TV Eye

Merry Multicultural-messmas!

At BookPeople last week, I was bemused upon seeing, big and bold up there on both marquis, the message "Happy Festivus." Those familiar with Seinfeld reruns know this reference. It's from the episode when George's father (Jerry Stiller) introduces Festivus ("the holiday for the rest of us") to George's friends. Annoyed with the commercialism and manufactured warmth of the regular holiday season, the elder Costanza's holiday includes a Festivus pole instead of a Christmas tree, a feats-of-strength competition, and a moment for the airing of grievances, usually at the dinner table in front of as many guests as possible.

I was bemused, not because I knew the reference, but because the message was large and in public view outside a bookstore, the supposed antithesis to TV. (Turn on your brain ... read a good book ... yadda yadda yadda.)

Now, there's a new holiday tradition, this one born on the prime-time soap The OC. But unlike Festivus before it, Chrismukkah has created some consternation. The holiday is the invention of The OC creator, Josh Schwartz, as expressed by the show's plucky nerd, Seth Cohen (Adam Brody). The child of a Jewish father and a gentile mother, Seth came up with a holiday that blended the best secular elements of both. But don't start spouting "merry mazel tov" so fast. It seems that the Catholic League and the New York Board of Rabbis condemn Chrismukkah as "a multicultural mess," according to a USA Today article by Michael McCarthy.

Humor is an acquired taste, I suppose. But what I find particularly astonishing are the words "multicultural mess" to define what's wrong with Chrismukkah. To me, that's what makes it so brilliant.

While The OC's Chrismukkah aims for lighthearted fun, what it does for me is throw a blanket over that invisible entity many of us deal with daily, not just during the holidays. I've had many pensive conversations with other people of color, to name one group, who speak with candor about navigating in one cultural stew and having to do business in another. Most of the time, it's effortless. Other times, it's like a huge elephant sitting on your chest. These conversations are the result of many years in higher education and confronting – in our families, our work lives, our love lives, and elsewhere – just what it means to be an educated person of color in the 21st century. For some of us, this means being the only one in your family who didn't end up dead, pregnant, or in prison before age 20.

But is this any way to carry on during the holiday season, Festivus, Chrismukkah, or otherwise? No, after these deep conversations with other overeducated folks of color, we always arrive at this: Humor is your best defense. We can, and probably will, talk about the trickiness of cultural negotiation till the day we die. All my grandma really cared about was whether I was coming home for Christmas. My mom wants me to go to church, but is just as happy to have me appear on her doorstep. My dad wants me to be happy, healthy, and safe. In the end, they want more for me than they had for themselves.

All I really want this holiday season is a sturdy Festivus pole, many cups of cheer, and for the self-appointed custodians of my sorry soul to lighten up. It's time to realize that the joke of Chrismukkah or South Park's Kyle singing "It's sad to be a Jew, at Christmas" or witnessing a fistfight between Jesus and Santa Claus over the true meaning of Christmas is not an indication that the world is going to hell. It's an indication that those who've stewed in their version of hell are not content with being silent outsiders. They are willing and able to play with the contradictions and absurdities of everyday life and reveal what has always been fact: There's a big, multicultural mess out there. The mess has it's own logic – I think. We just need more creative voices unafraid to build the vocabulary to describe it, demystify it, and, in the end, make us laugh when we need to the most.

Ho, Ho, Ho!

Congrats to University of Texas Radio-Television-Film professor Paul Stekler for his Writers Guild of America nomination. Stekler received an Outstanding Achievement in Television Writing nomination for his documentary Last Man Standing: Politics Texas Style. Last Man Standing was a SXSW favorite and aired nationally on the PBS series POV earlier this year. The WGA Awards ceremony is Feb. 19, 2005.