There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world.

Baudrillard’s remark treats Halloween not as harmless play but as a symbolic reversal of power. In his typical mode, he reads mass rituals as “sign-systems” that stage social tensions rather than resolve them. The holiday’s costumes, masks, and sanctioned misrule become a parody of adult authority: children temporarily occupy a position of threat, mockery, and demand (trick-or-treat), extracting tribute from the adult world. Calling it “sarcastic” and “infernal” suggests that the festival’s cheerfulness is a surface simulation masking a deeper logic of resentment and retaliation—an organized, culturally permitted moment when the dominated can act out vengeance within safe limits.