As we prepare for Halloween tonight I am reminded of my mom's first Halloween in the US about fifteen years back. She was visiting the US from India for the first time, had never heard of Halloween and was caught by complete shock to see people proudly displaying bones, graves, bloody hands, and ghosts in their homes. What kind of celebration was this! She could not understand why I would purposely place cobwebs and spiders on my front porch, especially following the Indian festival of lights or Diwali when one expects to light bright lamps to chase away these very ghouls and spirits of darkness.
I gave her every rational explanation I could come up with ranging from the mythological (the Celts, the blurring of boundaries between the living and the dead) to the psychological (good for kids to get scared a bit) to the biological (bats and spiders are actually important species that need to be celebrated). Her only answer was that the world is scary as it is, especially the world these kids were going to inherit, so why not let them enjoy their childhood when they can. I didn't think much of this until these past few years.
As kids come trick-or-treating into my neighborhood these days I don't think the true scares are the ghouls or the haunted houses but as my mom rightly indicated, it is the world they are inheriting. California with its raging fires looks worse than any artist's depiction of hell. My teen who was blissfully unaware of the complex, nuanced problems faced by the Kurds in Syria until last week, caught up with it on John Oliver and turned to me to say "That's scary"! For the record she did the Haunted Trail at night and said "it was OK". We are now living in a Baudrillardian simulation where we go the extra length to create unreal experiences while ignoring the reality around us. It's truly scary out there just not on October 31st!
I should also point out that on her first Halloween night my mom opened the door not knowing what to expect and was overjoyed to be greeted by princes and princesses, soldiers and pirates, firemen and cutest witches and a whole bunch of animals that all her objections went out the door! Seeing the cheerful kids and handing them candy was such a delight to her that she was happy to give up reality and fall into simulation mode. So yes, I wrote all this but didn't have the heart to deny trick-or-treaters or burst their bubbles. So I will pretend to scare them with cobwebs and gravemarkers knowing fully well they are not scared and are here for the candy. Perhaps this is truly one of the last stands of childhood pleasures before they grow up!
I gave her every rational explanation I could come up with ranging from the mythological (the Celts, the blurring of boundaries between the living and the dead) to the psychological (good for kids to get scared a bit) to the biological (bats and spiders are actually important species that need to be celebrated). Her only answer was that the world is scary as it is, especially the world these kids were going to inherit, so why not let them enjoy their childhood when they can. I didn't think much of this until these past few years.
As kids come trick-or-treating into my neighborhood these days I don't think the true scares are the ghouls or the haunted houses but as my mom rightly indicated, it is the world they are inheriting. California with its raging fires looks worse than any artist's depiction of hell. My teen who was blissfully unaware of the complex, nuanced problems faced by the Kurds in Syria until last week, caught up with it on John Oliver and turned to me to say "That's scary"! For the record she did the Haunted Trail at night and said "it was OK". We are now living in a Baudrillardian simulation where we go the extra length to create unreal experiences while ignoring the reality around us. It's truly scary out there just not on October 31st!
I should also point out that on her first Halloween night my mom opened the door not knowing what to expect and was overjoyed to be greeted by princes and princesses, soldiers and pirates, firemen and cutest witches and a whole bunch of animals that all her objections went out the door! Seeing the cheerful kids and handing them candy was such a delight to her that she was happy to give up reality and fall into simulation mode. So yes, I wrote all this but didn't have the heart to deny trick-or-treaters or burst their bubbles. So I will pretend to scare them with cobwebs and gravemarkers knowing fully well they are not scared and are here for the candy. Perhaps this is truly one of the last stands of childhood pleasures before they grow up!
