wilde, DH Lawrence, Joe Orton or even Morrissey!!!
Brilliant!!!! What did the Invisible man look like?
Cheers Simon !
Michael