The Importance of Being FAHsionable- A perspective on costume in comedy

## Introduction

An intriguing question came up recently whilst I was working on an art project related to Foil Arms and Hog. Why are **costumes** so important? More specifically, why are they so **important when used in comedy**?

These are questions that perhaps aren’t so easily answered, and maybe my attempt might be weak one, but it has been on my mind quite a lot and therefore, I wanted to write down some thoughts regarding this subject matter.

## Dressing the Part

As most are aware, **70% of all human communication is non-verbal**, meaning it doesn’t require speech. From a young age, we learn to interpret meanings through movement, mannerisms before anything else. This skill remains with us and helps us to interact with one another. Our brains process information in a variety of different ways, depending on what is happening. **What someone wears**, is part of that non verbal aspect. Looking at a person’s choice of attire **can help reveal components of their character** and personality. Whilst this is not always the case, and can be used to deceive others, it is generally thought to be a good indicator of someone’s views and dominant personality traits. In fact, we use this subconsciously in everyday life, and we can attribute this to the stereotypes we have around us.

**For example**, if you turn up to a job interview wearing shorts and t-shirt, with sandals, the interviewer may be inclined to think that you do not take things seriously, and therefore this could impact the way you behave in the workplace. Whereas, if you turned up for your job interview in a suit, looking smart and you portray the image of someone who takes pride in their appearance, this leads to the impression that you are trustworthy and have the type of character traits that would be of benefit to the company.

Newsreader looking for a job in a suit.Irish lad looking for a job in a jersey.
There has been a **trend to move away from these stereotypes**, because in this modern society, they are deemed to be negative and exclusionary. My analysis is not to endorse either one of those aspects, or to imply that Foil Arms and Hog use these for any other reason, than to help **enhance their work and to give it a sense of relatability**.

## Different Approaches to Costume

Lets just start at the beginning. Foil Arms and Hog, prior to 2014, had been predominately using the stage as their main medium to show their work. In fact, they themselves have often said in interviews, their **move to YouTube** was a way to encourage others to come to the live shows. However, stage often requires a slightly different use of costume, and I want look at their use of film, as this requires a **sharper focus with intent**. It also presents, in my opinion, a greater challenge. This I hope to explain through this discourse.

The sketches – where to start? The lads have over 400 to their name listed on their YouTube channel, and to tackle all of them would be a foolish and mammoth task, so I wanted to focus on a few that I have found the most thought provoking, and what inspired me to write this piece.

### Distinct Pieces providing Context

I’ll start with the **YouTube version of Human Smartphone**, released in 2018. The premise is fairly a simple one: two friends meet up for coffee, one of them brings a new guy along and introduces him as an appliance rather than a person.

Both Hog and Foil are playing versions of themselves: relatable 30-something guys. Arms is cast as the title character, a smartphone in *human form* owned by Hog's character. The setting is an unspecified café or cafeteria, a neutral and ordinary location which contrasts the ridiculousness of bringing a human with you as your smartphone.

Introducing you Human Smartphone to your friend.How to get rid of notifications on your Human SmartphoneA Human Smartphone demonstrating Airplane ModeBumping into your Old Phone is so awkward...
On the surface it seems fairly innocuous, but what interests me is **the simple use of one piece of costume, the helmet**. You see, with film, you have to convey a message in a short space of time, as visual information is caught and processed very quickly. With sketches being on average 2 minutes long, the challenge lies in setting up the premise, the storyline and the characters in a swift smooth manner, thereby enabling the dialogue to make sense. The dialogue without the extra ‘pieces’ would look alone at sea, without an anchor to provide stability. Something distinct is needed for the audience to latch on to.  If you remove the white helmet, the plot simply becomes *three ordinary men meeting up for coffee*, as their outfits wouldn't be out of place in your local caffeine dealer outlet. Throw in the dialogue then, and what you'd get is a story that's plain weird. If you were to hear this conversation happening at the table beside you, you’d end up leaving. Or, you’d be picking up the phone for the local mental health department. The dialogue cannot land anywhere, the jokes, the inferences, have nowhere to go, all because there is no context for them

By adding the helmet, **even before any dialogue is spoken**, you the audience know there is something different going on here.  Why else would someone go into a coffee shop with a helmet on? It looks out of place, so you immediately want to know more, your interest is piqued. So, in a very short space of time (about 2 seconds to be exact) you are intrigued. What follows is the ‘*pieces*’ creating comedic harmony. The dialogue, along with setting and costume, now has purpose, which allows the brain to process the information and create the result - humour. Now, it doesn’t look out of place. We have context and this provides a framework. Just like the corner pieces of a puzzle, your brain can now use the dialogue to fill in the gaps. **All this is achieved through the simple addition of a white helmet.**

### Costumes portraying an Image

Okay, so that was just looking at of one distinct piece of costume. How about we look at another **sketch that requires the specific use of costume to portray an image**, which is more complicated. There is a set of sketches in particular that perhaps most are familiar with, and tend to have a high viewership on YouTube. These can be found in the **House Party Collection Playlist** on the FAH YouTube channel. The lads have done a number of these popular Party sketches, covering Decades, Medicine, Companies and even Fruits and Vegetables.

