Doggs, for this week, write a blog post that comments on the cultural tradition of Halloween. Think about how Halloween is represented in pop culture via movies, shows, images, etc. If you don't celebrate Halloween, you can still explore how fear/horror is portrayed in the media.
Try not to simply talk about your favorite Halloween memories, nor what your costume is this year. Think about fear, horror, and Halloween in terms of pop culture. Any images, video clips, etc. will be useful. Have fun!
Also, below is a video clip of seven great moments in horror films. Watch, if you dare...muwahahahaaaaaa...
The holiday Halloween was originally created 2,000 years ago by the Celts, to celebrate the day that the dead returned to the earth. Today however, it is a holiday where people can dress up as whatever they want and either go to parties or collect candy from strangers. From a pop culture perspective, Halloween can be looked at as a widely celebrated event that almost everyone in our society participates in. Halloween could represent our desire to escape reality, and be another person for a night. When you dress up in a costume, it’s almost like you become someone else. It could also represent our desire to be young, because dressing up is something that children usually do. Yet, on Halloween even adults dress up has fictional characters and celebrities. While Halloween is usually a lot of fun, it can also be really dangerous. A lot of people use this opportunity to poison kids by offering free candy to children knowing that its hard to resist free candy, especially on halloween.
ReplyDeleteHalloween is a mix of things, and it sadly has became a great danger to children. I think we definitely feel the desire to be young when we dress up and pretend to be someone or something else.
DeleteIn modern times, we all turn to good old escapism... We just so happen to have created many occasions for us to turn to that, when indeed, we should just do what we want whenever we want. It's so stupid how much cultural significance Halloween has in our culture when its predominately built upon something thats been twisted from its original purpose.
DeleteThank you for acknowledging the origin of Halloween. I think the holiday has a very interesting and important history. Many cultures still celebrate based on the original belief that it's the day the dead can come back to earth. I suppose the U.S. does that in its own eccentric way, through costumes
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ReplyDeletePop culture has reinvented the idea of Halloween. Originally a holiday of ghost, vampires, witches and superstitions. Pop culture has sparked a new type of Halloween. Less gruesome, more fun. Halloween has turned into more of a party night for teenagers, free candy for little kids, and a social nights for adults. You can see pop cultures influence blatantly by looking at the costumes people decided to wear. From Stewie from family guy, to Mr T from the A - team. Costumes have become a symbol of what we associate with in pop culture. In most cases costumes have become the main attraction for Halloween.. Just how creative and original can you be with your costume? Halloween has always been a mystical holiday. It has sparked some historic Hollywood thrillers. My personal favorite ever since I was younger Hocus Pocus. A movie themed around Halloween. Pop culture has took the day of Halloween and turned it into a money maker. Adding fuel to the fire of mystery and horror. With movies , music videos, songs, and art.
ReplyDeleteI agree that costumes are a symbol of what we associate ourselves with. we always go with what is popular and it has made costumes become the centerpiece of Halloween.
DeleteWhen people think of Halloween, some may think of monsters, ghouls, scary pranks and trick-or-treating. In today’s pop culture, Halloween is not a holiday that most people would tend to fear, but another day that Americans have to spend more money on. Pop Culture tends to turn an important holiday such as Halloween, into a marketing ploy for Americans. A million-dollar company such as Party City, greets Americans every year with the sound of Michael Jackson’s Thriller and a new commercial show-casing the unique costumes they have available in their store. Mostly, young children and teen costumes are represented in the commercial, but adults are not missed out on either. However, during the Halloween season, companies such as Party City tend to make their target audience about children and teens since they will be dressing up to go trick-or-treating. Celebrities can be seen endorsing Halloween products such as Chance the Rapper in the new Kit-Kat commercial. As well, the film industry also takes advantage of Halloween to display their new and terrifying movies. Film companies know that people are looking for a good scare during the Halloween season and never disappoint Americans without providing movies that will leave people quaking in their boots. Recent movies such as Ouija: Origin of Evil and Recovery promise screams of horror this Halloween season. Other movies show Halloween as a figurative joke. Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween explores the scary and superstitious side of Halloween, but also provides excessive humor and an overall theme people can enjoy. While Halloween is still another jovial holiday, companies are still nickeling-and-diming Americans for every penny they own.
