So I’m walking in the garage and I see a foot sticking out of a trunk. Holy shit, I think, and run over to see if someone passed out or something. I get there, and it’s a fake foot. Ha ha.
The news is reporting some local yokel that has a mannequin hanging from a noose in a tree. There’s a woman down the street with five little kids who is complaining because… well, because there’s a lifelike mannequin hanging from a noose in a tree that they see every time they walk out the house. Not to mention the fact that another person mentioned that she’s seen cars swerving once they see the effigy.
Look, I’m into Halloween as much as anyone, but it seems to me that people use it for an excuse to act like morons. I think the day of Halloween these things are possibly okay, but do these “pranksters” ever consider that they raise the anxiety of ordinary folk and children, specifically in context where one doesn’t expect to see them?
Holy shit, you actually fell for the foot sticking out of the trunk bit? Those things look so fake. Do you also believe people ride around with baseballs or hockey pucks stuck in their windshields? Or with bullet holes in their cars?
It’s like the Internet; mob mentality writ, uh, small. Give people a chance to deny responsibility, and they’ll be assholes every time. Halloween is just a variation on that: the excuse is not so much they won’t get caught, but they can deny responsibility for their deeds by claiming it was OK to be a jerk, because it’s Halloween. (See Hollow Man and The Face of Another for a couple of fictional examples of this phenomenon in yet another context: anonymity.)
Got it in two, I think. Yeah. For tons of people it’s an excuse to behave like an asshole as “part of the spirit of the holiday.” Honestly, maybe it’s because I taught fourth grade, but I really think Halloween is for kids. The spectre of adults pulling pranks or getting dressed up in dodgy costumes is a bit weird for me. But have fun folks, I’m not mad at ya.
I know people think of Halloween as primarily a kid’s holiday but it’s a holiday for the older folks as well these days. In the 1980s Coors launched a campaign to make Halloween into a beer holiday and 20 years later only St. Patrick’s Day ranks higher in beer sales. I suppose that isn’t proof in and of itself but I think it’s a good indication that Halloween is celebrated by an awful lot of adults.
I haven’t worn a costume since 1988 when I was in 7th grade but this Halloween I’ll be dressing up as a mad scientist at a party. I pretty much put together my own costume but I went to a Halloween store to see if there were any accessories I could use for my costume. The costume inventory for most of the places I’ve been to is dedicated to costumes for adults. Hippy Hollow, I’ve seen some evidence that people might be using it to act like morons instead of just having fun. I certainly hope some of these “adult” costumes aren’t going to be worn in public places but will instead be found only at private parties. I admit that the Dr. Seymour Bush costume got a little chuckle from me but I’d never wear something like that in public.
I have heard two separate news stories this year with complaints about hanging effigies. One of them was the Sarah Palin effigy in West Hollywood and the other one was a Neo-Pagan complaining about a witch hanging in effigy in some town I can’t remember now. I happen to think the Palin effigy is in poor taste but the hanging witch doesn’t bother me so much. <Is there a difference? Ba-dum-dum-dum-crash>
that god damned foot in the trunk thing is a plague… A PLAGUE!
Every year like clockwork there is at least one sonofabitch in Portland driving all around the town with one of these things causing dozens upon dozens upon dozens of calls on this.
Caller: “This is really wierd. I don’t know if you’ll believe me… but there’s a foot sticking out of the trunk of this car! It’s really disturbing…”
Me: “Is it a blue cadillac?”
Caller: “Yes…”
Me: “It’s a fake foot ma’am, it’s been checked out.”
Caller: “No, that must have been a different car, this is very real!”
Repeat x100
I feel like banging my head on my keyboard just thinking about it
Tell me about it. Last year I ran through six cases in just a couple hours. I think some of those little fuckers were trading costumes and coming back for seconds though! Gonna start with ten cases this year. Hopefully that holds up!
It’s not just acting like a moron–it’s an excuse for women to dress like whores. I don’t see the connection between Halloween and prostitution.
The same thing happened with Cinco de Mayo. They wanted to sell more beer and tortilla chips, so they took a day that few Mexicans celebrate and sold it to people in the U.S. as a big party day. And now, hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. think Corona is a good beer because it’s “imported.”
The buttholish-ness is a preemptive strike of retribution for having to suffer through all the rest of your cutesy-poo christmas glurge for the following three and a half months.
I don’t think it’s acting like an asshole just because people are too stupid to realize there’s going to be fake stuff like that around Halloween. Unless that’s what they are counting on, but I think the majority of people doing that stuff are expecting people to get that’s it’s fake and related to the well-known holiday of Halloween.
Ha, so some people are too stupid to get it so it should be stopped? I don’t like the actual damage pranks of Halloween, egging and shaving cream, but sticking a foot out of your trunk is a harmless prank.
I hate catering to the lowest common denominator. FTR, I don’t put anything really scary around my house but I like it when other people do and hope they don’t stop.
Why can’t us (I wanted to say “Halloweener’s” but that wouldn’t fit right)… people who love Halloween just throw out a few gags, pranks, bloody feet, and decorations a few days beforehand… Is it really oh-so bad? The whole point of it is to scare you. Anything on the day of Halloween is all but expected. What do you say we start about a month in advance next year… kind of like Christmas does.
The industry term is “halloweenies.” I decorate my yard the last week of September and add stuff each week right up until Halloween, then it all disappears the following day. The yard gets mowed, the bushes trimmed, and flowers planted back. We don’t do Christmas. The best part is that since my stuff is up longer, people get really complacent about the yard, making it far easier for me to lurk in plain sight. I don’t even have to hide anymore, just stand around like a prop until some unsuspecting soul wanders too close.
I can’t wait until I have my own house. My Halloween decor will stay up until Christmas. I will simply add lights to everything. During the day, you see Halloween. At night, nothing but Christmas lights. This will confuse the hell out of people.
So it seems you have the same passion I do for scaring people. I worked at an attraction Dueling Dragons at Universal Orlando in 06. The queue line was through a dark, creepy castle. This is where I spent my breaks. These people never saw it coming, and I wouldn’t move a muscle. Similar to your yard. My peasant uniform blended in just right so it was very difficult to distinguish between me and the other props.