Actor with visible difference explains why Halloween affects them psychologically

An actor with a visible difference has urged people to celebrate Halloween with sensitivity while explaining why the spooky season is 'anxiety-inducing' for them.

Streets will be lined with trick or treaters dressed in 'scary' get-ups today (31 October) - so don't be surprised when a host of monsters and movie villains turn up on your doorstep.

For most of us, our biggest problems over the Halloween period are the constant ringing of our doorbells from excited children and, of course, deciding what to dress up as.

But for Beau Bradfield, an actor and campaigner for UK-based charity Changing Faces, Halloween takes a larger psychological toll.

The 21-year-old, who uses they/them pronouns, told LADbible how 'harmful and damaging' it can be to see people sporting fake scars and prosthetics in a bid to look scary.

Beau was born with a haemangioma - which is a collection of blood vessels which appear as a red or purplish birthmark - on their face, which was 'removed over several operations' before they turned three.

"My visible difference now is the scarring left over from the surgeries," Beau explained. "It doesn’t really impact my health, the only thing is, I can’t really see out of my right eye because of the surgeries."

Bond villain Rami Malek sported prosthetic scars while starring in No Time To Die (Universal Pictures)

Despite being self-confident as a child, Beau admitted that they became 'more self-conscious' about their scars as they got older.

So, seeing scores of people parading around with SFX makeup which imitates visual differences such as theirs is quite triggering for the screen star.

The actor, who is best known for their roles in CBBC's Mallory Towers and the Netflix hit Sex Education, told LADbible that although people may think that imitating villains from Hollywood blockbusters is just a bit of harmless fun, it can be extremely upsetting for those with visual differences.

Acknowledging this issue is 'not really on people’s radar', Beau said of controversial Halloween costumes: "I don’t think people had any idea of the impact.

"I think the visual difference community is one that is largely overlooked when it comes to advocacy and equality.

"In the last few years, Changing Faces have been putting out content explaining how harmful and damaging these costumes with added scarring and prosthetics can be.

"I think slowly people are clocking on, but we still have a really long way to go before it’s normalised and fully recognised that it's wrong."

'Visual differences are an explanation for villainy' in films

Fellow Changing Faces campaigner Chris Heppell - who has a nevus flammeus, which is commonly known as a 'port wine stain', on his left cheek and the lower part of his eye - shares the same sentiment.

He told LADbible that he associated Halloween with feelings of 'apprehension, anxiety and worry' since he was a child and has only learnt to 'enjoy' the spooky season later in life.

Chris said: "I used to have thoughts of like, 'What if somebody thinks that my birthmark is part of a costume?' Or, I might get a comment like, 'Your makeup’s really good!'

"I know how to deal with that now. A lot of the time, it is just ignorance. We’re so conditioned into associating visual differences with an explanation for villainy."

Beau Bradfield wants people to operate with more sensitivity over the spooky season (Supplied)

Both Beau and Chris believe that the onus falls on the film industry for 'perpetuating the stereotype that people with visual differences and facial scarring are inherently bad and evil'.

"Regardless of what those characters look like, people would want to dress up as the bad guys anyway, because it’s Halloween," the Bristol-based actor said."People are just recreating what those characters were made to look like."

Beau explained that films such as James Bond, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as well as the musical production The Phantom of the Opera, make them 'really uncomfortable'.

Detailing how seeing villains with scarring and other physical differences impacts the viewing experience of those in the visual difference community, they said: "It takes me out of whatever I’m watching. It impacts my enjoyment and respect for what I’m watching. It’s kind of a low blow to keep doing it. It doesn’t really shock me. It’s just more disappointing."

Negative tropes perpetuated by movies are 'frustrating and disheartening'

Chris concurs, pointing out that 'every single Bond villain' features some sort of visible difference.

"Their visible difference kind of explains why they are a sociopath or a psychopath," he continued. "[The characters] have been unable to overcome the resentment that is associated with that.

"You have so many horror characters, such as Freddy Krueger, The Elephant Man - these are all insults that various campaigners that I’ve spoken to have been subjected to at one time or another.

"It’s so common. It’s every campaigner. They’ve received some kind of comment associating them with a horror villain."

Iconic villains such as Freddy Krueger enforce negative stereotypes about people with visible differences, Changing Faces campaigners say (New Line Cinema)

Changing Faces and its campaigners have long called on streaming platforms to add on-screen warnings cautioning viewers that films and series might include 'negative portrayals of those with visible differences'.

As well as this, they want content to be preceded by an 'on-screen caveat that highlights it contains harmful tropes' - but no major platform has actioned this yet.

Explaining why the lack of change is 'frustrating and disheartening', Beau said: "As someone with a visible difference, it would be really handy to know going into watching something and investing time and emotions, whether I’m going to end up feeling uncomfortable watching it.

"Also, for everybody else - it’s helpful to have that as a reminder for that not to be the takeaway message that they get from the film. Even subconsciously, [villainy] is what is perpetuated.

"People just take that away as a stereotype and as truth, whether they really think so or not. So having that reminder of - ‘This isn’t what people with visual differences are actually like, it’s just this character who happens to have a visual difference and is bad’ - I think that is really helpful."