ReplyDeleteIan I agree 100% America has turned this holiday just like every other holiday in to a money maker.
DeleteI'm pretty sure every holiday was turned into a money maker. Maybe not really Thanksgiving, but the day after is black friday. Everything has to have a price tag on it nowadays.
DeleteI agree that it is a holiday for industries to make money from. But also, it appears that every holiday seems to follow this pattern and allows companies to benefit from them.
DeleteHalloween has always been one of kids’ favorite holiday. The candy is definitely a big part of it, but I think the idea of being something other than yourself for a night also is thrilling. AS we get older, of course, G=Halloween just becomes about the costume. Most of the time we see scary costumes like weird looking clowns and characters like Freddy Kruger and Jason. Sometimes we see costumes that are a little more promiscuous such as, “a bad school girl” or a sexy cat. As we grow older, our idea of Halloween evolves and our costume ideas do as well. There are plenty of movies that revolve around the idea of Halloween, and most of the time those movies always try to put fear in our hearts. Those fears are what most of us base Halloween on. It is a time where we bring those fears to life. This year The Purge has been a big inspiration to people’s costumes and I think the movie definitely portrays one of our biggest fears. Imagine that every year, on the same day, for 12 hours anyone can do whatever they want, break any law they want without any consequences. Any person can be hunted and murdered for fun. If that doesn’t put fear in a person’s heart than I don’t know what will. Halloween allows us to dress as our fears, our favorite celebrities, and many other things. It allows us to be imaginative, and maybe it can be seen as a way to reassure us that the things that we are afraid of are not real.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the past years Halloween has changed. it used to be about the scaring of people and the things like ghosts, witches, goblins, and things like that, but now it has taken a turn in a different direction. It has now turned into be a representation of the popular shows, movies, or characters that people enjoy. They now take these popular characters and dress up as them, so I think it clearly represents what exactly is popular with people In that time. yes, the idea of scaring is still there and it always will be because the founding was based on bringing back the dead in a sense, but I feel like the characters that are becoming more and more popular today are images from films that are popular, especially with children. It has also seen to be used as a tool for pop culture by being a medium of which companies get their products viewed simply because it is Halloween themed and a lot of people participate in the holiday. Candy companies get especially popular around this time because of the Trick-or-treating that occurs. They specifically target children in their ads, bag decorations , or even shapes of the candy because they know children are the main point of participation in Halloween. This is mainly because it allows the children to really use their imagination and be their favorite character. I believe that Halloween will continue to transform as pop culture does, but it will also always incorporate the old ghost and things that have always been involved in scaring.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you! The traditional intended meaning of the holiday has dispersed and we don't really celebrate it for the right reasons anymore.
DeleteHalloween in todays time is just another way for companies to make money. It is not about the day of the dead anymore or the original meaning of the holiday. America actually stole this holiday from Mexico, this holiday originated in Mexico to celebrate your friends and family that had passed away. Hints the name day of the dead. America has turned this holiday in to a marketing scheme. Candy makers, costume makers, pumpkin farmers, and craft stores, etc. all push this holiday to build sales. There are store that only open up for the month of October to sale Halloween items. Candy companies sell more candy for Halloween then all other holidays combined. If it was not so popular in pop culture to carve a pumpkin for Halloween think about how bad that would hurt the pumpkin farmers. Haunted houses have recently become very popular in America around Halloween. These haunted house companies make enough money in a month or two to be closed the rest of the year. Craft stores and décor stores like Hobby Lobby and Michael’s strive on Halloween and all holidays to sell decorations. Costume making companies would go out of business if Halloween was not so popular. They could not stay in business with just the other holidays. America turns anything they can in to a way to make money and that is exactly what they have done with Halloween. Halloween is still a great holiday.
