I was watching I Love Lucy, and Lucy and Ethel dresses up like a hillbillies and Ricky and Fred don’t recognize their wives, until Lucy makes the error of going to a drawer to get something. Then Ricky realizes it must be Lucy or she couldn’t have known where to get the item. The Ricky decides to teach Lucy a lesson with predictable hillarious results.
This got me to thinking, do you think it’s possible for one to disguise one’s self so that a person, who knows you well, would’t recognize you.
Maybe if you could cover your entire face and did not speak. I used to have a Halloween party every year and there were a few people who no one could identify even though it was a pretty small crowd, never more than 30 people, where most of the people knew each other. In a couple of cases we figured it out only by process of elimination. But I think if they had emitted one syllable the game would have been over.
I wouldn’t recognize Mr. K if he shaved. Not a chance. I’ve seen a picture of him from about 1964 without a beard. He grew it in '66 and hasn’t shaved since.
It’s difficult, but possible. My experience is with Halloween parties such as palindromemordnilap described, where people are expecting to see certain individuals and making a conscious effort to see who’s who. Even so, they can be fooled. It may require altering posture, disguising the figure, making sure to move differently from normal, etc. - it can be a lot of work.
What I found remarkable, though, is how easy it can be for someone to figure out who’s in that costume. There are any number of things that can be picked up on by someone who knows you: body shape, walk, hands, etc. One year I had a costume that covered me completely except for eyeholes, and someone figured out it was me instantly just by seeing my eyes. Even in a situation where no one’s expecting you to be in disguise, some little thing can give it away.
The other day I was looking for my husband to walk towards me from far away. There were lots of people coming and going, but as soon as I saw him from a very far distance I knew it was him. He was too far away to make out facial features, and he was dressed the same as everyone else, shorts and a t-shirt.
It was his walk that I recognized. It’s not a weird or unusually distinctive walk, but I find I can easily recognize someone just from the way they walk.
I don’t think there’s any chance it could happen in real life. My wife would not even realize I was trying to fool her. She’s just ask me why I was wearing that stupid costume.
Maybe someone could be deceived temporarily, from a distance, but any degree of close contact and/or verbal communication is going to give it away. Mrs. Doubtfire scenarios can’t really succeeed. How many women really wouldn’t know their husbands just because they were wearing a dress?
I could regonize my husband’s shadow. There have been times when I’ve thought, “Hey, that person walks like the spouse,” and upon getting closer, realized it was the spouse. Even if he were in a costume and mask, I know his mannerisms.
The first time I bleached my hair (beard included), super-glued gold hoop earrings to my lips, and donned my gold-studded purple velvet suit*, I went unrecognized by… [does a bit of counting] … 93.3% of people who see me every day. The only one who recognized me before I spoke was my own father, and it took him a good few seconds.
That same day, my friend shaved his head into a false receded hairline and turned his remaining hair and goatee charcoal grey using cork ash*. He looked like a 45-year-old man (he was 23), and, like me, reported that no one recognized him on first sight. I sure as hell didn’t, and I knew that he was going to do that.
Further, our friends and relatives who’ve seen our pictures from that day have, without exception, failed to recognize the subjects of the photos until told. Anecdotal, but unless everyone I know is exceptionally unobservant, it can be done.
*Halloween costumes. Kakihara and Sam Loomis, respectively. They rocked. I’ve posted pictures.
You’d have to never walk around or speak. People in disguise may not look like they normally do, but they will usually not think about how they move, which is possibly more distinctive even. People who know you well will not be fooled.
I would probably be able to identify someone in costume by smell. I have, on several occasions, been doing something at work or at home to have a friend or my SO come up behind me and I knew it was them because they smelled like themselves. Cologne or a change in soap might throw me off for a bit but I would still be able to figure out who it was eventually by nothing other than smell.
My mother did it for my niece and nephew (i.e., her grandchildren). I think they were about 6-7 and 10-11 at the time. They were playing doctor with her as the patient but got bored and wanted a new patient. So she put on a big hat and a raincoat and went around to the front door, pretending to be Mrs. McGillicuddy (named after a character from I Love Lucy). They looked at her strangely but were fooled for a good while.
I think its easier for men. A few times I haven’t recognised Santa at childrens’ Xmas party because of a thick beard, hat, wig & cheap glasses obscuring most of their face/head. Add an assumed gruff voice & the confusion is complete!
I’ve failed to recognize people I work with and sit next to a few times. In all cases they were people I had only ever seen in uniform. In all cases, when I saw them out in the world wearing civilian clothes, I had an idea that I knew that person from somewhere, but had no idea from where. And this is people who weren’t trying to disguise themselves and fool me.
Sometimes it only takes a little change to throw you off, like Kalhoun’s example of shaving a beard, or altering your voice.
Me and my friends play Team Fortress 2 a lot online with a group of people we’ve met through the game. Some of them we’ve later met face-to-face, but most know us by voice only.
One day, when I knew my friend was offline, I jumped on the server using his name/identification. Chose his usual class (medic) and joined a team. One guy we knew said “Oh, it’s XYZ, man I’m glad to have you on my team. You gonna follow me out this exit?” I said, “no” and he IMMEDIATELY not only knew it was not my friend XYZ, but knew it was me as well. Just by the sound of one syllable.
I have a very distinctive voice, which sounds a lot like Kermit the Frog. (Great for being recognized from YouTube voiceovers, which happened a couple of weeks ago, but not so good for meeting women.) I think that it would b a LOT harder to disguise the voice that change the appearance, and changing the body language would be harder still.
When I came back to college to see my then-girlfriend/now-wife in her senior a cappella concert, I knew that I’d be showing up to campus well before the show. My arrival was supposed to be a surprise, and I was coming in from way way out of town. Nobody expected me, but I didn’t want to blow it so I wore beat-up jeans and a hooded black sweatshirt - this was something I never ever wore.
The combination of the outfit and the “impossibility” of seeing me helped me walk past several of my close friends from the previous year without being seen. The disguise probably wouldn’t stand up to any scrutiny, but I really was able to hide in plain sight on a fairly small college campus for the better part of a day.
