And so it’s come to this: some schools want their students to wear certain types of friendlier Halloween costumes–princesses and food items, for example–in lieu of the scary stuff. No crazed axe-wielders, no monsters with fangs and jagged fingernails, etc. No stuff most children like, the stuff they get to wear only once a year and have it miraculously lead to a bag of candy.
The biggest problem I have with this (aside from the creeping sanitization of childhood) is that it ignores Halloween’s importance as a ritual of reversal. These rituals are a necessary catharsis for both adults and children. Children get to “threaten” adults for candy, adults get to act like children by dressing up, and death is teased/imitated and yes, maybe glorified. Good. Death deserves it–we’ve shut it out too much in modern society. Children are fascinated with death. This doesn’t mean they’re one scary Halloween mask away from becoming murderers. The truly scary stuff–depression, alienation, abuse, etc.–is harder to deal with, so we pick on the hockey mask and plastic machete. How lazy.
I’m putting together a special Throwback Thursdays Halloween special for this weekend. Until then, here’s a trailer for MAGIC, the classic horror movie with Anthony Hopkins, Burgess Meredith, and full-on 70′s aesthetic:
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