ReplyDeleteI cannot agree with you more about how Americans steal holidays and other things and make it into their own like we invented it.
DeleteOne main cultural problem is how we love to sink our money into things which are inherently useless, but we still love them anyway. It's this whole shebang that's been ingrained in us since we were children, which I hope to see fading out soon. As we grow older, we start looking at all the holidays that we used to celebrate as kids and realize that basically none of them matter except to specifically us.
DeleteHalloween is one of the most popular holidays in American society and the celebration/meaning of the holiday has shifted immensely since its origin. According to History.com, Halloween originated in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain where people would light bonfires and wear costumes to scare off ghosts. The Celts believed that on the night of October 31 ghosts of the dead would return to Earth and damage their crops. The traditions of Samhain were incorporated into All Saints’ Day, created by Pope Gregory III, which was on November 1 and would make the day before (what we now call Halloween) known as All Hallow’s Eve. As time went on, Americans started to practice these activities and eventually adapted it into our own culture. Modern day Halloween has transformed into a whole new meaning. Now, Halloween is a way for Americans to escape their hectic lives and live a night full of fantasy and of course, candy. Halloween has become such a popular holiday that it is exploited for as long as possible. Stores advertise and fill their merchandise with costumes and decorations weeks before the month of October even approaches in preparation for all the boosts in sales they will have. TV is flooded with scary movie marathons and classic Halloween themed movies like Hocus Pocus, the Halloween Town movies from Disney Channel (my favorites), The Nightmare Before Christmas, etc. all month long. We have transformed Halloween from a day of celebration of the dead into a day centered around mainstream costumes, candy, and an excuse to party and it will forever be one of the greatest days of the year.
ReplyDeleteI never really knew the history or meaning of Halloween so thanks for sharing.
DeleteI think that the cultural tradition of Halloween is a very fun and festive idea. Well at least for children, it’s because although you can always have fun dressing up and what not, I feel like the cultural tradition of Halloween has been twisted via pop culture to be associated with cliche and well known tropes such as horror and monsters, in addition to being capitalized by companies of all sorts such as cheap costume makers, candy producers, and prop makers. Halloween movies have been churned out year after year and only recently started to die out. Although many may fondly remember movies such as Hocus Pocus and Halloweentown, there aren’t many movie such as those anymore, and instead those halloween movies are just stick to outright fear/horror movies much akin to “The Shining, Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw” and etc. I see Halloween as much of use as one sees the Easter Bunny, something that was based on something real and turned and twisted into a basis for commercial profit. Fear and Horror films are still prevalent in today’s media primarily in films, but also have a huge following in video games. Games such as Five Nights at Freddy's, Outlast, Resident Evil, Slender and others are all horror/fear games and have certainly built up a huge following for those who’ve played them. On Youtube there are thousands of videos of people recording their gameplay and reactions, and even more people watch those videos. Even though Halloween in media such as TV and Film has certainly declined within the past years, it certainly still lives in other media such as video games.
