Is This Feminist?

This woman is celebrating Halloween. IS THIS FEMINIST? 

Are you kidding us? Halloween, in and of itself, is an appropriation of a day that carries deep significance for many people. No, we’re not talking about those weirdly insistent Wiccans who are like, “this holiday was STOLEN from us! It is called SAM-HAIN!” Which is weird, because that religion was invented in the 1950s by a British dude, and Halloween has been around since (we’re going to say) at least 1927, and for most of history “Samhain” was just the name of a nice quarterly farming festival with no religious significance other than “I sure hope pigs can pray, because this is the time of year when we make ham.” I mean, it’s mentioned in some Irish epics, but arguably that’s because if your society is so farming-centric that wealth is measured in cows, if you say “and this happened around the time when we kill the pigs for winter,” people will be like, “‘oh, right, late fall, sure.” Making that whole argument roughly analogous to a bunch of New Yorkers starting a religion and then claiming that the New York City Marathon has been regarded for millennia as a Door To The Underworld, because, look, it happens at the same time every year, and it was even mentioned on an episode of Seinfeld. (In this analogy, the New Yorkers also worship Elaine Benes.) That’s a little weird, but Wiccans are sweet people, and most of them acknowledge that historically the argument doesn’t hold up, and the insistent ones are just doing their thing, so don’t bother them, because, you know, different strokes. If it didn’t have religious significance before, it does now, so whatever. 

No: We’re talking about ghosts. Every Halloween, millions of people maliciously and willfully exploit their “alive privilege” to “celebrate” Halloween, often by asking for foul corporate candy, completely ignorant of the fact that this is the one time of year when actual ghosts may prey on the sweet nectar of their fear and remind them that all glory shall fade when Death’s chill kiss claims us. Ah, no, there is no God, nor Gods, nor salvation, nor even release in death, only a faded twilight existence, and the gibbering terror beyond the walls of the world, and the dead… oh, no, the dead arise not for redemption, nor to comfort us with sweet lies of Heaven, but they arise filled with an unending rage. Their torment will never cease, for lo, they have passed through the veil and are condemned to walk the Earth forever, and you, mortal… well, you are alive. And they hate that. And they envy that. And they want that to change. They will claim you for their unholy ranks, sooner or later, for they know the great horror of nothingness, and will drag your soul with them to the Abyss only so that they may linger close to sweet warmth of your pounding human heart as it beats its last. 

So, yeah. Nice costume, asshole. PROBLEMATIC.