I love all of these sketches for various reasons, but the one I would like to look at is **Medicine Throws a Party**, released in 2021. When it came out, it was very topical and the dialogue reflects this. It makes **references to the Covid-19 Pandemic** and medical issues were a hot topic at the time. The reason I have picked this is due to the fact that it's very difficult to **give personas to objects/things** (also discussed in a FAHCTS subpage). It seems a misnomer, because *things* don't have a personality, we only know them because of how they look and what their use (or burden) to us is. We recognise things because we're told what they are by their makers or discoverers, not because they personally introduce themselves to us.

Yet that's exactly what the lads are doing in these sketches: **playing a human version of objects**, telling us what they are verbally and non-verbally, conveying information using costume and language in a very present and constructive way. During the writing process they must have considered questions like: How does Medicine ‘talk’? How do you convey what a certain medicine is, using costume? The difficulty is compounded by the fact that the three lads have to portray more than one character each, with their own distinct look. And not to forget, they only have a smallish sized wardrobe to pick-'n'-match from. They've come up with simple but brilliant, **out-of-the-box solutions**. There are no huge cardboard costumes shaped like tabled boxes in this sketch, but nevertheless their identity fits their caption (added in post-production to take away any second-guessing getting in the way of enjoying the sketch) as soon as they enter the room.

To be able to better explain the importance of costume in this sketch, I will be looking at the characters shown, their attire, and why it works. Rather than focus on all the characters in this sketch, I have selected three, one for each of the lads.

I will start with **Hog’s character Aspirin**. He is the host of the party, clearly indicated by the fact that he welcomes the other medicines, answers the door to them and tends to feature in the majority of scenes. In order to understand the use of costume choice, it would be good to understand a little about the **history of Aspirin**. Aspirin is a synthetic derivative of the natural substance salicylic acid, a main component of a herbal extract found in the bark of willow trees. It was first synthesised in 1899, and was primarily used to treat pain, reduce fever and swelling, however the healing properties of willow bark have been known for millennia. It is still a popular drug and even is prescribed in low doses to help lower risk of cardiovascular issues, such as stroke.

Aspirin is easily recognizable across cultures and therefore perfect as a main character for a silly sketch about medicine. The challenge is for Hog to show this association through costume on screen. What other messages need to be conveyed here for the audience to link the dialogue to the character and set the context? Remember, there has to be a **non-verbal message** communicated. Hog's outfit comprises of a **white shirt and pale blue tie**. On the surface, this looks fairly **generic**, he’s looking smart, one could be forgiven for thinking he’s in office attire. On first glance it may even look like nothing's being communicated here, but look again and you'll see there definitely is. The impression that Hog's costume gives off is of someone who is **trustworthy, dependable, takes pride in what they do, and is sensible**. This is feeding on our pre-set stereotypes that we come across in daily life. It doesn’t stop there, as Aspirin is also organising the evening's events, trying encourage communication between medicines, tapering the conflict between Echinacea and Steroids, and so on. **He's being a model party host.** He's doing what is expected of him, he’s likable, and navigating between all the other characters he's clearly the *straight man* in the sketch.

**Now look at these characteristics in the context of an office worker, maybe a manager.** All these qualities are required in an office. You need to be dependable, reliable and be someone who will reflect a good impression of the company via your dress code. You also need to address conflict, and be able to manage that with other employees. Now, I hope you have come to see we have come full circle here. The costume Hog chose, gave a persona to an object, a framework, a personality which non-verbally hits the right note, for the dialogue to be funny and to make sure the inferences are not missed.

The **Foil character** I've chosen to focus on is **Suppository**. It might seem a bit strange to have picked this character over Steroids but there is a specific reason why I did. Steroids, in my opinion, is a more straightforward medicine to personify. The side effects are well known and easy to distinguish. Suppository is more interesting to me personally because going into the sketch I have no frame of reference, it's not a type of medicine I'm familiar with. I am entering into this blind, and that makes the character a prime candidate for this essay. I suspect that there were many viewers who didn’t know what it was either. Suppository doesn’t have much screen time, or dialogue, and therefore it’s even more difficult to convey the right message as it has to hit the mark precisely.

