AM I DREAMING?

 

Marcotte must hate the really uncute 1969 version
of the Beatles.

Eight years ago, this blog brought to your unwanted attention Amanda
Marcotte's screed against Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Her gripe was that it's "a record I resent, because it helped to cement this notion that music for girls is silly and music for men is artistically significant." You know, the moustaches, interesting lyrics, and sophisticated arrangements being too deep for the female intellect. Who needs sexist men when you've got a woman doing the heavy lifting?

What are you racists smiling about?

Well, just to even the playing field, we now have a man, Jody Rosen, claiming that Irving Berlin's classic "White Christmas" has a racist tinge. And not just because of its title. As recounted by NPR's Anastasia Tsioulcas, Rosen said that "much of that nostalgia vibe in "White Christmas" — all that longing for a pristine, innocent Christmas of yore — is a reference to explicitly racist minstrel songs like Stephen Foster's "Old Kentucky Home," sung by Al Jolson and others — music that was still a staple in Berlin's day." 

Furthermore, In "Old Kentucky Home," Rosen said, "You have, grotesquely, the freed Black man longing for life back below the Mason-Dixon line, back on the plantation. Here, instead of a Black man in the north longing for the sultry south, we have a well-to-do white person longing for the wintry north."

Pardon my un-Christmas language, but who the fuck pays writers like Rosen and Marcotte cash money to write such stupid non-think pieces? If "White Christmas" was inspired by "My Old Kentucky Home", then Celie Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" is a reboot of "Massa's in De Cold, Cold Ground". 

What's even more offensive is that
the song, "Abaraham", is not only
a tribute to Pres. Lincoln but is 
pretty bad in and of itself.

But wait, there's more! It's not just a tenuous connection with a 19th-century folk song that sets off racist alarm bells. It's also the inclusion of a blackface number in Holiday Inn, the movie that introduced "White Christmas" in 1942. This is like accusing someone of being racist because they live next door to a Klan member. One has nothing to do with the other. 

Jesus Christ in the manger! Can't we just enjoy "White Christmas" without being "reminded" of its alleged "connection" to a song written in 1852 which is today performed only at the Kentucky Derby? If so, I'll continue to remind readers of definite connections of idiot writers to respected news outlets. Merry Christmas!

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