Banning Santa is a great way to attract publicity
With only 13 days left to Christmas it’s time for newspapers and TV stations to track down politically correct kill-joys who want to ban Santa. If you’re getting impatient for your 15 minutes of fame it’s time to make your move.
The ‘political correctness gone mad’ story is a staple in the news business. To make the story work the journalist needs 2 things:
1. An attempt to ban something innocent and pleasurable on the grounds that it might offend some minority group.
2. A politically correct villain. The villain must be secular, left wing, and in favor of causes such as multiculturalism.
This all seems simple enough but there’s a few tricks to it. If you try to ban a Hindu or Islamic celebration you’ll probably be ignored as an uninteresting racist nutter. The custom or celebration you’re trying to ban must be something ubiquitous and mainstream. To be a proper ‘political correctness gone mad’ story almost every sensible person must disagree with you.
You’ll also need to present yourself in the right way. If, for example, you demanded that Santa be banned because he was leading children away from Christ then you’ll probably be ignored as an uninteresting fundamentalist Christian nutter. You need to be instantly identifiable as ‘politically correct.’ That means educated, secular, and left wing.
If you’re a man wear your hair long and think about cultivating an unruly beard. If you’re a woman make sure you let the hair on your legs and armpits grow for a few weeks. You’ll also need to dress the right way. Try wearing rustic looking hemp clothing or something exotic from the Oxfam shop. Show signs of supporting the right causes – refugees, the environment, women’s issues, and opposition to the war in Iraq. A good story needs a good photograph. Don’t blow it by wearing a suit and tie.
If you think you can manage it, try presenting yourself as a member of a gay couple with children. If you don’t have your own children you might be able to borrow some from a friend. Try to find kids who are old enough to talk but young enough to still believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. The idea that you are inflicting your politically correct nonsense on innocent children will add extra poignancy to the story. People will be angry at you because you’re depriving children of a proper Christmas. This is good.
Around the world journalists are itching to write a story about politically correct oppressors who want to ban Santa. All they need is you.
And this years PC target….Clover Moore. According to the Tele that is.
Don, does banning something a lot of people enjoy like sex count?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/arts/12rich.html?th
Or have I got the wrong spirit here?
that uninteresting fundamentailst nutter is on the money.
I do not know what is the claus of all this!
“If you’re a man wear your hair long and think about cultivating an unruly beard. If you’re a woman make sure you let the hair on your legs and armpits grow for a few weeks.”
I decided to test myself by making a guess where this link was going to lead me before I found out for sure.
My prediction was that Don would send me to a web page for the Movie Show with a picture David & Margaret. I was wrong. I should have read it more carefully but I projected my own more highly advanced anti – secular/left wing/educated expertise on to Don. I mean Don no disrespect, he is at a disadvantage of looking at the sport from the outside whereas I, ahem, am a pretty handy particiapnt in the amateur tradition, if I may be so bold.
Don is on the trail of anti-PC types like myself but I am more highly developed; I still jeer at the hippies from time, when I go into Freo to get my haircut, but I’ve pretty much moved on. Even beyond David Marr which is where Don will probably pick up the trail again. We cutting edge righties are picking on David Stratton at the moment. His silly review of Team America is the laugh of the month, amongst the cognoscenti.
Sorry, James, but the post was about the popular mass media, not about the hip rightwing cognoscenti. But I guess that’s the tragedy of a narcissistic personality: he finds reason to congratulate himself in everything he sees, only to discover he’s the only one clapping.
Nice work, Don.
Ah yes, the notorious Stratton review of Team America. Certainly a big issue round my way, too.
John Howard’s response was suitably statesmanlike and yet … low-key. The way Ozzies like their PM.
“I think ordinary Australians will like Team America. Janette and I certainly did.”
The narcissist never discovers he is the only one clapping, so thanks for pointing it out.
Your advice is sound Don but it rather overlooks the fact that these stories wouldn’t get oxygen if people didn’t have some pretty strange ideas about what offends cultural sensitivities.
In reality, it would be almost impossible to find a Muslim or a Jew, a Sikh or a Hindu who was offended by Xmas imagery. Yet, well-intentioned folk constantly seem to envisage a multi-ethnic world suffering from post-Nativity Scene exposure psychosis. It’s not just the usual Leftie suspects as you suggest. Apart from the Childcare workers in Victoria, we’ve had the retailer in NSW who canned a nativity scene in one of his branches because it might offend people. On it goes. The notion that Xmas might offend has permeated far and wide, but no-one has ever produced any evidence to show that people are routinely offended. The Beckhams as Mary and Joseph is arguably an exception but that particular breach of good taste has universal resonance.
Geoff
I’ll take your word for it about that retailer. (Do you have any more details?) But isn’t the point that ACA would only do a story on it if some closet Marxist-Leninst municipal bureaucrat had been getting on the retalier’s back?
I love ‘post-Nativity Scene exposure psychosis’ by the way. Trauma would have worked too.
It was a chain retail outlet in a North Shore mall(?) from memory. The store had always done a nativity scene and this year a new Area Manager had canned it on the basis that it might offend someone. The SMH and the Tele both ran stories on it and the Area Manager publicly apologised for “misunderstanding community feelings.” – or somesuch. Anyway, the scene was resurrected (so to speak).
I don’t think it is about Marxist-Leninist bureaucrats at the end of the day. I think it’s more about a fatal misunderstanding of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism was supposed to be about adding to – not taking from – the cultural mix. Some of those who primarily identify with the culture of the Australian Settlement do tend to take a view that multiculturalism means apologising for their cultural traditions. I don’t think it does.
Strange that right-wingers might criticise those who hold the flawed viewpoint Geoff so eloquently points out above. After all, these deluded lefties are only arguing for assimilation, yeah?
I have seen some (small) evidence of people being offended by Christmas excess. Christians who don’t like the secular, materialistic festival it has become; ex-Christian atheists who like to get offended whenever they catch a whiff of religion; umm, that’s it, really. In theory you could also get Jewish parents getting upset because their kids are too enthusiastic about Christmas, though I’ve no idea if that actually happens or not.
Not that, at the end of the day, the fact that a few odds and sods might be offended is enough to get Christmas called off altogether. Though I’d appreciate it if Christmas Day were restricted to, if not a day, then at least just the month of December. This “It’s September, time to shop and avoid the rush!” business is just ridiculous.
Clover Moore’s reign over Christmas in Sydney
Is Clover Moore the Christmas Grinch? Or maybe just the Sydney City Grinch in general. … (In) substantial areas Clover’s thus far short reign as Emperor, I mean Mayor of Sydney is failing in many ways.