Tuesday, October 31, 2006

New York Times plays to stereotypes

The New York Times this morning does a marvelous job of playing to stereotypes, namely the ones that proclaim the Brits to be stodgy, cold, boring, fuddy-duddies.

This withering away of homegrown tradition makes people hate Halloween all the more. What could be more unattractive, they argue, than a bunch of rapacious, acquisitive children traipsing around the streets, demanding candy in exchange for nothing?

“Trick or treat? I don’t know about you, but my answer to this question, if I’m honest, would be unprintable in a family newspaper,” the critic A. N. Wilson wrote recently in The Daily Mail. “Let’s say it’s stronger than ‘push off.’ Yet the little beggars will soon be round, banging and ringing at our doors with this irritating refrain.”

Mr. Wilson blamed “the kitsch hotchpotch known as American Gothic.”

Hugh O’Donnell, a professor of language and popular culture at Glasgow Caledonian University, said in an interview that “the main complaint is that it’s just fun without any meaning behind it.”

“It’s no longer got any relationship to anything — not the old Celtic idea of the living and the dead, or the Christian tradition of Allhallows Eve,” said Mr. O’Donnell, who this week is the host of an academic conference at the university examining Halloween. He plans to dress as Dracula for the official dinner.

Of course, the Times could have found a good number of Americans with similar feelings. The fact is that Britain must not hate Halloween that much, as the article does state that British spending on Halloween has increased from about $28 million to $228 million in the last five years. But I guess they couldn't find any of those Halloween lovers to quote for the story.

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