Holiday Parodies

Have I previously recommended POLITICALLY CORRECT HOLIDAY STORIES, by James Finn Garner? Although slightly dated to the specific "politically correct" preoccupations of its publication year, 1995, it's still funny enough to invited multiple rereadings. It begins with an amusing mock-serious reflection on "the task of liberating the holidays from the oppressiveness of tradition." For instance, what does "the senior lifemate's tale about the animals imprisoned in the barnyard" who receive the gift of speech on Christmas Eve tell us about our relations with other species?

The body of the book transforms "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" and four familiar tales or songs. The classic tribute to the night before Christmas becomes "'Twas the Night Before Solstice," with a critique in verse of the overweight, carcinogen-consuming, reindeer-exploiting home invader and the commercialized holiday he promotes. In the stories, Frosty the snow persun (sic) leads a protest march of snow people against global warming all the way to Washington. Considering the number of days in that area with temperatures above freezing, even in winter, the event doesn't end well for the participants. The title character in "The Nutcracker" raises an army against the expansionist aggression of the Mouse King but ultimately, with Clara's help, seeks a peaceful resolution, recognizing that mice have been feared and marginalized for too long. Rudolph the Nasally Empowered Reindeeer organizes a union to uplift reindeer and other oppressed North Pole employees.

The longest and most detailed retelling, naturally, satirizes "A Christmas Carol." It starts, "Marley was non-viable, to begin with. . ." setting aside philosophical questions about the nature of death and the afterlife, that is. After undergoing "Past-Regression-Future-Progression" therapy, as opposed to the Negative Alternative Outcome (i.e., George Bailey) procedure, Scrooge comes to the conclusion, "I'm the victim here." Hence, the heavenly bureaucracy plans an even more extreme treatment for him.

You can find the book on Amazon here:

Politically Correct Holiday Stories

Garner also published two collections of similarly fractured fairy tales and a book of "politically correct parables" (which are less irreverent than one might expect).

My favorite holiday parodies, however, come in the form of Lovecraftian versions of popular songs on two albums from the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, A VERY SCARY SOLSTICE and AN EVEN SCARIER SOLSTICE. The website also offers songbooks with lyrics and footnotes:

H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society

Click on either "Music" or "Holiday Treats" to find the albums. Some of my favorite selections: "Away in a Madhouse," "Have Yourself a Scary Little Solstice," "I Saw Mommy Kissing Yog-Sothoth," "I'm Dreaming of a Dead City," "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fishmen," "Little Rare Books Room" (to the tune of "Little Drummer Boy"), and "Harley Got Devoured by the Undead" (to "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"). It might be unwise to sing these songs too loudly, though, lest you call up what you cannot put down. :)

Merry winter holidays and happy New Year!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Coals In My Stocking

Imagine "Coals In My Stocking" rinsed and repeated to a refrain from Carole King's "You're So Vain", and you will share my earworm of the day.

One cannot copyright a title, but one can trademark it.

It is quite possible that Carole King could have trademarked her metaphor involving “clouds” and “coffee” (from "You’re So Vain"), so although that line of that lovely song is in my head, I consider coals in my stockings to be a safer choice.

There’s a copyright related point or three to this. 

Use of other people's words, quotes, lyrics seems to be on several fora and copyright-related legal blogs that I have read in recent days.

Science writer John Iovine has a really succinct and helpful 5-minute read on quoting lyrics or song titles to advance your plot and/or add mood to your story.

https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-legally-quote-song-lyrics-in-your-stories-books-and-articles-b0e62510ed55

That particular article is also a very good example of how to give proper credit, he walks the talk (to coin a phrase.)

By the way, "to coin a phrase" is irony. 

Wise, generous and canny author Milton Trachtenburg suggests wrapping a Disney movie quote within his character's dialogue in order to avoid copyright problems.

"Like The Wicked Witch said in Wizard of Oz, 'How about a little fire, scarecrow?' You get my point?"

Presumably, there would be a "So-and-so said" tag, either before the "Like..." or after the "...point?" 

I added the italics. Personally, I would have given "Scarecrow" and upper case first character because it appears to be used in the vocative case.

Characters, or for that matter, narrators can quote old movies, and even not-so-old movies. For instance, in the movie "Man Up" it is essential to the economy of various scenes, and to giving the audience a greater insight than the characters have, that both the hero and the heroine know "Silence of the Lambs" by heart, and saying, "Quid Pro Quo, Clarice" or even "Quid Pro Quo" is a verbal ticket to getting on (well).

Similarly, the characters in the same movie appear to be completely oblivious to another interest they have in common as they argue their way through the dance moves to Duran Duran's "Reflex".

My remarks plus text links come under fair use for commentary/reportage/critique/review.

The copyrightalliance has a very helpful article on how to legally use images, videos and the written text of others in blogs. 

https://copyrightalliance.org/legally-use-images-videos-content-blogs/

 

Crystal Everson, JD, for Legal Zoom explains the difference between parody versus satire.  Parody is the use of someone else's original work in order to comment on it, or criticize it. Most copyright owners do not like being the butt of someone else's humor, or vitriol, so are unlikely to grant permission. So, there is a Fair Use exemption. Satire, not so much, because with satire, one uses one person's work to poke fun at another. 

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/parody-vs-satire-in-copyright-law

It is an important distinction, and the article is well worth reading.

For anyone wondering where coals or clouds fit in at all, there's Disney, to wit, #DisneyMustPay. SFWA appears to be spearheading an effort to stand up for Science Fiction and Fantasy authors who may not be being paid royalties by Disney. Everyone is asked to support the principle that WritersMustBePaid by using the #DisneyMustPay hashtag, and spreading the message.

There is also the allegedly copyright-infringing "Internet Archive", but there is good news. New Zealand has paused its plans to donate foreign authors' copyrighted works without the consent of the foreign authors to the "Archive", thanks to publicity and the protests received from copyright owners.

Finally, and a propos of absolutely nothing, except perhaps that the Christmas stockings are a mixed bag, SFWA posted a great link to an article about how to make aliens and robots fight more convincingly.

https://www.sfwa.org/2021/04/20/spec-fic-fu-how-to-make-aliens-and-robots-fight-better/

All the best,

Rowena Cherry  

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/