Boo Humbug
Oct. 30th, 2008 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all thinking, damages his personality and makes him a landlord to a ghost."
- Lloyd Douglas
Okay, so, I don't want to sound like a killjoy or a communist here, but I need to say this:
I hate Halloween.
Even when I was a kid, the occasion held very little magic. As a kid who didn't even really like candy very much -- Twix bars were the rare and exquisite exception -- it was hard to reconcile the expenditure of effort with the resulting payoff.
I distinctly remember one abortive Halloween adventure, when I was maybe 11 or 12, and I bought this elaborate latex rubber mask of a pilot, like the Red Baron or something, with the leather helmet, goggles, etc. I put on a fake leather jacket, boots and a scarf and went door-to-door with my friends. At the first house, a nice old lady asked what I was.
MY FRIENDS AND I: Trick or treat!
LADY: What do we have here?
ME (Muffled, under a scarf and a latex rubber mask): I'm a pilot.
LADY: A what?
ME: I'M A PILOT!
LADY: Oh, a pirate! Aha!
ME: Just give me a Twix.
I went home not long after that, disillusioned and sweating in 40 degree temperatures.
As I noted earlier, candy was not a particularly strong motivator. After each long night of begging, I would sort out my hard-asked booty and divided the good stuff (chocolate-, caramel- and nougat-based treats) from the crap (lowbrow sugar compounds like Smarties, Pixy Stix and candy corn). Inevitably there would be a lot more crap than good stuff; I don't know why I never realized that with the money spent on my costume I could have purchased several bags of Twix.
You might think that with my avocation for the theater, I would appreciate this opportunity to play dress-up. But there are two problems with that theory. First of all, as Amelie Gillette points out in the recent print edition of The Onion, "What you choose to wear, or not to wear, on Halloween or to a Halloween party is as valid a measure as any of your creativity, personality, time management, sense of humor and ability to form an original thought. No pressure." I tend to put a lot of stock in these arbitrary measures of character, making Halloween feel like one big surrealist job interview.
More importantly, though, the whole point of being in drama club is to stand out. If every amateur smart-ass and his out-of-town cousin are out schmucking around, the whole acting process is cheapened. It takes no particular skill or bravery to pretend to be someone else if everyone else is too busy pretending to notice.
Yes, it's true, in recent years Halloween has gotten quite sexed up, with slutty-everything from slutty devils to slutty nuns. (This development, I think, is a product of my own generation. I remember Halloween being very chaste, at least until after I graduated high school.) Naturally, this would appeal to any red-blooded male with deep-seated emotional issues. In many ways, it is the mass incarnation of numerous male fantasies.
But this overt sexiness, while intoxicating, can be equally frustrating. Seeing these attractive women in seductive get-ups is like seeing a bunch of presents under your Christmas tree and not being allowed to unwrap them. And later, upon reflection, you feel sorry for these presents and their low self-esteem.
Halloween is also the season for the deluge horror movies -- or perhaps I should say "horrible movies," since the only way such a film would have any artistic value is if someone in the East Village were to publicly urinate on it. Scary movies are one thing -- I can appreciate The Exorcist or The Shining or The Animal as skillfully constructed manifestations of human fear. But schlock like anything in the Saw series isn't "scary." It's barely even "drama." It's more accurately a formulaic, simple-minded meditation on sociopathy, violence, and human anatomy.
Of course, I don't go to see these movies and I don't even really have to put up with advertisements for them anymore. And yet I remain aware of them. And the fact that they still exist in this civilized society, and that high-school educated people are paying money to watch other human beings relentlessly and randomly pretend to butcher each other, makes me seriously cynical about America's future.
And if all that wasn't enough to make me detest this stupid holiday, here's the dessert to that entree of bloated, processed artifice: I hate pumpkins. I hate the way they look, I hate the way they smell, I hate the way they feel and I hate the way they taste. No thank you.
But, if people start baking Twix pies, and sponsoring Twix-carving contests, and founding alt-goth bands called Smashing Twix, we can talk.
- Lloyd Douglas
Okay, so, I don't want to sound like a killjoy or a communist here, but I need to say this:
I hate Halloween.
Even when I was a kid, the occasion held very little magic. As a kid who didn't even really like candy very much -- Twix bars were the rare and exquisite exception -- it was hard to reconcile the expenditure of effort with the resulting payoff.
I distinctly remember one abortive Halloween adventure, when I was maybe 11 or 12, and I bought this elaborate latex rubber mask of a pilot, like the Red Baron or something, with the leather helmet, goggles, etc. I put on a fake leather jacket, boots and a scarf and went door-to-door with my friends. At the first house, a nice old lady asked what I was.
