Halloween has been celebrated for many years as a day when people can dress up in ways that are not common every day. Apart from the costumes, candy gathering, and decorations – Halloween has a significant economic value to companies worldwide. Special offers for holiday and Halloween discounts have become an unassailable part of the annual celebration. However, the holiday itself has lost its notional value and meaning, along with being an unsafe holiday that only favors pockets of big corporations. Furthermore, due to the mentioned reasons, Halloween should not be celebrated.
Halloween has lost its notional value of the holiday, which is why it is not worth celebrating. The original name of the holiday was ‘All Hallow’s Eve, where hallow stood for holy or saint, translated from Old English (Amin 4). In other words, Halloween used to be a celebration of all saints and a cultural phenomenon equal to the Day of the Dead in other parts of the world. Moreover, since it is celebrated by the end of autumn and the beginning o winter, Halloween represents the harvest season celebration.
However, all the religious meanings put into Halloween have lost their value with time. Harvest no longer needs to be celebrated since people live in cities with all the conveniences of buying fruits and vegetables throughout the year. No one needs to work in the field to get bread; thus, everyone cannot celebrate the harvest. Having multiculturalism in the US, it might be inappropriate to celebrate Halloween as a day of the dead. This holiday was brought to America by immigrants and could have lost its value of traditions for the original culture when it was transferred to people outside that culture (Amin 4). In addition, religious groups might be offended by the celebration, and thus it is better to cancel the holiday.
Halloween is an unsafe celebration, and thus it should be canceled. One of the recent tragedies in Seoul, South Korea, became a worldwide spread of news over one night (Slow). In one of the famous areas for celebrating Halloween, called Itaewon, over a hundred thousand citizens marched through the streets celebrating Halloween. The horror of the holiday began at around ten the night when some people started falling on the ground, but the crowd never stopped. Over 150 people died in the crash, and over a couple hundred people were injured (Slow). One of the primary reasons the celebrations were out of control was the lack of police workers and ambulances in the area. Governmental authorities lacked action before the celebration; for instance, narrow streets that serve as the place for many deaths should have been closed (Slow). However, this year no measures were taken in advance, and thus police and fire authorities were experiencing struggles passing through the crowd. As one of the witnesses reported to BBC, he “had been to Halloween parties in Itaewon before, but says things were very different this year” (Slow 1). This example is only the most recent one, showing how dangerous a celebration can be.
Unfortunately, this case is only one of many cases when the government has no power to control the celebration. There is no guarantee that people dressed up and wearing masks will not attempt to attack innocent citizens, especially children. It is more dangerous during Halloween in places of mass gatherings because nobody can seem suspicious due to costumes. Therefore, governmental authorities should either establish specific regulations for Halloween celebrations or cancel the holiday in all states.
Another reason why Halloween should not be celebrated is that the holiday is populated by large corporations with the aim of profit and thus bears no social value. Companies actively use Halloween symbols such as pumpkins, witches, and ghosts in advertisements and promotions of their products. Some companies even produce unique products designed as Halloween symbols to attract more customers and increase sales. Such a strategy works every year, which can be seen from the graph of how much money citizens plan on spending during Halloween – numbers increase year by year (Wertz). For instance, in 2018, people bought pumpkins for 575.26 US dollars only during Halloween (Wertz 1). National Retail Foundation found that men plan to spend 98 US dollars on average for Halloween, and women plan to spend approximately 76 USDs (Wertz 1). The expenditure includes candies, costumes, and festivities for family and friendly gatherings, which primarily benefit businesses. Overall sales in 2019 were projected to be 8.8 billion US dollars, representing the businesses’ intention to make massive sales during Halloween and keep the holiday (Wertz 1). Marketing strategies of the brands influence people and result in celebrating the holiday, which has no conceptual, social, or traditional value compared to others. Moreover, thus, Halloween should not be celebrated in any of the United States.
To conclude, Halloween should not be celebrated due to three primary reasons. The first one is the absence of cultural value of the holiday for American citizens since the origins of the holiday remain with the original culture. Furthermore, Halloween was brought by immigrants, which means that traditions followed by Halloween cannot be celebrated by other nations correctly and with the same cultural value. The following reason is the unsafety of the celebration, which was demonstrated in the recent example of South Korea. The same tragedy can happen in any country; thus, the celebration is not worth the danger. Lastly, Halloween is only profitable to corporations and brands who promote it yearly and cause people to continue celebrating, hence spending money. These reasons validate the non-celebration of Halloween in any country.
Works Cited
Amin, A. “Understanding the Changing Concepts of Halloween in America. In. D. Ekawati, et al (eds.): Proceeding of The American Studies International Conference 2018, Vol. 2.” (2019): 1-6.
Slow, Oliver. “South Korea: How the Halloween Tragedy Unfolded.”BBC News, BBC, Web.
Wertz, Jia. “Halloween Is Big Business for Retailers – Estimated to Gross $8.8 Billion This Year.”Forbes, Forbes Magazine, Web.