Megan Mulls It Over

+JMJ

If you caught my December 7 post entitled “‘Baby Shark’ Is Triggering,” you may remember that I was interested in seeing some of Pinkfong’s Christmas videos. I have now watched a sampling of them, three of which are featured below.

1) “Baby Shark, Baby Shark? Yes Pinkfong!”

This one stars puppet versions of Baby Shark and Pinkfong, who are portrayed as being in a sort of quasi-sibling relationship, with Pinkfong acting as a sort of “big brother” figure to Baby Shark. Whenever Pinkfong calls out to Baby Shark, Baby Shark responds with “Yes, Pinkfong!” which sounds a bit servile (0:33-0:34, 0:38-0:39, 0:53-0:54 and 1:23-1:24). And Pinkfong seems a tad bossy, but they still have fun together.

The video features sequences of: 1) Baby Shark wandering off; 2) Pinkfong finding Baby Shark eating various things; 3) Pinkfong asking him if he’s eating the things; and 4) Baby Shark denying that he’s eating the things. Pinkfong will then accuse him of lying, with “Telling lies?” (0:57-0:58 and 1:27-1:28) and then demanding, “Open your mouth!” (0:59-1:00 and 1:30). The first item is snow.

The second is a “candy tree.” Pinkfong initially chides Baby Shark for sampling its fruits, but as with the snow, he does giggle after he’s done delivering the “Telling lies?/Open your mouth!” routine, so I guess the chiding is mostly in jest (1:15-1:34). And it is probably related more to Baby Shark’s wandering off than his sampling of the candy tree. Because after Pinkfong administers the mild scolding, both he and Baby Shark start chowing down on the candy tree, which looks like lots of fun (1:37-1:42).

And then comes the buzzkill.

At 1:43, Santa shows up, and in a booming alpha male voice, he accuses them of eating too much candy (which, in fairness, appears to be true). And then Rudolph introduces them to the “vegetable tree” (1:49-1:56).

And if you read my November 24 post entitled “The Happy Meal Wears a Frown,” it may not surprise you that I immediately thought of Michelle Obama at this moment in the video.

Not only do Pinkfong and Baby Shark quickly go gaga over the vegetable tree, they knock down the candy tree (2:16-2:18). So apparently the problem wasn’t just that they ate too much candy, as Santa originally alleged – it was that they were eating candy at all.

If there are any junk food shunners reading this, I know what you’re thinking: “Pinkfong and Baby Shark knocked down the candy tree because eating healthy made them lose their taste for it.” The video actually seems to support that theory, because before they knock over the candy tree, Pinkfong and Baby Shark give a shoutout to the “Sweet snow!” (2:12-2:14) while appearing to catch some in their mouths. So I’m now thinking the snow may be being presented as a healthier alternative to candy. (It oughta be healthy – it’s basically just water, amirite?)

No one asked me, but I’m not sure that that snow is actually safe to eat. It comes in all sorts of colors. I know that the color scheme of Pinkfong’s world is vastly different from that of our world, but can we really be sure that there are no artificial dyes in there? Womp womp womp.

2) “Have You Ever Seen Santa’s Beard?”

This one opens with Santa’s beard running off because he’s annoyed by Santa’s snoring, and Santa waking up to discover that his beard is gone.

And because I have a strange mind (and I initially didn’t notice that the beard ran off), my first thought was, “Who put spironolactone in Santa’s milk and cookies?”

Food for thought: If I were to say that Santa needs to stop eating what leftists leave out for him based on this incident, would leftists say that I was “blaming the victim”? Or would they say that Santa wasn’t a victim at all because he had been struggling to get spironolactone for months because insurance probs?

And anyone who has spent any amount of time on this blog will probably guess that I saw echoes of a certain former president in the loss of Santa’s beard.

The vegetable tree in “Baby Shark, Baby Shark? Yes Pinkfong!” looks like it could have been inspired by Mrs. Obama; the involuntarily beardless Santa looks like a Mr. Obama project. And we may never know what scandal Santa exposed that led to this loss. Did some American soldiers occupying the North Pole gun down an elf holding a candy cane that they thought was an RPG? And then when the other elves came to the first one’s aid, they shot them and the baby elves that were with them? Well, that’s what you get for bringing your baby elves into a warzone. (Collateral Murder: Holiday Edition)

Santa sheds tears over his lost beard at a couple of points in the video (1:08-1:10, 1:27-1:28) because emasculation causes sadness. Of course a beard doesn’t have the same importance as actual body parts, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that men who love their beards would feel emasculated if they spontaneously lost them.

Santa tries a few beard substitutes, including noodles (0:58-0:59), Pinkfong’s tail (1:18-1:20), and, my personal favorite, angel wings. When he takes the wings from the angel, the angel responds with a very weak “They’re mine!” (1:21-1:22), and I was reminded of the discrepancy between popular culture’s portrayal of angels and biblical references to angels.

There is a reason that angels in biblical accounts typically announce themselves with some version of “Be not afraid.”

I believe that the Scriptures clearly show that even good angels tend to be fearsome and intimidating. And to the extent that they appear not to be, this seems to represent a deliberate concealment or tempering of their strength rather than an indication that they really are harmless, milquetoast creatures. And as far as their gender, I am entirely comfortable with them being portrayed as male. I realize that they do not have gender in the same way that humans do, but I don’t think that means that they are “genderless,” any more than the triune God is genderless. (Beyond human understanding of gender is not the same thing as genderless.)