So, what are suppositories? They are small objects that fully dissolve and contain medication. It's a medication delivery system that is not dependent on someone taking medication orally, rather it's inserted via what the sketch amusingly calls *the back door* (i.e. rectally). What interests me is how you reflect this on screen, besides pointing it out in a pun. Foil’s character is **dressed in very dark colours**, with a beanie hat and leather jacket. His appearance at the party comes as a bit of a shock to Aspirin. As the audience, we're immediately drawn to this sneaky, intriguing character and to what he is wearing. The non-verbal cues here speak of someone wishing to be hidden, in the background. He doesn’t want to be recognised or noticed. This makes sense because the plot has Suppository enter the party through the back, unlike the other characters who are greeted (or refused) by Aspirin at the front door. This is a clear metaphor of what the *back door* might be in regards to the human body, and that's obviously the joke they're going with. Suppository’s outfit gives the impression of someone who is looking shifty, not to be trusted, and would make someone nervous if they spotted him loitering around Dublin on a Saturday Night. I love the subtlety of the message here, that **the dark colours represent something unknown and perhaps even taboo to know about**. The fact that Suppository broke in and even forced himself into the party, shows that he is invasive. This ties in well, because what are suppositories if not invasive procedures, and often uncomfortable. **An added layer to this choice of outfit is a sense of nerves and apprehension**, something that I believe those having suppositories must feel. Again, we have come full circle, Suppository has been successfully personified and the jokes land where they are supposed to, and don’t float about without focus.

The final character we are going to delve into is **Arms’s character Antibiotics**. This character fascinates me, because of the **polarising view on antibiotics in recent times**. They provide a function, but we know that human beings are becoming resistant to them due to over-use. Arms’s character appears in two scenes of the sketch, and interacts with another character, Placebo, played by Hog. Antibiotics are used to treat infection caused by bacteria, and most folks know them by their main ingredient of Penicillin. This was hailed as a wonder drug, being able to cure these types of infection, which had previously been difficult to treat and had resulted (in most serious of cases) in death.

Arms's Antibiotics is **dressed in what appears to be a blue overall suit with high visibility jacket**. This is already quite a clever way to highlight its importance in medicine. A so-called Hi-Vis jacket makes you noticeable to other people in potentially dangerous situations. It gives Arms's character the impression of **being over-exposed, out in the open**. This ties in with the well-known **trope that antibiotic use has increased way above what it was naturally intended for**. The blue boiler suit implies that this is someone who does manual labour, and works long hours. To me personally, it shouts **maintenance worker, someone who fixes a variety of issues** perhaps.

The **dialogue** plays into this theme quite well, as Antibiotics complains he is always being asked to fix many issues, when he is not the right person to sort certain problems, and **feels overworked and undervalued**. Those in maintenance or trades often work long hours for pay that perhaps doesn’t match what they should be paid for their skillset. The take-home message is that Antibiotics feels under pressure to perform at jobs which he doesn’t have the right qualifications for. It is no surprise that in this sketch Antibiotics finds himself talking to Placebo, who does not contain any active ingredients at all but is tasked with alleviating symptoms nonetheless. These characters are portrayed as polar opposites to great comical effect in this brief piece of sketch dialogue, creating an interesting situation of tension and conflict.

Anyhow, I digress from the subject. There is more to be said of course, but let’s take a step back and link these thoughts together. **The choice to reflect a worker, who is skilled, but being forced to cover a multitude of tasks is perfect here.** It resonates with the audience because we automatically equate antibiotics with something that is specifically made for a certain type of affliction, but used to treat a multitude of conditions it was not meant to. Again, the dialogue has somewhere to go, and our brains are given the space to fill in the gaps.

## Conclusion

In conclusion, the **use of costume in comedy is crucial** when used through the medium of film for comedy. You need to be able to convey those **non-verbal cues and messages**, so that the dialogue has somewhere to go. If you don’t **hit the note with your visuals**, then all the other pieces fall apart and the sketch, the humour is dead in the water. You also risk losing your audience. This is something Foil Arms and Hog think about and understand well, as we have seen in this small snapshot. It is evident that they **think carefully about what they portray** and this not only makes their humour memorable but adds a level of potency to their comedy, which is the spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down.

**Written by Stacy Lou**, for fun - yes you read that right :) Thanks for reading!