This Patreon campaign featuring Wiseguy Santa delivers clichéd and contrived cultural cluelessness.
Oddly enough, Patreon Community Guidelines allegedly frown on using stereotypes—as well as engaging with crime and criminal activity.
Showing posts with label santa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label santa. Show all posts
Sunday, December 07, 2025
Sunday, December 25, 2022
Tuesday, December 21, 2021
15647: White Adland Is Dreaming Of A Black Christmas…?
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
15625: I Saw Harry Kissing Santa Claus…
This commercial for Norwegian Postal Service Posten presents Santa as gay.
Can’t wait to hear what Megyn Kelly has to say…
Friday, December 25, 2020
15249: Santa Claus Is Coming To Another Part Of Town…
Since the 1920s, Coca-Cola has depicted Santa Claus in its advertising. In 1931, the soft drink company presented an image (depicted below) that has been almost universally embraced as the prototypical Santa. Now in 2020, McCann in Brazil spotlighted a Black Santa (depicted above) for the brand. In short, it took roughly 100 years for Coke to recognize Black people. Merry Fucking Christmas.
Saturday, June 20, 2020
15052: Pepsi Poop Deserves Purgatorial Penance.
This Pepsi advertisement from Grey in Kazakhstan is explained as follows: “Even main competitor’s supporter has a little weakness he must confess on Christmas.” Um, must confess this concept is weak—and likely offensive bullshit too.
Sunday, January 05, 2020
14871: Dashing Through The Snow, Bashing Through The Renault…
This Renault advertisement from Grey in Turkey is described as follows:
Zoe, a new generation electric car by Renault. Our print celebrates the New Year by using Santa’s sleigh as a metaphor. Zoe is small. Zoe is powerful. Happy New Year!
Okay, but why are flying horses being pulled by Santa’s sleigh? Somebody should’ve pulled the plug on this electric car concept.
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Friday, December 25, 2015
Sunday, December 07, 2014
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
12255: Coke’s Lily-White Christmas.
A new Coca-Cola holiday commercial from Ogilvy (apparently originally produced with Coca-Cola Germany) forgoes the polar bears for Santa Claus, Jimmy Durante and slice-of-life scenarios. However, it’s a predominately White Christmas, with only one background Black person and an ambiguous Asian/Latina character in the entire 60-second spot. Where the hell was OgilvyCulture while this contrived shit was being storyboarded?
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
11647: Campaign’s White Christmas.
Campaign asked top advertising executives what they would request if Santa was handing out clients as gifts. The bigger question is, are there no minority adpeople in the U.K. for Campaign to poll?
Friday, December 13, 2013
11642: Jesus, Megyn Kelly Is Ignorant.
Fox News’ Megyn Kelly declares Jesus and Santa were white
Kelly causes a stir with on-air response to Slate article on Santa Claus
By Corky Siemaszko / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Megyn Kelly is dreaming of a white Christmas.
The Fox News star has stepped into a holiday hornet’s nest by insisting on her show that both Jesus and Santa Claus were white — and that anybody who believes otherwise needs to get over it.
“For you kids watching at home,” Kelly said during her prime-time show on Wednesday, “Santa just is white. But this person is arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa.”
Then Kelly, a Fox franchise player, dug herself in further by saying that Santa couldn’t be anything but Caucasian because he’s like Jesus.
“Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change,” Kelly said. “You know, I mean, Jesus was a white man, too.”
Kelly was reacting to a Slate.com piece by Aisha Harris, who had made the case that maybe, as the U.S. becomes more diverse, it was time to “ditch Santa the old white man altogether, and embrace Penguin Claus.”
“People love penguins,” Harris wrote.
There was no immediate response from Kelly to the uproar, but a Fox News spokeswoman said she would address the controversy on her Friday broadcast. She was ill Thursday.
While it is true that both Jesus and Santa Claus have been depicted by European painters as white for centuries, many scholars say the historical figures probably weren’t the kind of white that would have passed muster with a segregated 1950s golf club.
Jesus was a Jew born in Bethlehem, a Semitic town in what is now the West Bank.
And the New Testament does not describe his appearance.
The historical St. Nicholas is believed to have been a Greek bishop living in what’s now Turkey, two countries where fair-skinned blondes like Kelly aren’t as common as they are in, say, Sweden.
The jolly, red-cheeked figure we’ve come to know as Santa Claus appears to be a melding of the Father Christmas figure from England and the Dutch Sinterklaas.
Sinterklaas’ sidekick, however, is Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete, a figure some complain is a relic from Holland’s racist past that should be retired.
11640: A Real Santa Claus.
At South L.A. mall, a Claus with quite an effect
Langston Patterson is the main attraction at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza at Christmas: a rare black Santa in a sea of white ones.
