The sociology of Halloween

Why Study it? Halloween is a big event in NA culture. It is one of the few things, like thanksgiving, that is almost exclusively NA in origin. But... How important is it to study in terms of Sociology? Lets look at some facts. The following stats are from research by a sociology PhD researcher from California.

Halloween Stats approximately 162 million people in the US celebrated Halloween in 2014. That's just over 50% of the population It is less popular with older folks, and more popular among women than men, according to a 2011 poll. 75 million adults will dress in costume this year, (over 75% of 18-24 year olds will do so). More money is now spent on adult costumes than on children's costumes.

Over 75% of those who dress up will purchase a costume this year Over 75% of those who dress up will purchase a costume this year. Only 20% plan to don a homemade costume. Total spending on Halloween in the US about 7.4 billion dollars. ($2.8 billion on costumes, $2.2 billion on candy, and $2 billion on decorations). 54 million people will throw or attend a Halloween party. 33 million people will visit a haunted house. The average person will spend about 77 dollars celebrating Halloween. 23 million people will dress their pets in costume this year, and spend a total of 350 million dollars doing so.

Popular Costumes (adult) 1. "Witch“ 2. "animal“ Runners up - Batman character, pirate, zombie, vampire, doctor/nurse, action/super hero, princess, and wench/tart/vixen.

Popular Costumes (children) "Princess" “animal" Runners up - Spider-Man, Frozen character, action/super hero, Batman character, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, witch, pirate, and Superman.

So What does it all mean? Halloween is clearly a very important holiday in the US. We can see this in not only the patterns in participation and spending, but in what people do to celebrate the holiday. Émile Durkheim observed that rituals are occasions upon which people in a culture or society come together to reaffirm their values, beliefs, and morals. By participating in rituals together, we activate and reaffirm our "collective conscience"--the sum of those beliefs and ideas we share in common, that take on a life and force of their own due to their collective nature. Ie rituals of dressing up, trick-or-treating, throwing and attending costume parties, decorating homes, and going to haunted houses.

How Has it changed? So what values, beliefs, and morals are reaffirmed through our mass participation in these rituals? Halloween costumes in the US have evolved away from it’s origins as taunts and mocking of death, and toward popular culture. Witches. Zombies, vampires, etc. remain popular, but the popular cultural trend is more toward "sexy" than scary or evocative of death. It would be false to conclude that the rituals affirm values and beliefs of Christianity and Paganism. They point instead to the importance placed on having fun and being fun in our society.

Some social theorists (Mikhail Bakhtin) have described the medieval carnivale on which Halloween is loosely based as a release valve for the tensions that arise in a highly stratified society. We could also surmise that Halloween serves a similar function in the US today. Currently economic inequality and poverty are at their greatest in the nation's history. We are faced with an incessant onslaught of terrible news about global climate change, war, violence, discrimination and injustice, and disease.

In the midst of this, Halloween presents an attractive opportunity to take off our own identity, put on another, shake off our cares and concerns, and exist as someone else for an evening or two. Perhaps it serves as one of our contemporary release valves for the social and economic strains we experience, and thus allows for the social and economic systems to continue as they are. We party and play to deal with our stressors, rather than address the actual stressors themselves.