With Halloween done, it's that time of year again when conservative media reanimates its defense against the "war on Christmas." Tied to a general critique of secularism and its desire to return to the Christian origins of U.S. culture, the holiday is not the only one that humanist, atheist, and agnostic hordes are out to destroy. Halloween itself, though, was in turn saved from the Christians. Hank Hill already had it figured out, from Central Texas, in 1997.
In this episode of King of the Hill, aired in 1997, "Hilloween," Hank Hill organizes his friends, Dale Gribble, Bill Dauterive, and Jeff Boomhauer III, to save Halloween from local evangelicals.
Though himself a Methodist, to Hill Halloween is a sacred-secular holiday about candy, pranks, and dressing up in particular costumes – that do not include any contemporary figures or personalities, especially "Elmo, Aladdin, and Jenny McCarthy." The only good costumes are "vampires, monsters, and ghosts." After a lawsuit challenging the local school's sponsorship of a haunted house, Hank being branded a Satanist, and the police being called on Bobby, the gang draws the line when a curfew is imposed as a way to stop Halloween.
Check out a clip from the episode here, and embedded above. Kind of the Hill is available to subscribers to Hulu or YouTube.
Consider the critique that National holidays, odd and unique in and of themselves, have become about profit and distraction—U.S. culture in a ritualized and shared Petri dish of invented celebration.
Or, as Dead Prez said, "Is there even a master plan?/An unseen hand? Is God a man?/Some say that's sacrilegious/Same folks selling us lies about Christmas/Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny/Just so the capitalists can make money/They say God will take care of it/But you a terrorist if you say the same thing in Arabic/It's so hypocritical." Check out the video "No way as the only way."
In the spirit of prepping for the axis of holydays – Halloween, Thanksgiving (or Thankstaking, depending on your perspective), and Christmas, check out this video, "How Capitalism Stole the Holidays (and Killed the Planet Along the Way").
