boo, humbug!

DanTheMan

I found this to be an interesting article. Is American society becoming increasingly infantile? When I was growing up in the 1970's, Halloween was a kids-only affair.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101031027-524473,00.html

ESTEE

Do you suppose Michael Elliott is a j-dud ...?

ESTEE

DanTheMan

I don't think he comes off that way Estee.

I think his point is that the line between children and adults is becoming increasingly blurred here in America

Have you seen that Hummer commercial where they show the kid winning the race in his Hummerized go-kart?

Sad that so many adults watch that and go (cue Beavis and Butthead voices) "hehe that was cool" "Yeah, cool!"

Dan, some of us never got to go trick or treating as children or open presents on Christmas morning. Some of didn't really have much of a childhood. I do dress up but only to go trick or treating with my son. He and I get dressed up, run around and get candy for him. To me it's just a fun way to spend time with my son doing something I never got to do myself. Although I can be immature sometimes I don't consider myself infantile. I think Halloween is a great holiday for all ages. No matter how old you get it's still fun to pretend to be someone (or something) else once in a while. Playing is what keeps us mentally youthful y'know?

~Aztec

DanTheMan

Azzy,

I'm not saying that adults shouldn't recognize Halloween at all, but has Halloween, like so many other things in American society, become so much wretched excess?

Those in the Halloween industry are simply behaving as good capitalists should...satisfying a market they have themselves created. Halloween Express, a Kentucky-based chain, now has some 70 franchised stores in 21 states. Americans will spend about $6.9 billion on Halloween this year$2 billion on candy alone, an extra $1.5 billion on costumes and much of the rest on decorations and doodads. Don't get me started on outfits for pets or the move to extend the holiday into an event that runs for a whole season so that it becomes — you'll love this--"Falloween." Only Christmas gets consumers dipping into their pocketbooks with such happy abandon. Stretch Halloween over the whole of October, and it may soon race into first place in the waste-your-money-on-trash stakes.

...employees who insist on decorating sensible cubicles with orange and black streamers and littering the office with bowls of candy, the folk who dress up and throw pumpkin parties at country clubs, the hundreds of thousands who will come to work next week in costume.

That's my problem. Halloween, for me, is the gaudiest example of the infantilization of American culture.

How did cultural infantilization creep up on us?...a shift from a culture based on literature — on reading — to one based on the image. In a preliterate world, there's no distinction between children and adults.. Literacy changed all that. Reading has to be learned; it separates the world of the child from that of the adult. But children can absorb images — from TV, say — just as easily as their elders. Postman worried that a postliterate culture would be one in which barriers that protected children from the perils and temptations of the outside world would be torn down.

I will concede that quoting Paul at the end of the article was a bit over-the-top.

SpunkyChick

DanTheMan - GREAT avatar! lol..I love Southpark

DanTheMan

HOOOOOWWWWDY HO Spunky Chick.

I'm a recent SP convert. I saw the movie a few weeks ago. I laughed and laughed and laughed.

The Blockbuster store has a DVD with 4 different Mr. Hankey episodes, I think I'm going to head down there right now and rent it.

little witch

Good grief, sounds like the author was a dub!

In reality there are only four major celebrations per year. One for each season, and Halloween is but a harvest festival in disguise (pardon the pun).

These seasonal festivities have been celebrated for ever, all over the globe. It is just plain fun. Adults have always celebrated the harvest also, and I am sure the methods have changed too, according to what nationality or ethnicity one belongs to.

Personally, I think scrooge sux. I hope someone TP's his maple trees come Halloween!!!

DanTheMan

Good grief, sounds like the author was a dub!

Good grief, I can't understand why you say that! Does leveling any criticism against society-at-large make you a dub? It's not like he was going on about the pagan origins or anything.

SpunkyChick

DanTheMan -

The Blockbuster store has a DVD with 4 different Mr. Hankey episodes, I think I'm going to head down there right now and rent it.

Have you seen any of the ones with Towelie in it?? LOL

boo, humbug!

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