Putting Christ Back in Christmas

Drawing of an elderly man in sleeping attire sitting in a Victorian style armchair and gazing at the ghost of an elderly man not unlike himself.
Scrooge and the Ghost of Marley by Arthur Rackham

Some are calling for a stronger connection between Christianity and Christmas, concomitantly rejecting the term “Xmas” as blasphemous, deploring the substitution of “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas,” and urging generally that we “put Christ back in Christmas.”  Sincere religious beliefs prompt most of this campaign, but to what extent has Jesus Christ ever been the true heart of Christmas?

The Bible does not give the date of Jesus Christ’s birth, and it was not until the fourth century that the Catholic Church recognized December 25th as Jesus Christ’s birthday.  Historians have suggested the day was selected to coincide with pagan winter solstice celebrations that were held in many locations throughout Europe.  The solstice came at roughly the same time large numbers of cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during subsequent months.  Meat was as a result plentiful, as was the wine and beer that had been started during the preceding spring and summer and had now fermented.

In some areas, the partying was raucous and drunken, comparable perhaps to the partying that occurs at Mardi Gras. 

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Pop Music and International Relations

The Korean pop music group Red Velvet, consisting of five women wearing blue and white outfits, pose on a stage in Inchon, South Korea.Some find the superficiality and commercialism of pop music troubling enough to justify ignoring the whole thing.  However, if a music fan approaches pop music with some variety of critical consciousness, the pop music fan can use it to consider everything from personal values to national identity.  If recent developments in the Korean Peninsula are any indication, pop music, a type of pop culture, can even play a role in improving international relations.

North Korea has traditionally been leery of South Korean and especially American pop culture.  For years, the North Korean government attempted to suppress DVDs and thumb drives with pop cultural television shows, movies, and popular music.  Often smuggled into North Korea from China, these pop cultural works struck the government as evidence of bourgeois decadence.  Mere possession of South Korean or American pop culture was a criminal offense and could lead to a sentence in prison camp.

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Cosplay Wars: The Legal Implications of Fan Costume Competitions

This past weekend, I attended the annual Milwaukee Mighty Con, a local comic convention.  While there, I watched one of the cosplay competitions where competitors dressed in fantastical recreations of iconic characters such as Star Wars’ Kylo Ren.  Yet while observing the competition and enjoying the efforts of the competitors, I pondered the legal implications of these derivative works.

But first, a little backTwo people dressed in costumesground information is in order.  The term “cosplay” was created by Takahashi Nobuyuki in 1984. Nobuyuki attended a science fiction convention in Los Angeles, and he was so impressed with the fans’ costume competition that he wrote about his experiences upon returning to Japan. Yet, no word in the Japanese language accurately represented the costume competition Nobuyuki saw. To remedy this predicament, Nobuyuki combined the Japanese equivalents of “costume” and “play” to describe what he saw.  This created the word “kosupure,” which in English roughly translates into cosplay. Today, this term universally refers to a fan’s wearing of costumes, props, and accessories to represent a character often originating from video games, comics, movies, and TV shows.  By extension, the individual who imitates the character is known as a cosplayer. Now, some cosplayers, like the competitors at Milwaukee Mighty Con, can have a monetary benefit from winning cosplay competitions.  Such monetary gains naturally bring up concerns regarding the copyrights and trademarks on the imitated characters.

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