I don’t know whether Halloween really does help people come to terms with death, or anything like that, by coupling it with absurdity, but I don’t think “we don’t do standup comedy at funerals, so we don’t really believe in meeting death with absurdity” is an argument that holds much water. Standup comedy at funerals runs the risk of offending (perhaps very severely) individuals associated with the deceased party. (And in some parts of our culture there is something not altogether unlike that: consider the old joke that the difference between an Australian wedding and an Australian funeral is that there’s one drunk fewer at the funeral. Funerals and wakes can be pretty rowdy.)
I don’t know whether Halloween really does help people come to terms with death, or anything like that, by coupling it with absurdity, but I don’t think “we don’t do standup comedy at funerals, so we don’t really believe in meeting death with absurdity” is an argument that holds much water. Standup comedy at funerals runs the risk of offending (perhaps very severely) individuals associated with the deceased party. (And in some parts of our culture there is something not altogether unlike that: consider the old joke that the difference between an Australian wedding and an Australian funeral is that there’s one drunk fewer at the funeral. Funerals and wakes can be pretty rowdy.)