ReplyDeleteHalloween is not only an interesting day due to its candy, shennanigans, and costume choices, it's interesting because it provides people with a sense of escape. We can dress up and party and forget about the real world and be free for a night. It seems that, in a time where imagination is uncommon, Halloween allows us to let our imaginations run free. Through costume choices, you can learn a lot about a person. Their interests, hobbys, or even fears. But when did Halloween change? When did it go from tricks and treats to slutty bunnies and bobbing for vodka apples. The progression of Halloween through the years has been very interesting. I feel that there's been two progressions I've seen with this holiday; there's my personal development of Halloween and then there's the progression of it as an overall holiday.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally, Halloween had been a magical holiday in my youth and now it's just another day. With school, work, and life, Halloween is no longer the special day it used to be. For Halloween as an overall holiday, I've seen a similar trend. Halloween has lost its innocence in its old age which leads me to wonder if Halloween as a whole will have the same fate as Halloween had with me. Is it just me or have you seen far less Halloween commercials and shows than you've seen in the past? Is Halloween dead?? ..just a thought
When I think of Halloween I think of scary movies, fall weather, and candy. Halloween used to be a day for kids to dress up and go trick or treating, but I think over the years it has turned into something many young adults and adults take part in. Halloween in my opinion has surpassed being for children but now just one more reason for teens/ young adults to party and celebrate something. But at the end of the day they're really not celebrating anything. They just have an excuse to dress up. I do believe that in most cases the costume you choose is in a way a reflection of who you really are. There is nothing wrong with Halloween it is actually a pretty fun holiday, but it is not something that I take really serious either. The media now portrays Halloween as a scary holiday. Each year hey come out with scarier costumes and scarier movies to watch. While Halloween is considered a big holiday for some people, it is loosing its importance as the years go on. Halloween is often looked over because of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's become another day to have a party and I think that people in this current generation find any small excuse to celebrate. (I mean...is that so bad?)
Deletei think its easy to think that it is more for adults now because we are growing up and seeing it through our eyes,but children still are a huge aspect!
DeleteAn interesting point that was made today on a Reddit post was a question that asked why Halloween costumes weren't all scary and if Halloween had always been so unscary. For instance, Halloween traditionally was a holiday for children to dress up as ghosts and vampires, or witches and zombies. Today, anyone can dress up as literally anything, from wearing a jersey to be a football player, to spending hours and hours on a homemade costume (or even just super lazy costume). This spread in the Halloween costume market really stems from mass media and advertising firms (like those in Mad Men) that slowly over time helped Halloween to become so consumer based like Valentine's Day has become. Through allowing people to find Halloween a holiday for dressing up as whatever, it gives consumers the idea that they can express their personality through the holiday by dressing up as something they are interested in but companies don't care for that, they care about the $$$.
ReplyDeleteI agree the only part of halloween that is actually scary is some good quality haunted houses and the scary movie marathon. Other than that its really just a game of dress up. Have you noticed that most of the costumes that we see today are from pop culture. Like Harley Quinn and the characters from frozen sfor example.
DeleteHalloween is by far one of my favorite holidays. Like what could possibly be better than hiding behind a costume and eating all of the candy that you want with no guilt? Its typically great fun with haunted houses and pumpkin patches, but there is one thing I despise about Halloween. The vulgar costumes that it seems to bring along with it. By vulgar I do not mean scary or violent but tasteless, tacky, and rude.
ReplyDeleteEvery year costume manufactures create offensive costumes without second thought in order to make a quick buck and every year someone decides it’s a good idea to wear it out even though it is offensive. These types of costumes typically come in the form of Black face -people covered in black paint/ makeup to mock black people-, cultural defamation- sexy native American costume/ sexy Geisha/ zoot suits-, sexism- sexy nurse/ sexy police officers-, stereotypes- sleeping Mexican/ terrorist Arab person- , or just flat out racism- KKK costumes/ slave costumes. Even though people make formal complaints to the corporations responsible for their creation, they still make these vulgar costumes because they are protected by the 1st amendment. In addition to that people still wear them for the fact that it is a sense of anonymity. No one knows who you are and even if they do it doesn’t matter because it is seen as just a costume. In reality, they are an ugly representation of how people in society really think about the type of costume that they are wearing but at the same time, these costume wearers get a free pass for it because it is Halloween and anything goes. I understand that we have the freedom of speech and expression but allowing such blatant disrespect to a group of people just for the hell of it is wrong and we shouldn’t be financially supporting these companies who allow this to happen. It should be common curtesy to be respectful on Halloween.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiI3cfz0YXQAhXl5oMKHStJCrwQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hexjam.com%2Fuk%2Fstyle%2Foffensive-halloween-costumes-and-how-to-avoid-them-101&psig=AFQjCNEIhF_7YPDWJhKJYHvUUQmJ3ayqJg&ust=1478023782144222
I completely agree that some groups of people take it too far and use Halloween as an excuse for ignorance
DeleteAlthough Halloween appears to simply be just another family friendly holiday, it actually represents a major trend in American culture. It represents the American people's fear of death and what happens afterwards. We see people dressed as skeletons, ghosts, and zombies and we characterize this as a scary costume, but why? A skeleton is just the system of bones in our body, so what's scary about that? We equate this with death and decay, which scares us. This is true for ghosts as well, because it plays into our fear of being trapped on earth after death. Zombies is the concept that our dead bodies will stay on earth while rotting. When did this happen? It would be easy and fair to call these creatures the mascots of our holiday, and obviously this holiday is suppose to be frightening. Americans fear aging, which results in death. This is shown not only in the representation of the scary dead, but also in the beautiful alive. We buy anti aging cream to “stay young”. The idea of staying young, and living longer is a huge industry in america. So when we want the scare factor it's easy to sell death as a fear to the American people. Happy Halloween everybody! Stay young.
