Tonight is Halloween, but you already knew that. Conservatives have a, well, strange relationship with Halloween, but you probably already knew that as well. So now all we have to do is wait to see what side Fox News will take, because Fox News is the be-all, end-all of deciding what conservatives should think, a thought which is especially funny when you take a look at the cast of
Fox & Friends and wonder when the "thinking" part is going to start happening.
No matter: let's hear the verdict, courtesy of Fox's dumbest show:
But now Fox & Friends is defending Halloween as a force for all-American good. Because the real demons, F&F has decided, are immigrants and the politically correct elementary schools doing their bidding by cutting back on Halloween festivities.
“It’s an all-out assault on Halloween!” Brian Kilmeade opened the segment last week. “Schools across the country are doing everything from banning costumes to even removing the holiday because it may offend immigrants.” “I’m just sad,” said Gretchen Carlson, “because I have two little kids, and I’m wondering if they’re not going to ever see the American traditions that all of us had.”
All right, fine. Now Halloween is good. Frankly, I'm a little relieved. It seems like ever since I was a child, Halloween was under attack. It was un-Christian, you see. It was pagan; Christmas has pagan origins too, of course, but it has been more properly assimilated, as has Easter, because Santa and bunnies make perfect sense if you just stop to think about it. Halloween celebrates "evil," the good Christians vow, and really, once you've seen the 232nd Disney princess show up at your door, I'm not sure how to dispute that one.
There is a certain segment of Christianity that is deeply superstitious, in all the general pagan ways; for them, the list of things that are devil-infused or have evil magic powers or the like is robust, and Timmy, the little neighbor boy, is just one plastic zombie mask away from unleashing all the forces of the undead upon you and your family, turning your entire block into some sort of supernatural superfund cleanup site. This has been the refrain against Halloween, that wonderful night of celebrating all that is scary and/or bad for your health, ever since I can personally remember.
Those attacks on Halloween, however, were trivial. No, Fox & Friends has determined the true danger facing us, and kudos to them to managing to link it squarely to immigrants. Halloween is under attack from immigrants, who might be offended by little children dressing up as Batman, or vampires, or vampire Batman, or Iron Man with vampire sidekick, or Disney's Little Mermaid if she was a vampire and hung out with Batman or Iron Man. All of this was gleaned apparently from one school principal somewhere in America mentioning "cultural differences," and since we know that crazy anti-Halloween Christian television ministers can't possibly count as "cultural," the fellow must have been referring to brown folk.
In my day (cue Andy Rooney voice, here, and perhaps a lovely sepia filter on the lens just to emphasize the point), threats to Halloween consisted mainly of razor blades, which apparently were in every single apple every child ever got. This was followed closely by the fear of houses that gave out pennies, like that was a damn thing a child would want to have, after they had mustered up the considerable courage required to walk up to a perfect stranger's house and beg them for food. The biggest and most giddily fun danger was, however, dangerous, dangerous costumes. I'm talking about plastic masks that would either suffocate you or block your view of traffic (because the best thing to do during Halloween, as every child knows, is cover your face and wander around in traffic) or store-bought plastic costumes so flammable that even thinking about fire would send you up like a Roman candle right where you stood. Oh, and anyone standing nearby would also drop dead from the toxic fumes. No, those were the days. Survive all that, and you might live long enough to be lectured by an old woman handing out pennies who didn't approve of your costume because Vampire Batman looks suspiciously like you are not a good boy, but are openly rooting for evil, and/or bats.
Halloween survived all of that, and was never considered under attack. The Christian right has been up in arms about it for years and have gotten nowhere with it. Now that the elite conservative minds have heard that some schools might not be allowing your child to dress up, however, it has suddenly become a cause worth rallying to. It wasn't until someone thought about how it could be connected to immigrants that the threat became, apparently, a perceived "all-out assault." Yes. Yes, that is it. Halloween is being canceled because of the immigrants.
Ah well, it could be worse. Conservatives could be up in arms over the First Lady of the United States handing out fruit for Halloween, instead of good old fashioned American sugar bombs—wait, what's that?
Oh, damn it.