Why does Wesley want to be Jason Voorhees for Halloween?

This is the first year he has even showed interest in dressing up and he has only had one answer when asked what he wants to be.
Jason.
Ya’ know, the supernatural killer from the Friday the 13th movies.

Odd choice for a seven year old, to say the least.

We have not discouraged him because, again, it’s his first sign of interest.
We love Halloween. We make a whole month of it. We decorate the house and have our own little traditions and such, like scary or otherwise “Halloween themed” movies like The Addams Family or The Nightmare Before Christmas. We also hide around corners so we can jump out and say boo during October. We think it’s fun to have a time of year that we make light of that which can frighten us.

Maybe he gets that and it has something to do with it…

Wesley has never been easily scared by movies. That’s been handy at Halloween time. So last year I did an experiment and showed him all the Freddy Krueger movies.
Terra and I discussed the idea of showing him the movies and the bottom line was they are just fun. Freddy turns into a truck and runs people over, he pulls them into a video game world and bleeps and blips them to death, he makes a pizza out of them – he gets people in their dreams and can therefore do anything.
It’s fantasy. Dark fantasy, but fantasy.

And, btw, it’s only once a year he gets to see stuff like that – we are very controlling of what he watches.

Obviously, if he’d been scared during the first one, I’d not continued.

Anyway, I specifically said at the time “It’s not like showing him Jason movies! Jason is a human chopping up humans with a machete.” Sure, we’ll let him watch superheroes defeat bad guys – it’s stylized, it’s super powers, it’s a clear right and wrong, etc. – but I won’t let him watch gangster movies and such. Normal looking humans harming other humans.

See my point?

Well, when the 7th(?) Freddy movie “Freddy vs. Jason” came up, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.
Boy was I wrong. (Uh, and previously right.) When Jason first appeared, Wesley exclaimed “WHO’S THAT?!” and I said “Jason.” and he took that guy VERY seriously.
Ever since that one viewing, Jason is everywhere… Sure, there are appearances of him in many forms of media and popular culture – and he recognizes him instantly. But, I mean that if there is a noise outside, he says “It’s Jason!”. If mommy is late coming home, he asks if Jason got her.
This has been going on for a YEAR!
We have made it playful to sort of sterilize it. If we hear the kitty knock something over in the next room, we’ll say it may have actually been Jason. If I bang on the bathroom door when he’s taking a bath (another Halloween tradition), I’ll deny it was me and blame Jason.

It has become a running joke in our house.

But, sometimes I wonder if it’s always just a joke to him.

And now he wants to dress as him for Halloween. And he hasn’t the ability to communicate the why of his insistence.

So, we’re going to let him. Sort of. He can have a hockey mask and we’re trying to find a plastic machete. We’re having a hard time finding one that doesn’t include blood stains. And no bloodstained clothes allowed, either.

Yesterday, we showed him costumes of superheroes and Scooby Doo and Ninja Turtles – all the contents of his bedroom posters.
Nope, he said. Jason.
He even tried a couple masks. We only found adult sized so far. Imagine that. What seven year old would want to be Jason, right??

We’re doing this because it seems important to him, even if we don’t know why. I’ll take plenty of pictures and maybe next year he’ll be better at speaking and can explain why he wanted it so badly.

image

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.