Analysis #5: "The Real Reasons Why Jack Skellington Takes Over Christmas"

The Real Reason Why Jack Skellington Takes Over Christmas:
A Post-Colonial Look At The Song, "Town Meeting"

The film Nightmare Before Christmas can be paralleled to our own world when looking critically at it through the lens of post-colonialism. Edward Said in his book, Orientalism, shows various binaries of the Orient against the West: the Orient is childlike, irrational, different while the West is mature, rational, and normal (8). In this essay, we will investigate this binary Said presents while looking at Halloween Town (strikingly "normal" like the West) and Christmas Town (conversely, extremely exotic, like the Orient).

Culture is, in this film, whatever holiday you come from. Gloria Anzaldua argues in her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: the New Mestiza, that "culture forms our beliefs" (1018). Jack Skellington's beliefs stem from his culture of Halloween Town. After he inadvertently discovers a new holiday/culture (known as "Christmas"), Jack returns to his homeland of Halloween Town and calls a town meeting as the reigning Pumpkin King. Through songs such as this town meeting one, the imperialist mindset is spread throughout the entire population of Halloween Town. They even go so far as to kidnap, terrorize, and blindly follow their delusional leader in order to "capture" the joys of this exotic and new culture of Christmas.

...but back to the song at hand.


Jack immediately calls for a town meeting when he returns to Halloween Town. As a professor would lecture students, as a scientist would present her findings, so does Jack as he stands tall and confident at the podium. He becomes the "intellectual authority" (Said, 2) of Christmas Town based on the fact that he's discovered this new culture, manages to embrace it after a single trip, and can share his knowledge with the rest of Halloween creatures. Said draws from Foucault's concepts of knowledge and power how how they are tied together. He brings it a step further into post-colonialism and argues that those with the knowledge of the Orient became the "intellectual authorities" over the Orient; the Orient is what the West says it is. We can parallel it to this song, where Jack successfully presents his case as the "intellectual authority" on this strange and new Christmas Town:

Listen! There were objects so peculiar
They were not to be believed
All around, things to tantalize my brain

It's a world unlike anything I've ever seen
And as hard as I try
I can't seem to describe
Like a most improbable dream

But you must believe when I tell you this
It's as real as my skull and it does exist
Here, let me show you...

Jack goes on to describe the exciting and confusing concept of a "present" and a "sock" to the creatures of Halloween Town, using phrases like "listen," "that's the point," "listen now you don't understand," "that's not the point of Christmas Land," "now pay attention," "hmm...let me explain," "there's something here that you don't quite grasp."

The attitude present throughout the song (and the film) is one which Said briefly discusses. There exists a strange truism: "if the Orient could represent itself, it would; since it cannot, the representation does the job, for the West, and for the poor Orient" (3). Us viewers, like the creatures of Halloween Town, are weaved into this subtle belief through Jack's confidence, grace, and overall warm disposition. We begin to understand through Jack's song that if Christmas Town could present it self, it would, but since it can't, we might as well represent it thanks to our "intellectual authorities."


However, this is no pro-colonialism film. It ends on an extremely opitimistic note, where Christmas and Halloween can peacefully coexist with one another. There is a bridging of the two cultures as both residents embrace a much less dominant outlook on the other. Said claims towards the end of the handout that "Orientalism did a great many things" (12). Like everything else, nothing is inherently "evil" or "good"...yet arguments make it so. As a huge fan of this film, I feel it is important to examine even our biases in a new light so that we can learn from previous mistakes and improve our extremely human condition for the future. The guilt of the West can be lifted, just as the guilt of Halloween Town is lifted; just as Jack learned his lesson about "taking over other holidays," we like to think we've learned our lesson about taking over other cultures.

...at least, that's the hope.

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Works Cited

"Orientalism." Class Handout.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. "Borderlands/La Frontera" by Gloria Anzaldua. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.