The war on (terrible) Christmas (songs)

Every year its the same story: a small group of bleeding-heart liberals declare war on (terrible) Christmas (songs). For example, last year Funny or Die created a video revealing how rapey “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is. This year, a couple has re-written some of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to emphasize the importance of consent. Based on this short list, you would be forgiven for thinking that the primary objective in this war is to take down “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Other songs are also targeted, however.

For example, A.V. Club has a regular feature called “HateSong,” in which people talk about songs they hate (I know, it is a difficult concept to grasp). Last year, Dan Finnerty, who is in a band called Dan Band (that, as far as I can tell, performs primarily in movies) discussed his hatred for “The Christmas Shoes.” As you may know, “The Christmas Shoes” was named “The World’s Most Offensive Christmas Song” in 2010, so Dan’s hatred is well-deserved. Dan’s band also recorded a song called “The Christmas Flip-Flop” to make fun of it, which I suppose demonstrates more commitment to hatred than simply writing a blog post.

Whether you’re full of Christmas spirit or need a 500-reindeer-powered Kringle 3000 to help you get out of bed this time of year, here are some additional posts from the past about Christmas:

2015: Life after murder for Kevin Mcallister

2015: ELF ON THE SHELF!

2015: Preferred pronouns on the shelf

2014: Christmas as social control

2013: Christmas at Fox News

2012: Kevin McCallister, murderer?

2012: Toys for rich and poor

2012: Toys for boys and girls

2012: Thoughts on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

2011: Holiday advertising gone wrong (a.k.a. the Folgers commercial)

2009: Christmas spells relief

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‘Tis the season

Late December is not only the time for grading and holidays, it is also the time to repost things that were written long ago as an alternative to writing something new when busy with grading and holidays. (Alternatively, one might also post old things by others!) In keeping with this tradition and the approach of Christmas, here are some Christmas-themed posts from the past:

2015: Life after murder for Kevin Mcallister

2015: ELF ON THE SHELF!

2015: Preferred pronouns on the shelf

2014: Christmas as social control

2013: Christmas at Fox News

2012: Kevin McCallister, murderer?

2012: Toys for rich and poor

2012: Toys for boys and girls

2012: Thoughts on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

2011: Holiday advertising gone wrong (a.k.a. the Folgers commercial)

2010: The world’s most offensive Christmas song

2009: Christmas spells relief

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook for links to holiday-themed posts a few times a year and non-holiday-themed posts the rest of the year.

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Life after murder for Kevin McCallister

Every year while the Christian world is celebrating Christmas, Kevin McCallister has to relive the night that he murdered two home intruders. Worse than the memories is the fact that the 1990 documentary profiling these events is still aired on TV. Twenty five years later, we have been provided with a glimpse of Kevin’s life as he struggles, however unsuccessfully, to put this trauma behind him:

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook to receive updates and links in your news feed. It is basically like Serial if Serial focused on Kevin McCallister but most episodes ignored him completely.

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ELF ON THE SHELF!

Knowing that I’ve written about Elf on the Shelf a few times in the past, a friend recently sent me a link to another sociologist’s take on the elf, which is slightly more positive. Last year, responding to those who criticize Elf on the Shelf for preparing children to live in a police state, Todd Schoepflin at Creative Sociology wrote that Elf on the Shelf is fun and may even marginally improve the behavior of children for a few weeks a year. This year, he decided to reinforce this view in an ALL-CAPS POST stating that he is both still in favor of the Elf on the Shelf and “A SELF-PROCLAIMED EXPERT ON THE ELF ON THE SHELF.”

For the record, I don’t have anything seriously against the Elf on the Shelf. I doubt it affects children any more than telling them that Santa Claus can see them when they’re sleeping and knows when they’re awake and I’m sure that it can be fun. I do think, however, that moving it every night sounds like a pain in the ass! I asked my friend if Schoepflin’s post had convinced him to change his mind about getting an Elf (unlike me, he actually has a child). I hope that he won’t mind if I quote his response: “NO I WILL NOT BE GETTING AN ELF ON THE SHELF.”

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Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to sexiness

Last year, Target stopped me from making a huge mistake by labeling which Halloween cards were for boys and which were for girls. This year, though, Target has stated it will move away from gender-based signs for toys and children’s bedding. Because gender differences in Target have been completely obliterated for kids, I worried that adults shopping at Target would have a hard time deciding which Halloween costumes to buy for themselves. What if this year’s “sexy” costumes were gender neutral?! What if there were no “sexy” costumes at all?!

Given these legitimate concerns, you can imagine how relieved I was to see that Target had not failed me after all. Although fans have apparently been concerned for years about the fact that there may not be any female stormtroopers, this confusion was caused by the fact that they wore the same armor as their male counterparts. Target has eliminated the need for confusion by revealing a new stormtrooper uniform that does away with those pesky masks and pants that led people to conclude that they were all men:Gender equality in the Star Wars universe doesn’t stop at the lowly stormtroopers, though. Even the leaders of the Empire have the possibility of being women once we remove all the clothing they’ve been wearing. Darth Vader, for example, might not be a crusty old white man. Maybe Darth Vader is a woman. To find out all we have to do is remove that pesky mask and those damn pants. Ta da! Darth Vader is a sassy woman and she will force choke you (if you’re into that sort of thing)!

With stormtroopers and Darth Vader upping the sexiness ante this year, I was disappointed to see that sexiness appears to be reserved for those on the dark side of the force (though I guess it makes sense, since Yoda warned: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to sexiness). Those who want to dress as Princess Leia’s are stuck with this full-length gown, even though she unleashed her sexiness all over Jabba the Hutt’s palace in the movies:How are we supposed to know she has legs under there? Her lack of sexiness is surely the reason that nobody trusted her with a “sold separately” blaster or lightsaber like the women in the other costumes. Target knows that a hand on your hip doesn’t cut it. You need to show some skin if you want to be taken seriously as a sexy badass!

