How Santa Stole Christmas

Posted by william warren on December 11, 2022 at 9:29am

Movies such as White Christmas and Holiday Inn have helped turn Christmas into a homogenised, cross-cultural, pan-religious event which has been remoulded for the age of mass consumption. As a cultural critic put it, “Santa Claus is to American material faith what Jesus Christ is to the spiritual.”

Cultural historian and writer Christopher Frayling explores how Hollywood movies helped to create the modern Christmas, comprehensively Americanising it with the ubiquitous iconography of Santa Claus and red-nosed reindeer, all to a soundtrack of seasonal muzak. With the help of filmmakers, advertisers and religious figures, he delves into the BBC Archive to learn how and why it happened.

Producer: Jane Long

A Hidden Flack production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArrWZcg2lV80miA8Q34Gews4nh5H?e=teDpgB

Length 57 minutes, size 52MB, bitrate 128kbps

 

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Replies

  • Couch Potato December 12, 2022 at 8:24am

    Thank you William!

    • semoshorts > Couch Potato December 13, 2022 at 3:42am

      Thanks for sharing.

  • Gayle Crane December 11, 2022 at 6:22pm

    Thanks, Willliam!

  • Steve Kostelecky December 11, 2022 at 1:11pm

    Thanks for this, Warren. And, er, Happy Holidays.

This reply was deleted.