The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that local amusement park King's Island dropped its Halloween homage to recently deceased celebrities. Included in the display were a skeleton dressed like Michael Jackson (surrounded by empty pill bottles) and one dressed like Sonny Bono (tied to a tree wearing skis.)
Is this distasteful? Sure. Might it offend people? Obviously since they pulled the display because of the controversy. But King's Island turns its park into a huge haunted house style attraction during the Halloween season, and that display was not only in the Halloween spirit, but it has been done hundreds of times before with so many other celebrities. I'd be surprised to not see the like in a haunted house.
Displays like this are nods to the ancient belief that the veils between the world of the living and the world of the dead are thinned and yes, the dead may well show up at your Halloween party. This concept is important in a culture that deals poorly with death, aging and other aspects of life that come naturally. We need to realize that death is a part of life, accept it, and maybe even laugh at it (and ourselves) a little in order to be human, not to mention sane.
As humans, we need to be scared a little, need to be reminded that death happens-- even to our beloved pop singers and football stars.
But at least they didn't totally forget about Halloween like Lowe's Hardware did.