By Angel Jennings
Dressed in a red Santa suit, white beard and rimless glasses balanced on his nose, Langston Patterson sits on a velvet couch and waits for his adoring fans.
Some call first to make sure he will be there. They come from Palmdale, Thousand Oaks and San Bernardino, driving past many shopping malls with Santas, but none that look like him.
For nearly a decade, Patterson has been the main attraction at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza during Christmastime: a rare black Santa Claus in a sea of white ones.
The mall, located in the heart of black Los Angeles, is one of the few in the country with a black Santa Claus. Some say Patterson is the only black shopping-mall Santa Claus in the Los Angeles area.
As visitors approached him on a recent afternoon, it was hard to tell who was more excited: the youngsters or the adults. The parents are the most loyal. They return with grandchildren, passing on a family tradition with a deep personal meaning.
“We need our kids to understand that good things happen in chocolate skin,” said Til Prince, 50, of Palmdale, watching her granddaughter, niece and her niece’s son pose with Patterson. “We are often bombarded with the opposite. We’re not trying to exclude anybody, but [instead] celebrate our chocolate skin.”
Patterson’s place in the Christmas traditions of black families seems only to have increased as the African American population of Los Angeles continues to decline amid waves of Latino immigration. The Crenshaw mall now has both a black Santa and a Spanish-speaking Latino Santa, a nod to the demographic shift.
“We make a point to stay in tune with our community,” said Rachel Erickson, the mall’s marketing director.
Perched at his post in the middle of the mall, Patterson greets the eager and the weary. He disarms frightened children with a swift high-five and shares jokes with their parents.
They’ve come to expect him the last two months of every year, seven days a week, four hours a day.
Like many of the children who visit him, he doesn’t believe his skin color makes him different. He’s simply Santa.
“I never even thought about it,” the 77-year-old said. “I’m just giving back and making the kids happy.”
He got the job on a fluke. In 2004, Patterson was sitting in the shopping center’s food court when a mall worker approached him and asked: “How would you like to be Santa?”
Patterson had heard the comparison before. Ever since he stopped shaving and a crop of wiry white hair sprang from his face, people would say he resembled St. Nick.
As Patterson considered whether to take on the role, he recalled the elaborate Christmases his parents created for him and his four siblings in Houston during World War II.
His dad would don a Santa suit and let out a thunderous “Ho! Ho! Ho!” in the middle of the night, to the delight of the children. They would rush downstairs, just in time to see Santa sneak out the door.
“We had beautiful Christmases,” Patterson recalled, smiling at the memory. “My mother didn’t let us know we were poor.”
Although he was initially hesitant, the timing was right. Patterson, a computer technician, retired from the Los Angeles Unified School District years earlier, and he could use the extra cash. Plus, he wanted the diversion. His best friend had just died of cancer. And his two sons lived out of the area.
“I just thought I was getting paid to put on a Santa suit and say ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’” he said. “But then I sat down and saw their reactions. I get a chance to make kids happy.”
Nobody tracks the number of African American Santas nationwide. But Timothy Connaghan, head of the International University of Santa Claus, a Los Angeles-based Santa school, said: “It’s a very lopsided number.”
He keeps a Rolodex of the more than 2,200 Santa Clauses he has trained throughout the country. In the decade since he opened his school, he has had three black pupils.
“Santa is very strongly typecasted because he was born out of Europe and as his story traveled throughout, he was mostly Caucasian,” Connaghan said.
Patterson’s boss, Mac Siu, said he has tried for years to find a backup but has yet to find anybody with Patterson’s charisma, grandfather-like gentleness and Santa features.
On a recent Saturday, 3-year-old Jahleel Logan anxiously walked up to Santa Claus, arm outstretched with a letter in his tiny hand. Santa took the folded paper and lifted his gloved hand. Jahleel gave him a high-five.
As Santa read Jahleel’s wish list — Play-Doh, Lego, Ninja Turtles — the little boy stood calmly.
You’ve been a good boy this year, Santa told Jahleel, reminding him to listen to his mother.
Arlene Graves watched from the sidelines. Seeing her godson with a black Santa meant more to her than to the youngster.
“I just don’t want him to think that all greatness comes from a different race,” said Graves, 45. “There are Santa Clauses his color doing good work, too.”
Tracy Price, 52, was surprised when she spotted a black Santa and rushed over with her 31-year-old daughter, Kelly Ross.
After a few pictures and some lighthearted advice from St. Nick, the two women marveled at seeing a non-white Santa.
“To know we have something that’s positive, wholesome and traditional,” Price said. “This is a Santa that our children can relate to.”
Thursday, December 05, 2013
11622: The Dutch Heart Black Pete.
