Topic: Home Movies and Jewish understanding of our myths...
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
So I'm watching the commentary for Home Movies and it gets to the episode where the Branden Small, Bouchard and the guy who plays couch mcgirk are talking about the snow man and McKirk voice acter gets confused and gives up and say soemthing along the lines of "Well I don't keep track of your myths since I'm Jewish".
So, how true is this generally how well do most Jews know about Christian "myths" such as Frosty the Snowman, Santa, eatser bunny, tooth fairy etc etc.
Norminally I'd just ask starLisa but I want the general Hatrack community to join in since I predict that some of the responces will be entertaining.
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Frosty, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are American myths, not Christian ones.
Santa, as practiced now, is also an American myth, not a Christian one.
EDIT: Yes, I'm aware that the Easter bunny refers to Gaelic mythology; but it's been Americanized to the point that it might as well have hopped out of Boston.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I think any myth that you see while strolling down Main Street is known by anyone who regularly strolls down Main Street (like Jews).
Posts: 289 | Registered: Jan 2002
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I'm aware of all that stuff, but I also feel like it doesn't really apply to me. I don't teach any of those to my kid, and if asked, I tell him that it is for the Non-Jews.
Well, except for the Tooth Fairy. I've invented my own twisted stories about that myth, and passed them to my kid, who, I must say, was amused. Not like he believed it for a second, but it was a pretty funny story. I was unaware of any religious connection.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Lots of my observant Jewish friends got stuff from the tooth fairy. Including a friend of mine who was in the hospital for her tonsils, lost a tooth, and got $20 (all of the nurses contributed). She didn't shut up about that for about two years.
Posts: 289 | Registered: Jan 2002
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When I was really little my parents told me Santa just didn't come to Jewish houses. They probably didn't want me to ruin it for my non-Jewish friends by telling them he didn't exist.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I used to watch all the Christmas specials when I was a kid. Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. The Island of Misfit Toys. That funky young Kris Kringle with the red hair. Frosty the Snowman (both the black and white one that used to run on Garfield Goose along with Susie Snowflake as well as the more well known color cartoon). Probably the Peanuts one as well, though I don't remember that.
The Easter Bunny always seemed far more of a Christian thing than those, and all I remember about it was the song "Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail, hippety hoppety, Easter's on its way!"
The tooth fairy is something else entirely. I never thought there was any religious connection to that whatsoever.
What I've told my daughter is that Santa is just make believe for kids who aren't Jewish, and I think it's pretty obvious to her that Frosty and Rudolf are just stories. She's never heard of the Easter Bunny, I don't think.
With the tooth fairy, well, I don't see any harm in it. It keeps kids from weirding out when their baby teeth fall out. Tova has her first two loose teeth right now, and she came into my office at home to ask me if the Tooth Fairy was real. I told her, "Well, I've never seen any Tooth Fairy." When she nodded, I added, "But then, I was always asleep. So who knows?"
I told her that if a kid looses the tooth before she gets a chance to put it under her pillow, the Tooth Fairy will accept a personal letter with a drawn picture of the tooth as a replacement. I had this image in my mind of Tova losing the tooth and freaking out hysterically, and I figured I'd preempt that.
What about the Hanukkah Armadillo? And does Festivus have an iconic figure?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I wasn't too fond of the Hanukkah Armadillo thing on Friends. Though I have found a couple of Saturday Night Live rather humorous. Hanukkah Harry was a classic. Then there was the Passover one with a rather drunk Elijah stumbling through the door.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I know a growing number of Christians who are not "doing" Santa Claus with their kids. They don't want their kids to find out they were “Lying” about Santa and think they were lying about Jesus also. I could see Jewish people having similar issues
My Dad was upset with my Brother when he told him he wasn’t going to do Santa with his kids.
Posts: 555 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: I wasn't too fond of the Hanukkah Armadillo thing on Friends. Though I have found a couple of Saturday Night Live rather humorous. Hanukkah Harry was a classic. Then there was the Passover one with a rather drunk Elijah stumbling through the door.
Incidentally, I finally figured out how Elijah manages to get to every Passover seder in the world in a single night. I figure Santa isn't using his sleigh that time of year, so he rents it out.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I think the only way to avoid being aware of such myths as Santa, the Easter Bunny, and Frosty in this country is to put out your eyes, cut off your ears, and then get a lobotomy. Twice.
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Incidentally, I finally figured out how Elijah manages to get to every Passover seder in the world in a single night. I figure Santa isn't using his sleigh that time of year, so he rents it out.
Pretty impressive considering I think Elijah just might visit more homes, and drunk on top of it.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: Somebody explain to me the Chanukkah Armidillo. I've never heard of such a thing.
Ross from Friends ended up in an Armadillo costume when trying to tell the story of Hanukkah to the son of him and his ex-wife (her not being Jewish and raising the son).
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I seem to have missed a lot of the cultural references from TV. It could be that I'm not watching TV enough. Or else, I'm watching the wrong stuff.
But your explanation of the Armadillo (and thanks for the explanation) has done little to motivate me to correct the situation.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: I seem to have missed a lot of the cultural references from TV. It could be that I'm not watching TV enough. Or else, I'm watching the wrong stuff.
But your explanation of the Armadillo (and thanks for the explanation) has done little to motivate me to correct the situation.
Ha! Missing television references is never a bad thing.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I don't know about the Jews, but it's pretty strange for me that same Asians don't even know the name Jesus. One Japanese child ask his English teacher: what is the resurrection of Jesus? (she read that in a letter from an American pen-pal). Teacher: weell, resurrection is when a person that has been dead comes to life again. Child: And what's Jesus? T: Jesus was a man... Ch: Oh, I get it! Jesus was a zombie!!!
That's cultural differences for you Posts: 218 | Registered: Jan 2006
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oolung- I bet the average Christian knows as much about Buddhism and Confucianism as visa versa. Their ancestors are their gods, right? Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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its not fair. i grew up around the christian kids and learned all their little piccadillos, why didn't they pay attention to ME? i guess me being interested and them not, and me having Jones as a last name helped a lot. And i agree with the American traditions vs the religious ones bit. I wouldn't have thought of it liike that.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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It was the HOLIDAY Armadillo, not the Hannakuh Armadillo.
He's Santa's representative to alllll the southern states. And that includes Jews.
And they can never be in the room together for an extended period of time or else the universe will implode!
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Frosty, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are American myths, not Christian ones.
Santa, as practiced now, is also an American myth, not a Christian one.
EDIT: Yes, I'm aware that the Easter bunny refers to Gaelic mythology; but it's been Americanized to the point that it might as well have hopped out of Boston.
I'd say that in the cases of the Easter Bunny, Santa and the Tooth Fairy they are Western myths, not American ones.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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