What if someone could invent something subversive to overthrow Christian myths stolen from European pagans and Siberian shamans and made their own? Only Hollywood could hope to launch such a counteroffensive propaganda campaign, and they'd have to make it something we all loved.
 |
| Simpsons' Buddhist (dunehypnotherapy) |
(Off-Ramp) RH Greene: I
used to feel sorry for my Jewish friends at Christmastime, and not just
during the slightly sad Christmas dinners we sometimes shared down in
Chinatown [before going to the movies like decent city folk].
What got to me more was the sense of encirclement I was sure they felt, as White Christmas, Silent Night, Adeste Fidelis,
and all the usual suspects erupted from every speaker in America, while
Rudolph [the magnificent European reindeer], Charlie Brown, and the Grinch invaded every TV screen.
I was
raised a Catholic, and sometimes all that makes me feel encircled too.
On TV, there was virtually nothing Hanukkah-related to compare to the annual Christmas hits. And when I thought about Jewish families, and especially their kids, this seemed like a serious lack.
[Why?] Because TV is
still our communal hearth this time of year, and the essence of
community is inclusion.
 |
| America's most loveable Nazis, Col. Klink, Sgt. Shultz, sec'y Fräulein Helga (Hogan's Heroes). |
.
Ladies and (merry) gentlemen, I give you: Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass' 1970 masterwork Santa Claus is Comin' to Town: an origin myth for Santa and almost as Jewish thematically as the annual Chabad telethon.
Anyone Can Be Santa ("The Year Without A Santa Claus")
 |
| Mayor Burgermeister Meisterburger |
To begin with -- the villains, they're Nazis, okay? They wear
Kaiser Wilhelm Pickelhaube helmets, and their leader is called
Burgermeister Meisterburger, and the accent is straight out of Stalag 17.
The scariest moments in the special are when the Burgermeister's minions gather up Santa's first toys just after they're delivered and then burn them in front of the children they were meant for, the way the Nazis burned books at Wartburg.
The scariest moments in the special are when the Burgermeister's minions gather up Santa's first toys just after they're delivered and then burn them in front of the children they were meant for, the way the Nazis burned books at Wartburg.
By this point in the film, here's what
we know about Santa: he's a foundling, who was delivered to his destiny
on a winter wind the way Moses was carried by the Nile in the
bulrushes. The elves who adopted him are ruled by a matriarch: Tante
Kringle -- the Yiddish word for "aunt." So Santa? He's a Jew.And he's increasingly a freedom fighter, bringing toys to the children despite the Burgermeister's anti-toy decrees.
Important
to note: the Burgermeister is one of the few villains ever created by
teleplay writer Romeo Mueller who isn't redeemed in some way. Mueller
wrote the script for the Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer special,
too, and you probably remember what a softie the abominable snowman [Yeti]
turned out to be. But even cartoon Nazis couldn't be forgiven so easily. More + AUDIO- RH Greene, who prepared this segment on is a writer and filmmaker. His latest film is Vampira and Me.
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