Subversion!
HOLIDAY MUSIC TRANSGRESSIONS: PART THREE IN AN ONGOING SERIES
Part One: "Jingle Bells" to the tune of "Tomorrow Never Knows"
Part Two: "Happy Christmas"
Christopher Hitchens' column in Slate today helped me invigorate my disdain for Christmas hysteria, as did the generic Christmas music that plays non-stop in my mother's kitchen.
It does give me some perverse joy to know that "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" could be written, recorded and broadcast in a Christian nation. It's got home invasion and (double) adultery and the most mythic age gap since God and Mary. And all of this witnessed by a child. Still, the song is too coy, even for a country that remains coy about sex. That's the scary thing about this holiday. Even sin and sex become androgynous and innocent.
Speaking of "holidays": The word means "holy days," which means all these crazy fundamentalist assholes who insist on "Merry Christmas" as opposed to "Happy Holidays" have no reason to be angry and just decided to make one up. Thanks, religion, for helping us mistake our stupidity for righteousness. Nothing wrong with saying "Merry Christmas" as opposed to "Happy Holidays" or something else. But it's a preference, not a moral absolute (a distinction religious fanatics deliberately ignore).
Andy wrote a good post on this on Dec. 12.
And now I have to go buy some more shit.
Part One: "Jingle Bells" to the tune of "Tomorrow Never Knows"
Part Two: "Happy Christmas"
Christopher Hitchens' column in Slate today helped me invigorate my disdain for Christmas hysteria, as did the generic Christmas music that plays non-stop in my mother's kitchen.
It does give me some perverse joy to know that "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" could be written, recorded and broadcast in a Christian nation. It's got home invasion and (double) adultery and the most mythic age gap since God and Mary. And all of this witnessed by a child. Still, the song is too coy, even for a country that remains coy about sex. That's the scary thing about this holiday. Even sin and sex become androgynous and innocent.
Speaking of "holidays": The word means "holy days," which means all these crazy fundamentalist assholes who insist on "Merry Christmas" as opposed to "Happy Holidays" have no reason to be angry and just decided to make one up. Thanks, religion, for helping us mistake our stupidity for righteousness. Nothing wrong with saying "Merry Christmas" as opposed to "Happy Holidays" or something else. But it's a preference, not a moral absolute (a distinction religious fanatics deliberately ignore).
Andy wrote a good post on this on Dec. 12.
And now I have to go buy some more shit.
posted by Scott at 12:30 PM
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