By Kyung-Shin Kang
During my younger years, Halloween
carried no further meaning than being a day that was both difficult to
pronounce and a sad time for shy young girls who were refused candy if they did
not say trick-or-treat, which coincidentally was another hard word to
pronounce. (too many “Rs”) Still, it was a wonderful experience to step out
into the crisp autumn air with a bag of sweets in one hand and a frightful mask
in the other. But as a Korean family that never really spent that much time
carving pumpkins, I began to wonder what made this event so well loved by
everyone. Getting candy was great; I just never knew what the correlation was
between candy and Halloween.
What
is interesting about Halloween is that although it was first created in the
British Isles, it still remains as a quaint, small-scale celebration within
that area. This is not to say that other countries do not take notice of
Halloween at all as a few still celebrate the core beliefs of it in their own
way. Countries in Europe such as France show respect to the dead during
Toussaint, a holiday that spans from the 31 of October to the 2 of November.
Some of the older generations visit cemeteries, honor saints and attend
religious services. In Scotland, where trick-or-treating is believed to have
originated, people show their respect by leaving their houses empty for spirits
one time each year. El Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a holiday
in Mexico where families commemorate their beloved dead and go to the cemetery
to clean up graves and share a meal with their ancestors. Even at first glance,
it is easy to discern that the holiday takes a different form according to the
country it is being celebrated in, even if the American variation has taken a
bit of a deviation.
For one thing,
you can easily see the current trends in America, from pop culture to politics
in the costumes that are sold in retailers. In the early 2000s, you could
easily see a scarred forehead, spectacles coupled with a broomstick or a wand
out on the street. In 2003, Captain Jack Sparrow was all the rage after the
premier of Pirates of the Caribbean and Heath Ledger’s Joker roamed the streets
in 2008 with its painted grin. The demand for vampire outfits has risen beyond
anyone’s expectations after Twilight became a part of teenage girl’s
must-reads. However, pop culture is not the only area that influences children;
some politically passionate kids have even managed to dress up as Barack Obama
after the 2008 presidential elections. I remember that I also dressed up in a
poodle skirt and feather boa as a child, something that can hardly be expected
to frighten away a mean spirit. Like this, children spend time to dress up as
their favorite princesses or superheroes and view Halloween as a chance to
gather candy rather than as a period to remember their dead.
All in all, the
U.S. has taken great lengths to create a holiday almost as widely celebrated as
Christmas but has sadly lost most of the holiday’s original meaning. Any
mention of death has been tastefully ignored and hidden away by smiling
skeletons, cotton spider-webs and silly jack-o-lanterns that smile much too
widely for comfort. It is a fairly recent phenomenon that Halloween has become
such a big commercial holiday, with TV shows and movies spurting out Halloween
mysticism without ever mentioning the topic of death quite seriously. In
children’s cartoons, Frankenstein has a sweetheart, witches are young and
beautiful and vampires neatly avoid any mention of death or sorrow by becoming
handsome, dashing young men in their teens (Twilight. Everything bad always
finds its way to Twilight.).
No other country
matches the U.S. in its fervor and enthusiasm for pumpkins, costumes and candy,
and in doing so, has become almost a hedonistic holiday. With easier access to violent images and
horror movies, Halloween has become more gore-filled chaotic bedlam of a
holiday where ebullient adults go around hunting for Cleopatra outfits without
a child in sight. The costumes, skeleton models, and candy money results
in about eight billion dollars worth
of Halloween spending in America each year, only second to that of Christmas.
This is where skepticism takes over and we start asking exactly what we’re
celebrating Halloween for. Is it to show respect for the dead, like the French,
to nurture your more pagan side by looking out for lost spirits, or has it just
become another meaningless holiday for people to indulge in childhood
fantasies?
The American market, which is uncommonly
adroit in commercializing almost anything, has created a unique custom for
Halloween. No matter what the object is, you can be sure to find a ghouly
Halloween version of it. The list includes Baskin Robbins ice cream flavors “Halloween
Polar Pizza”, Oreo cookies with special orange-colored filling, Hallmark
greeting cards, and an assortment of decorative napkins. Typical costumes may
even cost up to 80 dollars and merchandisers confess that consumers will
literally spend any amount as long as it looks as good as the neighbors next
door.
Some people attribute this paroxysm to
Americans’ fears of crime. Apparently, Halloween is a sort of cleverly devised
social agreement that allows adults and children a chance to unwind and
confront their stress. Maybe this is true, adolescent delinquents might abstain
from committing more serious crimes by throwing toilet paper over a neighbor’s
home. After all, who would know the strange workings of a teenage mind. To be
frank, though, this does not seem to explain why Halloween is becoming an adult-centered
holiday.
Many experts theorize that Americans’
experience with death was different in past generations than it was in today’s
world. The elderly were more likely to spend their last days at home than at a
hospital and infant mortality rates were higher due to a lack of medical care.
For people of that age, death was not an abstract idea only implied in the
media but a real thing that had an impact on their lives, making such a
cavalier treatment of the national holiday almost impossible. And yet others
speculate that the easiest explanation for the whole Halloween bonanza is that
it stems from the baby-boom generation’s tendency to indulge their children.
The author of the book “The Sibling Society” argues that perhaps Americans
desire to live in a state of perpetual adolescence. Whether or not this is
true, it would definitely explain the newfound affinity for dressing up.
It was not
always like this in America though. Instead of this consumerism attitude, where
adults are more eager to throw a costume party than children, kids were
encouraged to fashion their own costumes and spend time with close families and
friends bobbing for apples. Families sat together to carve jack-o-lanterns and
trick-or-treating was a way for the neighborhood to get to know one another.
But some time around the sixties or seventies, grown-ups began showing interest
in what their children are doing and have picked up their old costumes.
Like its
original concept of being the day of the dead, people bring out the “dead,”, or
at least repressed, part of themselves with their fantastic costumes. One
woman, aged 21, confessed that Halloween was the only day of the year she felt
comfortable; the only day she was dressed up as someone other than herself.
Perhaps the idea that people are free to become anything they wish hidden
inside those masks is what makes Halloween so attractive to people. You can
become a blood-dripping zombie and moan all throughout the night or a proud
Cleopatra. After all, what better way to let go of all human ties than in a
monster costume or enveloped in a pink feather boa.
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