There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival

Host: The night was a cathedral of shadows — October wind rattling dry leaves through the narrow streets, pumpkins glowing like mischievous saints in doorways. Children’s laughter echoed down the block, high and shrill, followed by the faint rustle of costumes and the sharp crack of candy wrappers torn open like small acts of rebellion.

Host: Jack and Jeeny stood outside an old Victorian house, its windows black, its porch sagging slightly under the weight of time. They weren’t there for candy or nostalgia. They were there for something heavier — a thought that had taken root and refused to die.

Host: A line had been haunting Jeeny since she’d read it that afternoon, scrawled in the margin of a yellowing philosophy book found at a used store, next to a plastic skeleton display:

“There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world.”
— Jean Baudrillard

Jeeny: smiling faintly, almost to herself “Trust Baudrillard to turn trick-or-treating into an existential rebellion.”

Jack: “He’s not wrong.”

Jeeny: “You mean you actually agree with him?”

Jack: “Look around.” He gestured to the passing crowd of kids — masks, fake blood, glowing plastic scythes. “It’s not a party. It’s a ritual. Every costume, every scream — it’s the young mocking the world that tells them what to fear.”

Jeeny: “Or it’s just sugar and plastic and fun.”

Jack: “No. That’s the disguise. It’s power reversed — for one night, the powerless get to play god. The ones who are always told ‘no’ finally get to knock on doors and demand tribute.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound medieval.”

Jack: “It is.”

Host: The wind pressed against them, carrying the faint laughter of a child shouting, “Trick or treat!” Somewhere, a door slammed, and the sound rolled through the street like a spell.

Jeeny: “I think Baudrillard saw what most people don’t — the satire inside celebration. Halloween isn’t comedy, it’s catharsis. Children turning fear into performance. Death into decoration.”

Jack: “Exactly. The masks aren’t about hiding — they’re about revealing. The vampire, the ghost, the monster — those are the suppressed versions of ourselves.”

Jeeny: softly “And the candy?”

Jack: “The peace offering. Adults buying off their guilt.”

Host: A gust of air blew across the porch, extinguishing one of the jack-o’-lanterns. Its grin disappeared into darkness. For a moment, the street seemed to hold its breath.

Jeeny: “Still… I don’t think it’s all revenge. Kids aren’t thinking that deeply. They just want to play, to laugh. Maybe the real irony is that adults are the ones who turned it into a metaphor.”

Jack: “Because we know what it feels like to wear masks for real.”

Jeeny: “You think we ever take them off?”

Jack: “Only by accident.”

Host: The porch light flickered — a small, erratic flame cutting through the dark. A pair of kids in tattered zombie costumes ran past them, shrieking with delight, their faces painted white and red. One tripped, fell, laughed. The sound was pure, untamed.

Jeeny watched them, her expression softening.

Jeeny: “You know what’s funny, though? Maybe the children aren’t demanding revenge. Maybe they’re forgiving us. Maybe they’re showing us that fear can be beautiful if you just play with it.”

Jack: “Forgiveness wrapped in terror?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s the genius of it. They take all the things we dread — blood, death, monsters — and make them adorable. They’ve done what no philosopher ever could: made peace with mortality through laughter.”

Jack: “You think laughter can do that?”

Jeeny: “It’s the only thing that can.”

Host: The streetlights buzzed overhead, one of them flickering out completely. A carved pumpkin stared at them from the porch rail, its grin now half-lit — an accidental portrait of duality.

Jack: “Baudrillard thought Halloween was a mockery of meaning — a festival of emptiness. But maybe that’s its genius too. Maybe pretending to be dead for a night is the only honest thing we do all year.”

Jeeny: “Because it reminds us how alive we are.”

Jack: “And how ridiculous we are for fearing the inevitable.”

Jeeny: “So it’s not a demand for revenge, it’s a truce — between the living and the absurd.”

Host: The wind howled briefly through the trees, rattling dry branches like brittle laughter. Jeeny shivered and pulled her coat tighter. Jack watched the children vanish around a corner, their voices fading into the night’s mouth.

Jeeny: “You know,” she said, “when I was little, I used to think Halloween was magic. The one night where pretending became real. Now I think it’s still magic — just darker, wiser.”

Jack: “It’s theatre for the soul. Every year we rehearse death, and somehow wake up grateful for the morning after.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “That’s either very poetic or very morbid.”

Jack: “Probably both.”

Host: The moonlight caught the edges of their faces, painting them in silver — two silhouettes standing in the glow of civilization’s oldest game: pretending not to be afraid.

Jack: “You ever think we need Halloween? Not for the kids, but for us. A night to admit that we’re scared — and to laugh about it anyway.”

Jeeny: “That’s what makes it human. The laughter isn’t denial; it’s surrender.”

Jack: “Surrender to what?”

Jeeny: “To chaos. To mortality. To the fact that life’s a haunted house, and the only way through it is to keep knocking on doors.”

Host: The last of the trick-or-treaters disappeared down the block, leaving behind only the whisper of leaves and a few forgotten wrappers glinting under the streetlight. The jack-o’-lanterns flickered low, their smiles tired but unbroken.

Host: And as they walked away from the old house, Baudrillard’s words seemed to follow them through the dark — less a condemnation than an observation of the eternal joke between generations:

“There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world.”

Host: Because perhaps every mask
is a form of protest,
and every laugh
a rebellion against order.

Host: Halloween is not about horror,
but about inheritance —
each child reminding the world that fear can be worn lightly,
that death can be mocked without being denied.

Host: And in that single night of inversion,
when innocence wears fangs and laughter sounds like thunder,
the children win.

Host: They forgive us —
by frightening us beautifully.