Caitlin often found herself informally supervising her neighbor Stacy’s young son, Nate, providing him some stability while his mom sought time for herself. However, when Nate decorated the hallway walls with doodles during Caitlin’s absence, she was unjustly slapped with a $500 fine. Determined to set things right, Caitlin devised a plan for retribution.
Stacy had become accustomed to letting her young son, Nate, roam the hallway as a play area.
“It’s safe, Caitlin,” she’d assure me. “Plus, it’s their version of outdoor play.”
She would then retreat behind her door, leaving Nate to his devices, often while she entertained guests.
“I just need some downtime,” she confessed to me once in the laundry room. “I’m a grown woman with needs, you know. Being a single mom, you must get it.”
I understood her need for personal space, but I could never imagine letting my own son, Jackson, wander the hallways alone. Despite our general familiarity with the neighbors, the corridors didn’t feel completely secure.
Jackson, slightly older than Nate, seemed concerned about the younger boy, who often loitered alone, clutching his tattered teddy bear.
“Mom,” Jackson would say during his playtime, “maybe we should invite him over.”
Grateful for my son’s compassion, I agreed. It was better to keep both children within sight, ensuring their safety.
Thus, we began having Nate over for snacks, toys, and movies—a simple arrangement that brought him noticeable joy.
“He mentioned he likes playing with others,” Jackson noted one day. “I don’t think his mom spends much time with him.”
And interestingly, Stacy hardly acknowledged this setup. Once she realized Nate was safe with us, she seemed to extend her leisure time even more.
Eventually, it became routine for Nate to knock on our door whenever his mother let him out.
“Hello,” he’d say, teddy in hand. “I’m here to play.”
However, one day, we were away at my parents’ house for my mom’s birthday.
“I hope Nate will be okay,” Jackson expressed concern as we drove.
“Oh, honey,” I responded. “His mom is there. She’s responsible for his safety too.”
Upon our return, we were greeted by hallway walls covered in childish drawings—a colorful chaos of stick figures and squiggles.
“Nate must have had fun,” I remarked, searching for my keys.
“Isn’t he going to be in trouble?” Jackson asked, eyeing the artwork
Drew Barrymore and her grandfather’s friend Vincent Price together in 1984…Check c,o,m,m,e,n,t,s below
Even though there are dozens of different experts that work on the appearances of characters in movies, they aren’t immune to making mistakes. And in the end, viewers may catch these fails in makeup or costume choices that couldn’t have possibly existed during the time in which the movie was set.
We at Bright Side decided to watch some of our favorite movies and read some fashion history books to find the mistakes makeup artists and costume designers have made in popular films.
Gone with the Wind
No matter how trendy Scarlett O’Hara was, she couldn’t have predicted the clothing trends for decades in advance. Her famous slim-fitting red dress with feathers and rhinestones has nothing to do with Civil War fashion — it was inspired more by styles from the 1930s and 1940s.
Julius Caesar
In the 1953 film, most of the female characters wore extravagant bullet bras. In Ancient Rome, women would wear a strophium, a prototype for the modern bra, but these weren’t bullet bras.
Legends of the Fall
Trying to create a romantic look, costume designers ignored the historical facts. Brad Pitt’s character has beautiful blonde hair and facial hair but these things were unacceptable for the time period. More and more men were choosing to don big mustaches and short hair at this time.
King Arthur
The film, which is set in the fifth century, portrays knights in heavy metal armor. But until the fourteenth century, such armor was made of leather, and only mail armor was made of metal.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The film is about events that happened in the ’90s and the clothes look pretty accurate, however, they’re still not perfect. Dudley Dursley is wearing G-Unit shorts — a brand that was created by 50 Cent in 2003.
Hello, Dolly!
The movie is set in New York at the end of the nineteenth century when such a hairstyle, lip gloss, and eye makeup didn’t exist. But the movie still got 3 Oscars and became one of the most important films of the decade.
Queen Margot
Throughout the entire film, the characters are wearing beautiful dresses with open shoulders. They look great but in the sixteenth century, women never ignored shifts (or chemise in French). These pieces of clothing protected them from the cold, absorbed sweat, and were really easy to wash.
Another mistake costume designers made was the way the main character’s hair was let down. Based on the few portraits we have of Margaret of Valois, she had curly hair that she wore up.
The Danish Girl
The Danish Girl starts in 1926 but in the first half of the film, we see women in slim-fitting clothes that have nothing to do with the fashion of the 1920s.
At the beginning of the film, Gerda has a hairstyle that was actually quite outdated for the setting that favored waved or bobbed hair.
A Dangerous Method
In one scene, Keira Knightley appears only in her corset, which is a contradiction to the original rules that came along with wearing this piece of clothing. A woman would never wear a corset alone.
Bonus: Mary Queen of Scots
In Mary Queen of Scots, Saoirse Ronan is wearing asymmetric earrings, which were non-existent in sixteenth-century Scotland.
In your opinion, do you think such mistakes are serious or no big deal?
Preview photo credit A Dangerous Method / Recorded Picture Company
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