October 31, 2006--Hallo-Mart
Last Saturday, Rona and I literally pushed our way into Halloween Adventure, an immense store on lower Broadway where all of its 14,000 square feet are devoted to displaying and selling costumes. Rona was looking to replace her 50-cent rubber spider ring, her only concession to dressing up for the big day. I of course hoped to lure her toward the Nurse Betty outfits. We extracted ourselves forty minutes later with neither.
The place was packed. There must have been at least a thousand shoppers snaking their way through the cramped aisles. And no one else was looking to spend just half a buck. The longest lines, in fact, were at those shelves where Dominatrix costumes were on prominent display—all costing upwards of $50 to $100. We were by far the oldest customers in sight; most of the others looked as if they had just come from freshmen orientation at NYU.
We live in Greenwich Village, the site of the now nationally-televised Halloween Parade. When we first moved there, about 20 years ago, the parade was for children and was quite informal. Five years later it had been transformed into something so commercialized, so taken over by adults that there was the need to establish an alternative event just for children. But even that one has become, in its own way, almost equally commodified. True, it does not have motorized floats with Bud Lite or Coppertone as sponsors, but virtually every kid who shows up is duded out in a store-bought costume.
No longer in sight, wrapped in aluminum foil, is Little Jimmy masquerading as the Tin Man. Nor is there Little Lois as the Fairy Godmother, clomping along in her mother’s high heels waving a homemade rhinestone wand. Their parents have also been to the costume shop, most likely the one at the K-Mart on Astor Place. So we have a hundred Little Stewie’s and Tiny Alice’s in $25 Spider Man suits (we have at least become less sexually stereotypical) and an equal number of munchkins dressed up like, well, Munchkins.
The NY Times reports that Halloween, if you haven’t noticed, has become a growth industry—costume sales this year are projected to be about $5.0 billion, up from last year’s $3.29. (Article attached.) A National Retail Federation news release says that the “average customer” plans to spend $59.06 on Halloween (up from $49.48 last year). They attribute this to a general “surge in celebrating.”
Considering what’s going on in the world I can understand why there has been that surge—putting on a costume and pretending to be someone or something else makes a lot of sense. Considering how many of us are scared out our wits by terrorism and cataclysmic events seemingly beyond our control it at first glance appears not to make sense to want to submit oneself to be scared by a neighborhood ghost or goblin. Maybe we need the help of social psychologists to figure out the meaning of this willing submission to fear and disbelief.
But while waiting for that, wouldn’t it be great if the parents would get out of the business of appropriating Halloween to themselves and allow their kids to make their own costumes (whatever happened to the ideology of fostering creativity in one’s children?) and to stop walking them around as they go Trick or Treating. Turn them loose, for God’s sake, and let them have some fun and even, hold your breath, let them make some good-old-fashioned mayhem.
The place was packed. There must have been at least a thousand shoppers snaking their way through the cramped aisles. And no one else was looking to spend just half a buck. The longest lines, in fact, were at those shelves where Dominatrix costumes were on prominent display—all costing upwards of $50 to $100. We were by far the oldest customers in sight; most of the others looked as if they had just come from freshmen orientation at NYU.
We live in Greenwich Village, the site of the now nationally-televised Halloween Parade. When we first moved there, about 20 years ago, the parade was for children and was quite informal. Five years later it had been transformed into something so commercialized, so taken over by adults that there was the need to establish an alternative event just for children. But even that one has become, in its own way, almost equally commodified. True, it does not have motorized floats with Bud Lite or Coppertone as sponsors, but virtually every kid who shows up is duded out in a store-bought costume.
No longer in sight, wrapped in aluminum foil, is Little Jimmy masquerading as the Tin Man. Nor is there Little Lois as the Fairy Godmother, clomping along in her mother’s high heels waving a homemade rhinestone wand. Their parents have also been to the costume shop, most likely the one at the K-Mart on Astor Place. So we have a hundred Little Stewie’s and Tiny Alice’s in $25 Spider Man suits (we have at least become less sexually stereotypical) and an equal number of munchkins dressed up like, well, Munchkins.
The NY Times reports that Halloween, if you haven’t noticed, has become a growth industry—costume sales this year are projected to be about $5.0 billion, up from last year’s $3.29. (Article attached.) A National Retail Federation news release says that the “average customer” plans to spend $59.06 on Halloween (up from $49.48 last year). They attribute this to a general “surge in celebrating.”
Considering what’s going on in the world I can understand why there has been that surge—putting on a costume and pretending to be someone or something else makes a lot of sense. Considering how many of us are scared out our wits by terrorism and cataclysmic events seemingly beyond our control it at first glance appears not to make sense to want to submit oneself to be scared by a neighborhood ghost or goblin. Maybe we need the help of social psychologists to figure out the meaning of this willing submission to fear and disbelief.
But while waiting for that, wouldn’t it be great if the parents would get out of the business of appropriating Halloween to themselves and allow their kids to make their own costumes (whatever happened to the ideology of fostering creativity in one’s children?) and to stop walking them around as they go Trick or Treating. Turn them loose, for God’s sake, and let them have some fun and even, hold your breath, let them make some good-old-fashioned mayhem.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
11:07 AM
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