Nightclub slammed for Halloween 'school massacre' theme night
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 26 October, 2014, 6:03am
UPDATED : Sunday, 26 October, 2014, 9:55am
Raquel Carvalho [email protected]
Club Cubic in Cotai, Macau
It's not unusual for nightlife venues to push the boundaries of taste with gory Halloween theme nights - but Macau's biggest club has been accused of seriously crossing the line.
Club Cubic, located in the vast City of Dreams complex in Cotai, has sparked controversy by dubbing its Halloween party "School Massacre" with the catchline "last class you'll ever take".
The theme itself and advertisements for it - depicting a bloody-eyed woman in a classroom - have drawn stern criticism and condemnation.
"The advert shows a complete lack of respect for those who went through such traumatising events, namely in the United States and China," Macau resident Pedro Lobo, 44, said. "This sort of trivialisation of violence, particularly violence in schools, does concern me."
Professor Spencer Li, a criminologist at the University of Macau, said it was a "very concerning advertisement and a very insensitive one".
"The recent stories of schoolchildren being abducted, raped and killed are very real. And given that most victims of serial killings are women, especially young girls, the picture is also very appalling," he said.
Li added that the link between the fantasy the club was presenting in its advert and the reality of violent crime was less tenuous than the promoters appreciated.
"I'm not saying they had that intention. But most of the perpetrators of mass murders have mental problems and this could work as a motivating effect," said Li, who has studied mass murders on the mainland.
But bosses at the 30,000 sq ft club said they were unaware of any criticism of their marketing.
"It's a Halloween party, so the intention is to celebrate this festival," said the club's senior marketing executive, Shirley Shao, adding that the idea was based on a haunted house model popular in Japan and Taipei.
"Every year, we try to find a story and create an experience for customers. It has nothing to do with current affairs," she said.
Once seen chiefly as an American phenomenon, Halloween has grown in popularity in Asia among children and adults alike.
In Hong Kong, Ocean Park and Disneyland compete to put on spooky themed attractions.
Tommy Tse Ho-lun, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Hong Kong, said Club Cubic's advertising was "obviously controversial" and "the 'horror' appeal and gimmick adopted has gone a bit too far".
"Even visually, it can trigger a strong sense of horror," Tse said. "It does not communicate the 'fun' element to the target audience - the Chinese youths who enjoy the event - and could be associated with real massacres."
A series of school killings on the mainland have horrified the nation. Last month, a man killed three children and a teacher before committing suicide at a primary school in Hubei province . In March, a man killed two relatives and then slashed 11 people, six of them children, outside a school in Shanghai.
In the US on Friday, a high-school student in Marysville city north of Seattle opened fire in his school cafeteria, killing a classmate and injuring others before fatally shooting himself.
In one of America's deadliest shooting attacks, a man killed 20 children and six others before turning the gun on himself at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
