Halloween

I’ve never really thought of Halloween as an actual holiday. It’s more like a fun day set aside for kids – just a precursor for the real holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. However in recent years, Halloween is becoming more of an R-rated holiday for adults and less of a day for kids to dress up like their favorite superheroes or villains and get candy. Personally I haven’t been trick or treating or participated at all in this faux holiday since I was ten years old. However it is obvious that many adults, especially women, take this “holiday” as an excuse to dress risqué. In fact it is less about ghosts and goblins and more of a game to see who can wear the least amount of clothing when it is 30 degrees outside. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

So why did Halloween go from the scary and spooky holiday to the tawdry and brazen one? If you think like Freud, you know that individuals are motivated by two things: sex and aggression. However society has rules that keep us from acting on these two impulses. As individuals of the society, we know that certain things are deemed inappropriate and improper. However repressing such impulses and desires doesn’t ever last long as anyone who has misplaced anger on someone other than who it is truly meant for knows. So when a holiday such as Halloween gives us permission to dress and act like a character we are not allowed to be in “real life,” we take advantage of it. It’s like an unspoken rule - on one day out of the year women get to dress any way they want without being considered a harlot. Because after all that’s not really who she is, she’s just in character, acting, playing a role, even if some women play the role so well they deserve an award for their performance. Once November first hits however, she’ll go back to being the student, doctor, secretary, or whatever it is until that one day comes back around when she is allowed to be anything she desires.