As Halloween approaches, annual conversations around cultural appropriation have appeared on my social media feed like clockwork.
While there are undoubtedly some who purposefully seek to make their costumes offensive, I believe most people who celebrate Halloween do so from a place of well-intentioned celebration. They want to pay homage to a favorite movie, a beloved celebrity or story.
But as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Where do we draw the line between appreciation and appropriation? To some, it seems blurry at best. I’ve found help identifying that line in a surprising place: “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” the beloved Tim Burton stop-motion animation musical.
A quick summary for those who haven’t seen the movie: Jack Skelington is the king of Halloween Town. Every year, he leads his followers into the real world to ensure the children have a Halloween worth remembering, complete with scares, tricks and candy.
After his most recent Halloween, Jack finds himself disheartened. He’s getting tired of the same old routine.
He then stumbles upon an ancient forest. In the forest, trees contain doorways to other holiday towns. He opens the Christmas tree-shaped door and is transported to Christmas Town.
He’s immediately captivated. The lights, baked goods and snow tantalize his imagination, bringing him out of his despondency.
When he returns to Halloween Town, he tries to explain what he saw to the residents. They don’t quite understand, but they are happy to be excited about whatever Jack is excited about.
He then spends countless hours learning as much as he can about Christmas. He reads books and makes decorations, determined to understand this culture.
His appreciation of Christmas was fine and good, but things suddenly take a turn in his studies with the song appropriately named “Jack’s Obsession:”
“You know, I think this Christmas thing
It’s not as tricky as it seems
And why should they have all the fun?
It should belong to anyone
Not anyone, in fact, but me
Why, I could make a Christmas tree
And there’s no reason I can find
I couldn’t handle Christmastime
I bet I could improve it too
And that’s exactly what I’ll do!”
He then embarks on a mission to take over Christmas, which includes kidnapping Santa Claus, creating skeleton flying reindeer and delivering gifts to the children.
The residents of Halloween Town made these presents, and they are things only they could enjoy: hats made out of roadkill, possessed toys and the like. As Jack (dressed in a poor imitation of a Santa Claus suit) delivers these “gifts” to earth’s children, chaos ensues.
Soon, the police get involved and call on the U.S. military to rid the world of this Santa imposter. They shoot him and his undead reindeer team down with cannons to keep him from unleashing his well-intended but harmful presents on more children.
Jack then takes an opportunity to reflect on his actions, realizes his mistakes and returns to Halloween Town to rescue Santa Claus and save Christmas.
To summarize, everything was fine when Jack was curious about Christmas. Jack grew as a person when he was in the mindset to appreciate this new culture. He engaged in new-found levels of curiosity and wisdom-seeking.
But the moment he decided to appropriate this culture for his own gratification— remaking Christmas in his own image instead of acknowledging its truth —things went haywire. He put people in danger, both on earth and in Halloween Town.
So what does all of this have to do with our observance of Halloween?
When we appropriate symbols, practices and outfits from other people’s cultures for the sake of a Halloween costume, we harm the people whose culture we imitate.
Too many of the costumes at Halloween stores have done precisely what Jack did with his “Christmas” celebration. They take a few tidbits of truth, warp them until they are something they like better, and then proclaim, “This is how it should be.”
When someone from that culture (particularly a minoritized one) tells us that those costumes are offensive to their culture, we need to believe them.
However, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” doesn’t only show us the doom and gloom consequences of cultural appropriation. It also highlights how cultural appreciation benefits us when done right. The film’s end gives a glimpse of what happens when we are invited to observe another’s culture.
As the real Santa and his team of flesh-and-blood reindeer take flight to deliver presents to the children of the world, he takes a quick detour over Halloween Town. With him, he brings something the residents have never seen before: snow.
As the snow falls, Santa calls down to Jack, “Happy Halloween!” Jack calls up his response: “Merry Christmas!”
When we are invited to participate in the traditions of people from cultures different from our own, it opens the door to a reciprocity of understanding. When we create relationships strong enough to warrant an invitation into the intimate parts of someone’s culture and history, we reflect the best of humanity.
And importantly, this speaks to how we honor the dignity of others when we respect their “no.”
The movie ends with the assurance that Jack’s not going to attempt to steal Santa’s holiday again; he respects Santa enough not to say, “But if I do it this way” or “it’s because I appreciate you so much” or “it’s meant to be an homage, not anything bad.”
This Halloween, I hope we (especially those of us whose ancestors marginalized and oppressed the cultures most appropriated this time of year) learn to wait for that end-of-movie invitation. I hope we don’t make it about ourselves or our wants when someone loves us enough to tell us “no.”
May we respond with the grace to accept that cultural appreciation has healthy boundaries and we need to respect them.
A bivocational pastor, writer and spiritual director based in Williamsburg, Virginia, she currently works as a Spiritual Director at Reclamation Theology. Cawthon-Freels is the author of Reclamation: A Queer Pastor’s Guide to Finding Spiritual Growth in the Passages Used to Harm Us (Nurturing Faith Books), and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.