Today on her Huffington Post Blog, Jamie Lee Curtis (best known to horror fans as the original Lori Strode in John Carpenter's Halloween, as well as the star of thr original The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train), shows us she's actually very anti-horror on Halloween.
Her desire to 'tone down' the gore on halloween, especially when it comes to kids, just really gets my panties in a twisted, bleeding bunch.
"Halloween, the holiday, is a breeding ground for a seemingly unending gruesome gore fest," says Curtis. "Has it always been this way? I don't think so. I remember Halloween as a time to dress up in a costume other than myself. That was what was fun..."
"The fact that my film nemesis," she continues, "And if you ever see the forgettable Halloween 8, my subsequent murderer, Michael Myers (for the uninformed, he is the one in the gray jumpsuit and white mask brandishing a butcher knife) was, this morning, on the front page of the New York Times being modeled by a six-year-old. A six-year-old. A six-year-old. Are you kidding me? WTF is going on? Are we really so inured to the realities of violence that we think it's cute that six-year-olds are trick or treating as mass murderers? That their best friend is going as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre-er, replete with realistic sounding chainsaw dripping blood.
Often when I am doing a book signing for one of my children's books a young fan will come up with their parents, get their book signed and then (breaking the rules of the book signing) try to slide their well worn DVD of Halloween for me to sign. I look at this young child and ask, 'Have you seen this?' and they say, 'Yes...and Halloween 2 and Friday the Thirteenth' etc., and I snap a look to their parents, like I'm sure that prick who shouted 'liar' was snapped during Obama's address, and glare and say with my eyes, "Are you insane? I really should call Child Protective Services.
We have to stop and ask what are we doing or saying to our children that this level of violence is acceptable for our children... As I write this I am rethinking our spider display outside our home. Is it too scary for the neighborhood children, many of them young, who walk by our house on their way to the local grade school, a school where I hope they will be taught right from wrong, truth and consequences and that I hope that they will then go home and teach their parents?"
Curtis isn't the only one falls into this super-protective mindset whenever the precious tenderness of children is mentioned. There is an article in the NY Times today about what costumes are 'acceptable' for your kids and what are not.
For instance, in Illinois, students are being encouraged to dress up as historical characters or delicious food items rather than vampires or zombies. In Texas, a school has issued suggestions for “positive costumes” for the annual Halloween dance. At Riverside Drive, a Los Angeles public school in the San Fernando Valley, the Halloween parade will have no horror in it.
“We’re balancing a tradition here with the times we live in,” said Tom Hernandez, a spokesman for District 202 in Plainfield, Ill., where costumes depicting animals and food (preferably carrots or pumpkins) are in favor.
Carrots? as an effing costume?
What happened to the good old days when kids like me would run home terrified and crying because the kid next door dressed up like Michael Meyers and chased me around the street with a rubber knife? THAT was freakin' halloween. Yes, I pissed myself, but I wouldn' trade that memory for the world. I remember one Haloween I watched Pumpkinhead on TV during the day and was actually nervous all day long because I was so disturbed by the images I saw. THAT was a great Halloween. I haven't ever been scared like that as an adult, and I miss it.
Halloween, thanks to rich, overprotective mothers, is turning into a bland and boring holiday wher ethe moms will carve happy faces on the pumpkins for the kids (knives are sharp) and dress their kids like carrots, and moniter their trick or treating no matter how old they are, and prevent them from scaring each other or basically doing anything fun ever, for the rest of their lives.
Then these kids grow up and why we wonder we have 22-year-old men acting like teenagers, unable to have adult relationships or take anything in school seriously, who refuse to get jobs and who have no respect for women as adults - because MOMMY wouldn't let them grow up.
Jamie - here's an idea. Show your kids Halloween, the original. Scare the shit out of them, give them nightmares. Fuck, you made the damn movie, didn't you?
Cut and paste is great! Here are my thoughts (again, in case anyone gives a shit): Hmmm,I have a six year old who is a fan of all things horror and a four year old who can barely handle being told BOO let alone anything my six year old can "digest".
Kids NEED to kill monsters. They need to understand monsters. They need to identify monsters so they know how to face them. I don't think people should force their children to watch horror and gore and violence (especially the violence) but if your children enjoy some of these scary things--then so be it. It opens the floor for discussion. Halloween is for being scared shitless. It is for remembering good times, loved ones past, and to realize mortality. There is nothing better than going dressed as a serial killer to confront that.
As a mother, that's my job: to encourage independence. To encourage creativity. To encourage individuality and success. It is an individual choice, however, on what you think is appropriate for children. But MY kids are not one-in-the-same and if one wants to be a frickin' carrot, and my other child wants be a huge radioactive rabbit who loves to eat little kids dressed like carrots. Then by all means, I won't stop either one of them.