Thanksgiving Oddities

[beamjockey]

While preparing for Thanksgiving festivities, I switched on the good old Macy's Parade. And discovered another thing that high-definition TV is well-suited for. But I noticed a couple of odd things.

1. A large marching band playing "Simple Gifts" in the middle of this very large and colorful parade, accompanied by performers in bright skirts twirling huge, colorful flags. Wouldn't a sentiment like "'Tis a gift to be simple" be better expressed by, say, a single person walking down a deserted street, playing a dulcimer?

2. A commercial for a new animated movie entitled Frozen. It had not occurred to me-- and maybe it had not occurred to executives of the film company-- that this would result in an announcer uttering the words "Disney's Frozen." Will this rumor never die? I checked Snopes. No, he's not.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

It's a clue! The Snopes article is what they WANT you to believe! Fnord! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!!

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

No! Don't say that! Or something terrible will happen...

http://xkcd.com/1013/

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

My thoughts didn't go as far as yours when it came to seeing "Simple Gifts" performed in the parade, though I certainly started in the same place. I was pleased to see that the flag-twirlers' choreography did follow simple lines, and that their primary dance moves were "turning, turning...."

The oddity Gavi was appalled to see was the high school marching band that ended its performance by re-enacting the V-J Day kiss in Times Square". Iconic, yes. Consensual, no.

"The kiss did kind of bother someone else, though: the woman in the nurse’s uniform, Greta Zimmer, who wasn’t even a nurse. She was a 21-year-old dental assistant from Queens, who, having heard rumors about the end of the war, walked over to Times Square from her office on Lexington Avenue. George says he was so drunk, he doesn’t even remember the kiss. Greta says she’ll never forget it.

Greta Zimmer was born and raised in Austria, and in 1939, after much debate, her parents insisted that Greta and her two sisters flee to America. They were among the last refugees to make it out, and even on the afternoon of Aug. 14, as Greta read the illuminated news crawl declaring the end of the war, she had no idea where her parents were, or if they were even alive.

She isn’t sure how long she was standing there; maybe minutes. “And then I was grabbed,” she says. “That man was very strong. I wasn’t kissing him. He was kissing me.”

Not okay. Yes, it happened. Yes, it's remembered because there's what's become an iconic photo of the moment. But we need to remember what's happening in the photo. Re-enactments, if there are to be any, belong in seminars and workshops educating people about rape culture, not as part of a holiday celebration.

[sraun]

What, you've never heard Appalachian Spring? It's simultaneously one of my favorite pieces of music and one of my favorite pieces of cognitive dissonance.

[tlunquist.livejournal.com]

"Frozen" is a really excellent movie. We saw it last night. It is stunningly beautiful to watch, and a very good story.

And the cartoon short before the movie is INSPIRED. That alone was worth the ticket price.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I'm not frozen, I'm low-temperature.