Keep your head up, Leia. Maybe next year you’ll be able to take on sexy stormtroopers and sexy Darth Vaders in your sexy slave girl costume and they’ll give you more than a finger gun to do it. Until then, use the force, I guess.

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Valentines for academics

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are some valentines for academics from Tweed. You can send them via e-mail to your own primary source:

Additionally, here are some previous posts about Valentine’s Day:

Depictions of love and Valentine’s Day shopping

Honest valentines

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook to receive updates and links via your news feed. They’re almost as good as chocolate.

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Have yourself a snarky little Christmas

Today is December 15, which means that there are 10 more days to gear up for Christmas or, alternatively, ten more days until you will stop hearing “Jingle Bell Rock” everywhere you go. In either case, here are some snarky Christmas-themed posts to pass the time:

2014: Christmas as social control

2013: Christmas at Fox News

2012: Kevin McCallister, murderer?

2012: Toys for rich and poor

2012: Toys for boys and girls

2012: Thoughts on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

2011: Holiday advertising gone wrong (a.k.a. the Folgers commercial)

2010: The world’s most offensive Christmas song

2009: Christmas spells relief

Christmas Bonus: A subscription to the Jelly of the Month Club? No, its the Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog for 2012, 2013, and 2014

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook and I promise I will stop playing “Jingle Bell Rock” (and doing the dance from Mean Girls).

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Christmas as social control

Bentham and Foucault might have been interested in the panopticon but every December we get a view of  true social control in the form of an overweight man at the North Pole. Santa Claus (or Sandy Claws, as he is sometimes called) is just the latest in a long line of beings whose sole purpose is to control children through fear (Krampus is another example, as is the Belsnickel, as Dwight demonstrated on The Office). Recently, though, Santa has been doing his spying by proxy (giving him more time to bully young reindeer).

In Santa’s place are his elves on the shelves, a team of small elves who began taking up residence in people’s homes in 2005. These elves observe the behavior of children and then fly back to the North Pole to report their observations to Santa each night. The magical ability to do so begins when the elves are named (before this point they are apparently in some sort of coma during which they can be sealed in boxes and sent to stores around the country) but the elves are in danger of losing their magic if touched. Upon returning each night, the elves hide in a new place and children delight in finding them each morning. Apparently, some of the elves also like to get into mischief, making them both spies and hypocrites.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

If you have continued reading, prepare yourself for a shock. The elves are actually inanimate objects with neither magic nor the ability to report to Santa Claus each night. Instead, adults in each household are responsible for moving the elves around (thus touching them and ruining any magical potential that they may have had). As you can imagine, this creates quite a bit of work for these adults, to the point that there are posts dedicated to dealing with the fact that they forgot to move the elves. The elves have also been copied in various ways. Telling children that Santa can see them when they’re sleeping and knows when they’re awake and knows if they’ve been bad or good seems much easier, especially since adults are likely to run out of creative places to hide the elf after about the third day.

Assuming that the intention of Santa, Krampus, the Belsnickel, and the elves on the shelves is social control, it seems that the elves would be both the least effective and the biggest pain in the ass. Imagine if the prison designed by Bentham made it possible that prisoners could be observed at any time unless they touched the prison wall, in which case a door came down that cut off the potential view of the guards. There might be no escaping Santa’s creepy spying or the Belsnickel’s judgment, but if I was a kid and I wanted to get away with bad behavior you can bet that the first thing I would do is touch the damn elf.

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There’s nothing sexier than academic regalia!

If you receive a last-minute invitation to a Halloween costume tonight and you feel the need to find a “sexy” costume, remember that there is nothing sexier than academic regalia! Alternatively, you could print off the logo for your favorite Hogwarts house, grab a stick from the yard, and go as a wizard. If you own one of these expensive costumes you may as well wear it more than a few times a year!

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How Target saved me from making a huge Halloween mistake

Stores in the United States often helpfully designate the items for sale as “for girls” or “for boys.” These designations are particularly helpful when the only difference is the color of the items, since in those cases color-blind people might make a mistake. Gift card sections are typically not much different, though the labels get a little redundant when there are also images of ponies or robots, since even color-blind people can recognize the difference between super-feminine ponies and super-masculine robots. Shopping in Target recently, I noticed a section of Halloween cards that were labeled not only “For Kids,” but “for “for a boy” and “for a girl.” You can see the cards below:

Since both cards appeared to feature the color orange, which is neither pink nor blue, I wondered about the distinction between the two and got them out to look more closely:

The card on the left is clearly a poorly-wrapped mummy (if it had been better-wrapped its skin may not have turned orange) while the card on the right is an orange owl (which is apparently possible). Based on its hat, the owl is possibly also a witch (or maybe a pilgrim). So maybe the mummy is for boys because it is a boy and the owl is for girls because it likes to wear pilgrim witch hats? Those don’t seem like strong reasons for gendering these cards, so let’s open them up and see if the inside of the “boys'” card is blue and the inside of the “girls'” card is pink:

Nope, just more orange. So the lesson Target has taught us this Halloween is that poorly-wrapped mummies are for boys who are “totally awesome” while owls wearing pilgrim witch hats are for girls who are “very special.” It is a good thing that Target labeled them for me because otherwise I may have thought that each was equally suited to both boys and girls, which would have been a huge mistake. Now I know how color-blind people feel (which explains why they get so upset about it).

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