Why the Dutch Love Black Pete
By Arnon Grunberg
WHEN I was growing up in Amsterdam in the 1970s, the phenomenon of Santa Claus was relatively unknown. Christmas was celebrated without Santa and mostly without gifts. St. Nicholas — Sinterklaas in Dutch — was the man with the presents.
If one had the good fortune to be Jewish, one received presents not only on Dec. 5, the eve of Sinterklaas’s name day, but also at Hanukkah. Only in recent years has Santa Claus, who comes on Dec. 25, made his rise to stardom in Holland, and today a Dutch child — or a Dutch adult for that matter — no longer has to be Jewish to cash in twice in December.
Sinterklaas arrives from Spain by steamboat in late November, travels farther on horseback, climbs onto roofs and on Dec. 5, known as “Pakjesavond,” drops presents through the chimney with the help of the Black Petes, a crew of dark-skinned helpers wearing large earrings who cavort and entertain and, as Dutch parents often tell their children, owe their blackness to chimney soot.
Black Pete and Sinterklaas also conspire to form a punitive team. In the traditional holiday songs, Sinterklaas brings gifts for good boys and girls; naughty children get a spanking with Black Pete’s bundle of twigs.
I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood, and every November, whenever I would come across someone from Suriname — in those days, most black people in Amsterdam were from Suriname, a former Dutch colony in South America — I feared that I had run into a Black Pete in plain clothes.
Until recently, Black Pete was uncontroversial. Not because the Dutch are particularly racist, but because Sinterklaas, like the royal family, is sacred in the Netherlands, perhaps because of a dearth of other, specifically Dutch traditions. A matter, in other words, of conservatism.
Such traditions are even more important today, given the view that, in order to safeguard the Dutch national identity, homegrown culture and folklore must not be tampered with — a view expressed primarily, though not exclusively, by the extreme right wing Party for Freedom, run by Geert Wilders.
But just as the defense of traditions has grown stronger, so has the criticism that Black Pete is a racist holdover from the Netherlands’s colonial past. In January the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights sent a letter to the Dutch government stating that Black Pete perpetuated the image of people of African descent as second-class citizens and constituted a “living trace of past slavery.”
The Dutch government responded by saying that it regarded the Sinterklaas tradition as a children’s celebration, that it was aware of the differences of opinion concerning Black Pete, but that it was highly committed to combating discrimination in all forms.
Both letters received publicity only in October of this year, when the public debate over Black Pete resurfaced.
Emotions were running so high that a popular singer, Anouk, who is white and had called for the abolition of Black Pete, received numerous insults and threats via social media. A plan for a Sinterklaas parade with a proposed compromise, Green Petes, had to be canceled after threats were made against its planners.
In The Hague, the seat of government, a demonstration was organized for the preservation of Black Pete, while a pro-Black Pete Facebook page received two million likes almost immediately. Even the nation’s highest-circulation newspaper, De Telegraaf, agreed that the United Nations letter constituted interference in the Netherlands’s domestic affairs.
In a debate in Parliament, Mr. Wilders’s party asked the minister of education, culture and science whether she shared the view held by some that “Dutch traditions” should be made subordinate to “multicultural drivel.” Not to be outflanked, both Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the mayor of Amsterdam recently spoke up in defense of Black Pete, albeit with reservations. Sinterklaas, Mr. Rutte said, would not be Sinterklaas without Black Pete.
Of course, there were Dutch people who saw things differently, and there were many with no opinion either way. Yet the general tenor among the Dutch public was that “they” should keep their mitts off “our tradition,” an opinion you can hear in any number of variations on any street corner. By “them” people mean the United Nations and “unnatural” Dutch citizens, by both birth and naturalization, who want to put an end to this admittedly dubious tradition.
The Black Pete debate underscores how deep within the Netherlands’s prosperous and safe society lies the fear of losing identity, undoubtedly fueled by globalization, migration and the notion that the European Union is gradually doing away with the European nation state.
During the triumphal entry of St. Nicholas into the Netherlands this year, a national happening whereby a sort of street theater is performed on the children’s behalf, the Black Petes were in attendance once again, albeit this time with less ostentatious golden earrings. For security’s sake, the saint himself was accompanied by armed Petes in bulletproof vests.
The truly disturbing thing is the aggression conjured up by this public debate, the thinly disguised xenophobia that roiled to the surface when attempts were made to make Black Pete less black. A civilized person, after all, could say: “Personally, I don’t have much of a problem with Black Pete, but if others do, well, then, why don’t we make him Green Pete or Blue Pete?”
But no. To my utter amazement, at least two million Dutch people have taken the stance: “Black Pete, c’est moi.”
Which once again goes to prove that national identity often boils down to distasteful folklore.
Arnon Grunberg is the author of the novels “The Jewish Messiah” and “Tirza.” This essay was translated by Sam Garrett from the Dutch.
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