MY FRIENDS AND I: Trick or treat!
LADY: What do we have here?
ME (Muffled, under a scarf and a latex rubber mask): I'm a pilot.
LADY: A what?
ME: I'M A PILOT!
LADY: Oh, a pirate! Aha!
ME: Just give me a Twix.
I went home not long after that, disillusioned and sweating in 40 degree temperatures.
As I noted earlier, candy was not a particularly strong motivator. After each long night of begging, I would sort out my hard-asked booty and divided the good stuff (chocolate-, caramel- and nougat-based treats) from the crap (lowbrow sugar compounds like Smarties, Pixy Stix and candy corn). Inevitably there would be a lot more crap than good stuff; I don't know why I never realized that with the money spent on my costume I could have purchased several bags of Twix.
You might think that with my avocation for the theater, I would appreciate this opportunity to play dress-up. But there are two problems with that theory. First of all, as Amelie Gillette points out in the recent print edition of The Onion, "What you choose to wear, or not to wear, on Halloween or to a Halloween party is as valid a measure as any of your creativity, personality, time management, sense of humor and ability to form an original thought. No pressure." I tend to put a lot of stock in these arbitrary measures of character, making Halloween feel like one big surrealist job interview.
More importantly, though, the whole point of being in drama club is to stand out. If every amateur smart-ass and his out-of-town cousin are out schmucking around, the whole acting process is cheapened. It takes no particular skill or bravery to pretend to be someone else if everyone else is too busy pretending to notice.
Yes, it's true, in recent years Halloween has gotten quite sexed up, with slutty-everything from slutty devils to slutty nuns. (This development, I think, is a product of my own generation. I remember Halloween being very chaste, at least until after I graduated high school.) Naturally, this would appeal to any red-blooded male with deep-seated emotional issues. In many ways, it is the mass incarnation of numerous male fantasies.
But this overt sexiness, while intoxicating, can be equally frustrating. Seeing these attractive women in seductive get-ups is like seeing a bunch of presents under your Christmas tree and not being allowed to unwrap them. And later, upon reflection, you feel sorry for these presents and their low self-esteem.
Halloween is also the season for the deluge horror movies -- or perhaps I should say "horrible movies," since the only way such a film would have any artistic value is if someone in the East Village were to publicly urinate on it. Scary movies are one thing -- I can appreciate The Exorcist or The Shining or The Animal as skillfully constructed manifestations of human fear. But schlock like anything in the Saw series isn't "scary." It's barely even "drama." It's more accurately a formulaic, simple-minded meditation on sociopathy, violence, and human anatomy.
Of course, I don't go to see these movies and I don't even really have to put up with advertisements for them anymore. And yet I remain aware of them. And the fact that they still exist in this civilized society, and that high-school educated people are paying money to watch other human beings relentlessly and randomly pretend to butcher each other, makes me seriously cynical about America's future.
And if all that wasn't enough to make me detest this stupid holiday, here's the dessert to that entree of bloated, processed artifice: I hate pumpkins. I hate the way they look, I hate the way they smell, I hate the way they feel and I hate the way they taste. No thank you.
But, if people start baking Twix pies, and sponsoring Twix-carving contests, and founding alt-goth bands called Smashing Twix, we can talk.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-31 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-31 01:54 pm (UTC)One more thing
Date: 2008-10-31 01:56 pm (UTC)Re: One more thing
Date: 2008-10-31 02:55 pm (UTC)I love Halloween. I saw a 5-year boy dressed up like a firefighter this morning and it made my day. I made the world-famous pumpkin dip last night (ginger snaps were also prepared) for my office's Halloween Party.
There's nothing OMR about this post, and I'm getting a little thin-skinned about it.
Re: One more thing
Date: 2008-10-31 03:15 pm (UTC)That said, I think I speak for my comrades when I say that the moniker is intended as a term of endearment and invoked with an appreciation for your unique perspective. While there are undoubtedly some mocking undertones, it is not meant as an insult.
That said, I think you've now made it very clear that you are displeased with the term and have no intention of embracing it. So people should probably be respectful of that -- especially people who routinely go to bed before 10 p.m.
Re: One more thing
Date: 2008-10-31 03:25 pm (UTC)Re: One more thing
Date: 2008-10-31 05:56 pm (UTC)Re: One more thing
Date: 2008-10-31 05:59 pm (UTC)