Halloween is over.. Of course for those who read this website, you’ll know that the spirit of Halloween lasts all year regardless of the calendar..
In the light, I was perusing some British fishwrappers and discovered some interesting commentary from Donald Macinnes in the UK INDEPENDENT and some not so kind words about America’s craze with zombies–and how dislike of the British culture being so accepting of it..
From the article,
I first noticed the bloated US obsession with the 31st day of October many years ago, during one of my annual trips to visit my sister in Florida. I tended to travel there in late autumn, mainly because the climate is at its most tolerable then, with the late summer hurricanes having abated and the mosquitos taking a breather from all the raging sucking.
Every year, I got more and more amazed at the scale of the American approach to Halloween. Unlike in this country, where it took a distant back seat to fireworks fight, the Guy Fawkes-free calendar in the US meant Halloween was the be-all-and-end-all – certainly until the next holiday, Thanksgiving, trundled into view in late November.
It’s gets meaner. Really. Written as only a Brit could write,
And things didn’t end with ringing someone’s doorbell. Now kids get a handful of responsibly sourced tofu treats just for turning up, but we had to do something to earn our fun-size Mars bar – maybe sing a song or tell a joke. I would tend to have one joke ready that I would trot out at every door.
And while this incarnation of Halloween may not have swollen the coffers of Tesco or Aldi quite as much, at least we had our dignity. I’m joking, of course.
A big giant ouch.
Of course cruel or not cruel, it does not matter.
As a matter of fact, right now as I write this brief post, my personal Facebook feed is filled with my friends’ photos of their barhopping.. adorned with the most ghoulish of attire, sexualized in nature, they are gratifying themselves at a watering hole of their choice and carelessly drinking the night away. Their makeup is running but that’s the point: It’s the makeup of blood, zombies, and gore.
Yes, America is filled with the nightmares of Elm Streets around the world. But most of those pastimes of Halloween are borrowed. Let’s not forget where bobbing for apples comes from..where Samhain comes from..where all of the customs and traditions come from. Not America. We’re the melting pot. We get them from everywhere else.
Including you Britland.
So don’t let your tea run cold. And we can have our zombies.
After all England.. you have your problems, too.