ReplyDeleteSo, I don't know what everyone thinks about halloween, but I remember like in elementary school that this was probably the funnest time of year. You get to dress up as whatever you want and you walk around a bunch of rich neighborhoods for the big candy bars. I think that growing up kind of took the fun out of halloween. Other than the fact that you could probably handle haunted houses a lot better and actually find the amusing part of scaring people, I think some would think of halloween as just another reason to party and get drunk with people. To be quite honest, I have yet seen like a really great costume. So far i've only seen just memes and trends as halloween costumes.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention, any horror movie that comes out now is either a hit or miss. It's either dumb and doesn't make any sense and you walk out mad that you wasted your money on it, or the makers of the movie actually put some time and talent into writing a script for it. Whatever happened to just classic simple horror movies like the original Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Exorcist, and I mean originals as in no sequels after that. Those movies were simply based off of fear that everyone can relate to. Plus the ideas of the monsters that were created were so near perfect at the time. For instance, the original Exorcist movie was so scary because it was based off the fact that a girl was possessed by the devil and the whole movie was themed around a catholic/christian view of terror; actually being possessed by the devil himself.
When the first exorcist movie came out, my mother was actually kind of forced to go see it. She was in 2nd grade and her mom had dragged her and my aunt to go see the movie at a drive-in movie theater. And my mom and her sister were going to catholic school during the time so they knew all about the bible and god and the devil.
Well, I can't exactly tell you how scary it was from my perspective because i've never seen it, but my mother told me that the movie had sort of scarred my mom and aunt so much that they had to be institutionalized. So I think it's safe to say that the classic Exorcism movie really scared people to their core when it first came out.
Cultures all over the world celebrate Halloween in some way. Some refer to it as Day of the Dead, All-hallows-eve, and of course Halloween. It is associated with the “death” of the harvesting and growing season when crops die out for winter. Originally, it is believed that the veil between our world and the dead is the thinnest, so it is the one night that our ancestors can return to Earth. Western Halloween traditions can relate back to historical and modern day practices from dressing up in ghoulish garb to collecting candy from porches. Based on Celtic belief people would dress up in costumes to camouflage themselves from the ghosts roaming the streets, to prevent encounters with the dead as people traveled from celebration to celebration. Dressing up is widely popular especially among children. It is the one day they can be anything they want a superhero, a princess, or even a ghost. In addition to dressing up we can’t have Halloween without candy. The tradition of food originates from present relative leaving offerings for their ancestors who were able to come back for this one night a year. For El Día de los Muertos, celebrated in Mexico, it is tradition to leave offerings of food such as sweets, fruit, and bread along with others necessary items such as soap or a tub to clean themselves after the journey from the “other side.” Essentially the Americanized version of Halloween carries the fun traditions of these Historic holidays with an eccentric American twist.
