The current elevation of Halloween to a commercial and community holiday is symptomatic of many elements of modern American culture. Neighborhoods are littered with plastic and paper products, branded with orange and black themes of pumpkins, skeletons, scarecrows, vampires, etc.. Walking around my own neighborhood convinces me that the owners of the decorated homes have absolutely no idea what this ritual is really about. However, I am convinced that Walmart rules in their households, which contain impressionable children under the age of eighteen. The lack of mirth in the American culture is reflected in this penchant for gloom, fright and death. The patent disregard for the general appearance of the neighborhood, the environment, is also glaringly obvious in these displays of disposable materials. Halloween has eclipsed Thanksgiving, it seems. The latter holiday, in its traditional American form, was a time for community functions for the needy, high school sports events, and a history-minded reflection on the controversial origins of this nation at the expense of its native inhabitants. Thanksgiving now is a long weekend for travel, since American families are no longer community-based. Halloween is a community holiday to the limited extent that Americans celebrate community in these times. America is balkanized. Ethnic communities have once again superseded the community at large. In the absence of the nationalist fervor of war fever, like that of 2001, what is the American community? What is the American identity?
