Photo by pixielauren

Original Caption: ''The kids getting candy at the mall in their costumes.''

Last Halloween, I was on my way back from a quick motorcycle trip to Mexico. I took a friend on the back seat down to Puerto Peñasco specifically to escape American culture and get a glimpse of El Dia de los Muertos. Our American ignorance proved unfailing. We were surprised or rather disappointed to find practically no public celebration. Perhaps, that’s because we assumed the day of the dead was the same day as Halloween, when it was actually celebrated on Nov. 1 and 2. But despite that important misunderstanding, we didn’t notice any marketing campaign pushing goods for the upcoming holiday. We didn’t see any skulls for sale in the supermarket or in the candy store. We were surprised to find absolutely no commercialization of the holiday at all.

We left Mexico on Halloween, the day we thought was The Day of the Dead, and on our return trip spent the night in a suburb north of Phoenix called Anthem. We happened to stay in a Howard Johnson across the street from an outlet mall, and when we ambled on over to the mall we found the strangest site. The children of the suburb were all dressed up in costumes, walking door to door with their parents collecting buckets of candy from merchants such as Gap, Nike and Ralph Lauren.

The contrast between Puerto Peñasco, Mexico and Anthem, USA was sickening. The sight horrified me for two reasons. This takes the meaning of a corporate holiday to new far more malignant level. This wasn’t just marketing and clever holiday packaging. The corporations were actually hosting the holiday itself!

Photo by Ken Rachynski

Children in line and in constume for candy at the mall.

What horrified me more, though, was what the event told me about it’s community. This suburb at the outskirts of Phoenix probably hardly existed five years ago, now it was teeming with a commuters and their unfortunate offspring. These people really don’t know each other. There is relatively little that bonds this community together and hence, these inhabitants of Anthem don’t trust their neighbors. So the safe alternative–the only haven of trust–turned out to be the corporations that set up shop in Anthem’s Outlet Mall. Isn’t that just sad? Is it not curious how the increasing disintegration of our communities drives us further and further into a dependence on the corporation?

When I further researched the Outlet Mall, I also found they offered free interactive kids programs on Wednesdays. Now, why do you suppose the outlet mall offers a free interactive kids program? I’m sure they’re marketing manager knows it’s worth the investment. Not only will this “free” class drag parents into the outlet mall, but it will also familiarize a whole group of young potential consumers with the brands of evermore paternal corporations. This terrifying event seems like an event lifted from the pages of an old distopian novel, but this scene is real, and iI’ll bet it’s not an isolated incident. Rather, it’s likely the beginning of a rather disturbing and popular trend where communities spring up in external elegance, numerous conveniences, complex city government and advanced infrastructure, but lack all the innards that make a real community of human beings a cohesive unit.

Hannah Montanna is just so hip and sexy. Why wouldn't you want to buy her jeans?

I was resentfully assaulted by this whole Hannah Montana sensation upon a rare visit to my local Wal-Mart. Images of her plastic face decked with copious amounts of foundation, heavily liner-laden porn star eyes, lips sparkling with her own brand of lip gloss were enlarged and plastered on display bins and posters at every turn in the store.

Her face was branded on bicycle helmets, movies, compact discs, backpacks, alarm clocks, swimming suits, clothes, lunch boxes, jewelry, stickers, games, scooters, play phones, bath beach towels, notebooks, planners, key chains, iPod docks, dolls, books, folding chairs, blankets…I’m frankly too fed up to go on.

Now I have nothing against Miley Cyrus personally, but don’t you think she’s a little young at the age of 15 to be in bed with fat dandies like Wal-Mart and Disney? Wait, there’s no age of consent law when it comes to selling your body to a corporation. But this is really undignified. One could say she entered into these agreements on her own free will. But these corporations own her. They made her who she is. They put her up in front of the lights, up in hot new clothes, in layers of makeup, and they purchased the rights to her body for just a couple million dollars a year. Despite all the money they’ve paid for her services, they know they’re getting the better deal. They are ravishing this young woman, and they’ll gang bang all the money they can out of her hot little bod until she’s dried up on drugs.

What’s even more disturbing is how parents aren’t disturbed that their little girls are eating it all right up. And that their pubescent boys are salivating at the mouth. Sure it’s effective marketing, but what does it reveal about the idiocy of our culture? Are we not concerned about the dignity of our girls who are parading around as little Hannah Montana wannabes? Are we not concerned that this underage sex-icon is setting the standard for young women? Is this perfectly-primped Barbie-doll-superstar millionaire-teenager, really the role model we want our girls to aspire to and compare themselves against?

Of course not. But is Wal-Mart going to pull Hannah Montana items from their shelves in moral indignation? No. Are Wal-Mart customers going to boycott in outrage, until they do? No. Hannah Montana is the product of Disney, a great and paternal corporation. When a great and paternal corporation endorses something, the customer is obliged to endorse it as well. Who is a single man to disrespect a great and paternal corporation?