Online Petition Calls for Removal of Knott’s Scary Farm ‘Day of the Dead Scare Zone’

By:
Oct 10, 2014
8:30 AM

An Change.org petition by Armando Cruz Velasco of Hesperia, California, is calling to get rid of a “Fiesta de los muertos” Scare Zone at Knott’s Scary Farm (part of the famous Knott’s Berry Farm theme park).

DayofDead

Cruz Velasco’s petition says:

For the last few years, Knott’s Scary Farm has had a Day of the Dead Scare Zone. This Scare Zone is extremely inappropriate and culturally insensitive; it belittles a cultural and religious tradition to nothing more than decor. It is not something to take and make into a “Scare Zone,” which by the way is little more than an outdoor club with electronic dance music and “scareactors” appropriating stereotypical Día De Los Muertos attire while dancing to EDM.

This sacred holiday—although trivialized in media and mainstream—is important to the Latino community. From October 31st to November 2nd, we pay our respects to late loved ones and honor their lives.

Would Knott’s get away with taking another sacred cultural holiday and creating a Scare Zone with it? I think not—so why are we letting them appropriate Día De Los Muertos year after year after year?

I hope you join me in asking Knott’s Scary Farm to discontinue this sacred holiday as a theme.

Please sign this petition with me, letting Knott’s know that, until they change once and for all this “Scare Zone” to something less culturally insensitive and offensive, you will not/no longer be a patron—and will encourage others to do the same.

So far as of this posting, the petition has gotten over 500 signatures, and it came to our attention because Change.org sent an email to us saying that it is a petition that is generating interest. In addition, people have begun to tweet about it:

But as with anything, there are online supporters of the Scare Zone as well:

This isn’t the first time we have seen appropriation of Día de los muertos. And it very likely won’t be the last. Just ask Disney. Or a bunch of marketers at Coachella.