# SJWs & Halloween



## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

DISCLAIMER: Mods, this post MAY be considered political (a topic I always avoid in this community) but I strongly feel it’s starting to really impact our community and the holiday as a whole. It’s something as haunters we all need to talk about because it has and will continue to affect us more and more going forward.

SJWs or Social Justice Warriors is a movement that’s been gaining a lot of momentum both online and offline. They fight against things like racism, bigotry, misogyny, sexism, and religious intolerance to name a few. Basically if they are themselves or feel someone else MIGHT be offended by something, they are there to eradicate it. Granted those are all things that would be awesome to have removed from society. But with this specific movement the criteria of what falls into those groups of bad things is questionable. We now live in a world of “safe spaces”, “trigger warnings” and “cultural appropriation”. It's rampant everywhere and getting worse. It's hugely popular on college campuses in and out of the classrooms. Heck there are actually even courses centered around it.

We’ve seen this stuff creeping (pun intended) into our community now for a while. I can go as far back the hangman props and the numerous complaints that it was racist – even with the head covered and the hand obviously being white. Or the complaints about certain costumes being racist - that if you dressed as a rapper it was appropriating black culture. A white person is simply not allowed to dress up as a black person famous or not. And all the “our culture is not a costume” rants. Or the guy who had the zombie nativity scene for the holidays. Or how about the haunter with the creepy dolls hanging from trees (not too different than the island of dolls)? Or the other haunter who had a realistic looking person looking like they were smashed in the garage door that someone called the cops and he was forced to remove it? Anyone remember the wiccans who had their panties in a knot over witches being portrayed as ugly green hags with warts and huge honkers on Halloween? I know I’m just scratching the surface.

Then I ran across these today:

Knotts Scary Farm is being told to shutdown it’s asylum maze because it’s insensitive to insane people. Really?! What about all those horror films set in asylums? What about all the haunted tours during Halloween in Waverly Hills? Is that insensitive to people with tuberculosis? Of course Knotts isn’t the first. I remember a few years back the Pennhurst Asylum haunt (set in the actual Pennhurst facility) faced a similar backlash.

Home Depot is removing the Creepy Peeping Tom prop (granted I would never buy such a prop, I would never tell someone else they couldn’t) because a woman was offended by it and claims it’s sexist and promotes “rape culture”.

Disney is facing backlash over the Maui costume from their up and coming animated flic Moana and actually pulled it from their stores. Why? Because it was a “brown skinned” tattoo covered body suit and was deemed offensive to Polynesians because it was appropriating their culture or something silly like that – you know, the whole “my culture isn’t a costume” thing all over again.

One of these years we’re going to hear about Pumpkinrot getting cyber-bullied by SJWs because his scarecrows are offensive to farmers or that he’s appropriating farm culture. Or will towns start demanding Halloween displays, haunts, and walkthroughs all post “trigger warning” signs? Sheesh.

When will this end? What can we do to stop these “special snowflakes” from impeding further on our holiday?

-TM


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## fwghost (Sep 30, 2013)

I find it's just best to ignore them and not give them the publicity they want. They can make all the demands they want, but if someone isn't doing anything unlawful, they are welcome to pee up a rope.


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## tarpleyg (Nov 4, 2014)

fwghost said:


> I find it's just best to ignore them and not give them the publicity they want. They can make all the demands they want, but if someone isn't doing anything unlawful, they are welcome to pee up a rope.


That's the rub though. You can't. They will absolutely DESTROY a person's life...sometimes in a matter of hours, all without even knowing why they are doing it other than the rest of their mob told them to do it.


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## RWB (Oct 16, 2012)

Checked the home depot site and you can still order the Peeper and Tapping Peeper at this time.


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## Sblanck (Sep 13, 2007)

The people running around in the woods dressed as clowns I fear could put a dent in us mask wearing folks.


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Well, apparently Knotts Berry Farm shut down the asylum attraction.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/09/29/halloween-attraction-controversy-orig-vstan.cnn


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## Bigwands (Sep 30, 2016)

Oh boo hoo


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## Pumpkin5 (Aug 8, 2010)

:frownkin:Terrorwinds, I agree, it is a sad state of affairs. I think anyone that finds anything offensive to anyone (which leaves the list long and ridiculous) kind of ruins it for everyone, because suddenly things can be deemed offensive and eradicated completely. I wish we could go back to a world that wasn't so dang PC about everything. Grow a thicker skin people....and chill out a bit. It is kind of sickening.... I don't like blood and guts in a haunt, so I steer clear....but I don't think there should be no blood and guts just because I, personally, don't like it. Live and let live...isn't that right???


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## Uruk-Hai (Nov 4, 2006)

RWB said:


> Checked the home depot site and you can still order the Peeper and Tapping Peeper at this time.


I believe the peeper was only pulled from Home Depot here in Canada. All because of one person - ONE!! - complaining.


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## Gruenenfelder (Sep 20, 2016)

It's insane how the idea of fighting against true bigotry can branch out so quickly into censorship in its own right. If you want to fight against this, there's a petition to fight back against the anti-asylum petition up now. I've signed, and you can too:
http://bit.do/war-on-halloween


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## SterchCinemas (Aug 22, 2011)

Being someone from this new generation of SJW's and safe spaces and whatnot, it makes me feel ashamed. I'm all about including everyone but it's impossible to pander to every single person's sensibilities. It ruins life's simplest joys to have to worry about what is and isn't offending people. Television, commercials, clothing, and even our domain: Halloween. I just hope that this movement loses traction and people realize that this is honestly just completely stupid.


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