And I really wish that Christians, myself included, would do a better job of coming right out and saying “God is a Man” when the situation calls for it.

I understand that it is not accurate to refer to God the Father or God the Holy Spirit in this way, but Jesus is a different story because He has a physical body. And Jesus is no less God than the other two Persons of the Trinity, so I don’t think “God is a Man” is a phrase that should be dismissed out of hand by Christians. Especially since I made sure to capitalize “Man” to make it clear that I was referring specifically to Jesus, rather than an ordinary man. Side rant over.

Santa is reunited with his beard at 1:29, and it has been decorated with what appear to be holiday sprinkles. That’s a much happier ending than I could have come up with. And it also proves that the binary is not as constraining as many on the Left think. Just because you’re a man doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy cute sparkly things, like sprinkles in your beard. (That sounds pretty gross for anyone other than Santa, though.)

3) “A Christmas Carol”

This one starts out with a shot of a church with a cross on its steeple. I love that they didn’t shy away from showing the cross, but my first thought upon seeing the church was, “Oh no, is this a version where Scrooge is a miserly vicar? It’s better than a pervy vicar, I suppose…” Fun fact: I have a similar reaction every time Law and Order: Special Victims Unit opens with a church scene – “Oh no, don’t let the abuser be a priest.” For those who are wondering if this is because I don’t want people to stereotype priests or because I am embarrassed about the priests who fit the stereotype, the answer is “Both.”

But we find out quickly that this adaptation has Scrooge as the classic miserly layman. After he makes a children’s choir burst into tears at 0:40-0:45 (an incident which is actually pretty funny the way it is portrayed), he is shown serenading his money (0:54-1:01).

And at this point I found myself thinking that the producers of this video must not have been Trump critics, because if they were, it would have been so easy to make Scrooge look more like him.

The Ghost of Christmas Past’s entrance is comically cute and un-scary (1:05-1:15). (This kinda reminded me of the un-scary angel in the previous segment.) It is not unheard of for a ghost to be like this (e.g., Casper the Friendly Ghost), but you would not expect this of a ghost whose role is to “scare someone straight.” The video quickly takes a dark turn, however, as we are transported back to Scrooge’s lonely childhood (1:20-1:57).

And then, just as quickly as it turned intense, the video goes back to lighthearted. Enter the Ghost of Christmas Present, a chubby, buffoon-like man (2:18-2:25). He transports Scrooge to the home of a poor family who, in spite of their poverty, are enjoying Christmas (2:38-3:16).

And because I tend to notice things like this, my first thought was that this family is evidently rich enough to afford a boatload of Christmas lights.

In all seriousness, the poor family seem like very pleasant people. And even though I sort of judged them for the Christmas lights (which may well have been donated or left over from more prosperous days), they aren’t exactly a liberal’s dream, because they are not sitting around the table raving about income disparities. And by decorating their humble home for Christmas, they are showing that even though they are poor, they recognize that Christmas is a time for joy.

Back to Scrooge. As he is looking in the window of the poor family, (btw, they are identified only as “the poor family,” so that’s why I keep referring to them that way), he says, “How come they look so happy? They are poor!” (3:18-3:21)

And there’s another line that would have been perfect coming from a Trump look-alike Scrooge. Or a social justice warrior Scrooge for that matter, who thinks that the poor family are Uncle Tom-like traitors to The Cause.

And now it is time for the Ghost of Christmas Future. The first two ghosts were not very “ghostly,” but Pinkfong takes the rose-colored glasses off for this last one.

Enter the Grim Reaper at 3:29. I’d say that escalated quickly.

This is not a fully sanitized Grim Reaper, either. He’s a little cartoonish, but he’s still “the real deal.” He takes Scrooge to a cemetery, and we quickly see that the scene is actually Scrooge’s funeral. A group of snarky attendees (wouldn’t be accurate to call them mourners) is standing around talking about how nobody showed up because Scrooge was so “stingy” (3:40-3:55).

After seeing this, Scrooge prostrates himself before the Grim Reaper and begs him for another chance at life (4:11-4:15). That was pretty creepy, because it is so common to associate the Grim Reaper with Satan. And not without good reason, because Satan certainly played a role in bringing death into the world. But Satan would never encourage a genuine conversion in someone, so I guess this Grim Reaper was one of the Good Guys.

After waking up the next morning, Scrooge invites the whole town to an epic party at his place, and the narrator states, “Scrooge has become the most loved man in town” (4:57-5:00). The way this is portrayed was a bit off-putting to me because it wasn’t totally clear that they loved him as much for his friendship as they did for the material perks he offered to them. Will all of Scrooge’s guests still be his friends if he ends up losing his fortune?

On a more pleasant (albeit bittersweet) note, the cemetery scene reminded me of the song “Falling Leaves.” The waltz version is very popular at the church festivals (often called “church picnics”) that are ubiquitous in the part of rural/small-town Texas that I hail from. I will admit that even though my ancestry is mostly Czech, I have never been a huge fan of polka and waltz music. But “Falling Leaves” is one that I really like. I encourage you to listen to it, but I must warn you, it’s a tearjerker. (The waltz versions that I found on YouTube are not in English, but the bluegrass-ish one that I link to above is.) And if you need a pick-me-up after that one and want to stay within the church picnic genre, I recommend “Grandpa Drank Too Much at the St. John Picnic.”

Verso l’alto,
Megan