ReplyDeleteHalloween is something that we've been exposed to for as long as we can remember whether we liked it or not. I feel like we enjoy being scared and that's why Hollywood will continue to make money off of horror movies, because we are absolutely fascinated by the fear of the unknown, and what's more unknown than what's gonna happen in some horror films. I feel like nothing I just said made sense, but bare with me lol. I personally don't celebrate Halloween, however, I am slightly obsessed with horror films, and have been for as long as I can remember, but I digress. Halloween before was centered around ghosts, goblins, witches, werewolves etc, but I feel like outside of horror movies the ‘scary’ has been taken out of Halloween, so much so that even the Disney channel Halloween movies and shows are lame. I mean they went from movies like Hocus Pocus and Halloweentown, to ones like The Swap. Although some people, despite the influences of pop culture, try to keep the terrifying aspects of Halloween alive. But I guess that just like any other tradition, things change. Gone are the days when kids wanted to dress as ghosts and go to the houses decorated the scariest, costumes are now based on the kids’ favorite characters or something they're familiar with. Phaedra Parks said in an interview that her longest son wanted to be a plant this year….ok. However to be fair to the kids, all they really want is candy.
ReplyDeleteHalloween is widely believed to have originated from Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the festival of Samhain which was Christianized as Halloween. But, some believe that Halloween came about independently as a Christian holiday. Regardless of its true origin, Halloween is a national holiday celebrated across the United States and in other parts of the world as well. Particularly in American culture Halloween is a holiday where our kids dress in costumes and go door to door trick-or-treating asking for candy. Young adults and older individuals also wear costumes but instead of trick-or-treating they attend costume parties or other social events with people their age. These costumes that almost all ages wear are representative of what we hold value or interest in, in pop culture. Many kids will wear their favorite cartoon character or superhero as a costume. This shows that they traditionally value these figures more and that these shows have a large impact on their ideals as they grow up. Teenagers and older individuals typically wear more specific costumes and sometimes more gruesome costumes. This may reflect their desire to impress others at the social events they attend. But, some of these costumes continue to reflect on what these individuals regard as significant to themselves. Many wore costumes from the recent film Suicide Squad in which the typically villainous figures turn out to be the heroes. It may be that this movie simply resonated with people enough to become a large part of pop culture. But, it also shows that people may be in favor of these changes in the roles of villainous figures in a movie to one they can openly support. Overall, Halloween is a popular national holiday that allows people to dress in costumes they find significant and celebrate a night that traditionally marked the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of Halloween in pop culture movies like Nightmare on Elms Street and Nightmare before Christmas pop into mind. Halloween globally seen as a big scary event. To People dressing up as other characters to the theme of Halloween being frightening. Trick or treating also goes along with that. Almost every kid around the world trick or treats on Halloween.
ReplyDeleteFriday the 13th is also another movie that is based off Halloween. There are some Halloween themed shows that don't necessarily take place in Halloween like Goosebumps for an example.
Halloween is a big in pop culture!
Cultures all over the world celebrate Halloween in some way. Some refer to it as Day of the Dead, All-hallows-eve, and of course Halloween. It is associated with the “death” of the harvesting and growing season when crops die out for winter. Originally, it is believed that the veil between our world and the dead is the thinnest, so it is the one night that our ancestors can return to Earth. Western Halloween traditions can relate back to historical and modern day practices from dressing up in ghoulish garb to collecting candy from porches. Based on Celtic belief people would dress up in costumes to camouflage themselves from the ghosts roaming the streets, to prevent encounters with the dead as people traveled from celebration to celebration. Dressing up is widely popular especially among children. It is the one day they can be anything they want a superhero, a princess, or even a ghost. In addition to dressing up we can’t have Halloween without candy. The tradition of food originates from present relative leaving offerings for their ancestors who were able to come back for this one night a year. For El Día de los Muertos, celebrated in Mexico, it is tradition to leave offerings of food such as sweets, fruit, and bread along with others necessary items such as soap or a tub to clean themselves after the journey from the “other side.” Essentially the Americanized version of Halloween carries the fun traditions of these Historic holidays with an eccentric American twist.
ReplyDelete