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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   4731 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 24, 2023

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Christmassy semi-culture-war question for Americans: is the Grinchification of Christmas true?

It seems really funny because the Grinch is one of the American culture things, alongside with the rest of Dr. Seuss' oeuvre, which hasn't ever taken root here. They did show the Grinch movie with Jim Carrey and the later animated one in the theaters, but I'm not too sure anyone remembers them as anything else than basic streaming fare if there's nothing else to watch. Even though he's a children's character, supposedly, The Grinch doesn't even have his name translated to Finnish.

Of course one would be expected to know the rough details of who the Grinch is through cultural osmosis from Family Guy etc., but that sort of stuff is still not enough to make him a part of our culture, unlike with Santa, who still features the most heavily in local Christmas imagery (alongside with the Christian meaning of Christmas, of course).

I think the grinch is a sort of unconscious thought of how over the top a lot of the trappings of Christmas have gotten. When I was a kid, decorating the outside of your house was a simple thing — a couple strings of lights on the gutters. Good. Done. A tree in the front room. Good. Done. Now you are pressured into huge displays (often including blow up props, lights on every tree and bush, etc.) and indoor displays (villages, Santa figures, evergreen stuff). Then there are the presents that get ever more expensive and include an ever increasing number of people, multiple parties as both host and guest, elaborate meals for not only Christmas, but the before parties and for a few days after. And of course several dozen fancy cookies.

It’s not really surprising that the culture would embrace a message that Christmas isn’t about big elaborate parties, displays, and presents, simply because it’s exhausting to try to reasonably do what the culture demands. The grinch isn’t saying “Christmas sucks” the entire message is that Christmas is about people and coming together and would still come even without all the trouble that goes into it.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Christmas is fully Grinchified, but I would say there's been a shrinkage of Santa. what's the point in Santa for people without children? For that matter, what's the point of a Christmas Day gathering when there aren't any nieces, nephews, or grandkids?

Now that you mention it, I have seen a lot of the Grinch. I'm not sure if he's outright more popular than Santa, in no small part because Santa isn't anyone's intellectual property so he can appear on generic gift wrap and cards, and in malls as a mall Santa. But the Grinch is definitely appearing in a lot of bigger corporate ads.

Anecdotally, in the very-red very-religious state I’m staying at, I haven’t seen any grinches but plenty of nativity scenes, some Santas and Reindeer. I do stay away from the blue core, though, so maybe there it’s more frequent.

The Grinch doesn't even have his name translated to Finnish.

I dunno how you'd actually translate 'Grinch' -- it's, like -- totally not a word. I can't even really think of anything etymologically nearby those sounds, so leaving it as "Grinch" in internationalized versions is probably fine.

It should be at least "grinchi" to fulfill stereotypes of suomization.

The grinch is definitely a trend, but he's nowhere near as popular as Santa. I think it's a young blue triber thing to really emphasize the grinch; the median person sees him as a negative figure regardless of how the story ends. "He's a grinch" would normally refer to someone like Ebenezer Scrooge(also notably not a figure seen very positively despite the ending of the story)- selfish, anti-Christmas, meanspirited, whatever.

As a counterpoint, the store chain with the big Grinch merchandise deal is, well, Hobby Lobby, and I wouldn't say the clientele of Hobby Lobby is young blue tribers. Also, my girlfriend loves the Grinch, has for a long time, and she's from about as red tribe a background as possible; she grew up watching the Jim Carrey Grinch as a big tradition with her rural red tribe family and they all love that version of the story.

I think he's seen as a negative figure, but I also think there's a thing where people like to think of him after his big transformation; he's still a cranky grump, but he's more open to Christmas. They're not idealizing his pre-heart-growth stage, they like the grumpy guy who loves Christmas.

Yeah, this is definitely a real trend. I wouldn't say The Grinch is more popular than Santa yet, but he seems more popular than minor Christmas characters like Rudolph and Frosty, who were big deals back when I was a kid.

Our public school did celebrate Grinch day and elf on a shelf as the main preChristmas characters. But I haven’t seen too much of the Grinch around here otherwise.

The character's definitely recognizable, and there's a certain faction that promotes him more than Santa (or does weirder stuff). But at least as far as I've seen (admittedly, away from the coasts), he's more a minor part of the season, rather than a full replacement for Santa -- you'll see a lot of Five Below or Hot Topic grinch-themed stuff, but you're not going to see a bunch of kids lining up to have photos taken in the Grinch's lap. Even among the anti-christmas set, you're more likely to run into Jack Skellington as a symbol.

The 2000 live action and 2018 3d-animated ones got mixed receptions: Jim Carrey in particular sometimes was memeable but too exaggerated (for a Seuss character!), while the 3d-animated one felt too bland. Making a full movie out of the story just requires too much padding. Most recognition today will still reflect the 1966 version, which was really well-executed for its time and played pretty often on television during the Christmas season. If that one was never common fare for your area, that would definitely explain the different awareness.

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