My youngest does reading every evening. So I have him reading to me. He normally picks a book and starting reading to me. Last evening, he picked this book.
Oh my.
No, not his reading - it's getting better.
I mean the book.
Never have I seen such a compact and concise combination of capitalism, white supremacy, delusion of a religious kind, and female privilege, all wrapped into a single 'children's' book.
Where do I possibly begin? Well let's start with the plot -
'Santa' is up in the Arctic/North Pole with his favorite 'cat'; his 'snow cat', who's his object of devotion and love (no Mrs.Claus in this book, but we'll get to that later). Oh, and the 'Wind' and 'Moon' are devoted to this cat also.
'Santa' then goes on his yearly 'Christmas Eve' trip to give all the American children (apparently he only goes to once place - New York City) presents. While on the trip (i.e. up high in the sky), the cat falls out of the sleigh and - amazingly - lands safely on the ground without turning into a plop of red furry mush.
The rest of the book is all about this 'cat' trying to then find 'Santa' in New York City, while she goes from place to place, house to house, causing all sorts of destruction, mischief, breaking and entering, foraging in people's houses, trespassing, and general idiocy.
Eventually 'Santa' finds her and saves her. And they return to the North Pole, where they continue their lovefest and devotion.
Yes - that's basically the story. But don't take my word for it. Here's the 'summary' from the book itself -
Santa and his favorite cat search for each other after she falls out of his sleigh and lands in New York City on Christmas Eve.
So let's start deconstructing this mess along the following areas -
Capitalism - Children's books are nothing more than a way to sell shorter/crappier 'content' to really the parents of children. Indeed the idea of taking a fictional character from a religious background is itself something businesses do all the time, and have done so for hundreds of years.
And to be clear, the character of Santa Claus is just that - a fictional character invented by a set of businesses many years ago from religious invention (this this case Western Christianity) to be a vehicle to sell all sort of merchandise (media, toys, etc.).
White Supremacy - Santa Claus is a character of profit, but that's ignoring it's origins. The very idea of a fat jolly white man living in the Arctic/North Pole reeks of racism, colonialism, and imperialism all in one. What about the Indigenous People who'd been already living there for centuries? In any lore told about Jolly Ole Saint Nick, none of them exist. It may have something to do with the reality that those Indigenous People originated from somewhere in Asia, and - by remarkable coincidence - aren't white-skinned.
Delusion - Writing about fictional characters isn't an issue, but pretending to children that they are real is wrong. A lie is a lie is a lie. It always bothered me when presumably grown adults like to convince especially small and young children that 'Santa Claus' will come down their chimney (as if kids today live in homes with those). But just the idea that this character is derived from a 'Christian' character - Saint Nick - speaks volumes about the level of malevolence Christians will go to to inflict their beliefs on others.
Female Privilege And then there's the 'writers' of this book - two (presumably) white women from the birthplace of capitalism itself - England. The actual main character of this book (i.e. the cat) is white and female. The 'cat' is drawn pretty much exactly the same way on every page - with absolutely no emotion or visual impact whatsoever. Certainly no personality. She's all about attention from all the other characters, and an object thereof. She exists only to be loved and devoted to by all the other 'characters'.
So there you have it - just one example of the garbage inflicted on people - both knowingly and unknowingly.
To think, we paid $7.99 for this at Half-Price Books. The writers/publisher should be paying me to have survived their crap.
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