viz. - holidays

Illustrating Christ in Christmas

Aubri Plourde — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 14:47:48 +0000

Disclaimer: This is not a religious post. I am not attempting to exorcize any religious figures from any primordially pagan holidays that may or may not have been reified through fourteenth-century religious traditions. I am not in any way interested in taking on the “War on Christmas.”

Keep Christ in Christmas.

I was driving near the Texas State Capitol building yesterday, and as usual, there were protestors hovering at the end of the mall, some gossiping, some marching in halfhearted circles with signs that read “KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS!” I didn’t have time to snap a photo, but they looked something like this:

Image Credit: Herald-Zeitung

I’m not sure how the idea of retaining an “original” message of Christmas connects to the Texas State Capitol, or what the protestors wanted the state government to do about it, but the signs were striking. Of course, they emphasized the root-word, as though the visual cognate of “Christ” and “Christmas” functions for a kind of epistemological argument, the implication being that Christmas came from Christ. Of course, we could go on and on about the transmission of Roman pagan holidays into Christian ones through the reign of Richard III, but I’m not particularly interested in crafting that kind of history here. Instead, I was fascinated with these signs’ implicit claims to originality. The highlighting of the root-word seems to suggest, like some of the other signs, which read “Christ IS Christmas,” that the cultural holiday never changes, that cultural syncretism is a myth or a twenty-first century phenomenon. In this way, the signs allow the religious right to perpetuate the idea that Christianity is a primordial Truth that has been perverted. The signs themselves embody the narrative of decay over the fact of cultural amalgamation.

From there, of course, I did some brief Googling, steeling myself for polemics.What I found were not so many rants (although, of course, there were a few) as self-help memes, blog posts for religious families, and decorating ideas. For example, this series of internet banners offers a series of ways for families to “keep Christ in Christmas”:

Image Credit: Women Living Well

I like this one, because although I do write often about religion and science, I am not a religion-hater. The banner seems to suggest intimacy—literally, a domestic hearth scene. Despite the fact that this loaded message can be seen as a political one, this series and others like it pull focus inward to family activities. Without getting too cliche about the “spirit of the season,” I do think that these tips tend to function more productively than something like the protest; if conservative families feel that the focus of one of their primary holidays has shifted, this series pulls focus back on a microcosmic level. Notice the proliferation of posts like this one:

Image Credit: We Are That Family

Image Credit: The Joys of Boys

Each of these posts offers suggestions on the domestic level—classed and coded with gender, of course, but not carried to the level of political activism meant to trouble the separation of church and state. Each of the images focuses on a single family home, on children and their play, and, in many cases, the literal hearth of the family. Sure, there’s an argument to be made for their indoctrination, but I won’t touch that one (okay...maybe I will touch it in my dissertation). Overall, these lists, while reifying the originality thesis for Christmas, do so within the private sphere.

Others, of course, went for the political heart right away. In an image that might strike a chord with the Capital protestors, here we have Duck Dynasty’s patriarch, Si Robertson:

Image Credit: Christmas 4 U

I’m a little late to the party on the Duck Dynasty controversy, and I won’t rehash the suspension of Phil Robertson and his reinstatement on A&E’s show, (although I will point out that the “good fight” and the slogan “Tolerance goes both ways,” which was used to support Robertson’s reinstatement, insert a degree of warlike animosity into the rhetoric). I do think, though, that the pairing of these same slogans against the backdrop of the multi-millionaire conservative speaks to the center of this issue.

Of course, Robertson plays down his economic status—he and his family consistently package ungroomed facial hair, blatant sexism, and deliberately derogatory statements toward education and educated people as family values. Still, the fact that Duck Dynasty’s stars have reached the kind of political platform—gained followers—is only possible because of their economic success. In short, they have become speakers through becoming commodities.

Image Credit: The Inclusive

Here was have Jesus in all his groomed, blue-eyed glory, but this blog post, written by Brian Happ makes a solid point. In fact, maybe we should just rechristen (see what I did there?) the whole damn season:

Image Credit: Soap Box Suds

Tags:

holidays

religion

consumerism

Framing Your Family: The Rhetoric of the Holiday Card Photo

Deb Streusand — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 04:59:02 +0000

Image Credit: scrapcandydesigns

Every year at this time, you have an opportunity to frame your identity through visual rhetoric: the holiday card photo. Holiday card photos provide an opportunity to show off what one is proud of. They allow one to demonstrate originality or humor. They also make arguments about what constitutes a family.

The standard holiday card shows a single photo of a family together, with the text conveying holiday wishes and letting you know whom you’re looking at:

Image Credit: jppblog.com

For many, it’s a chance to show off how adorable one’s family is:

Image Credit: David Orr Photography

The photo often portrays the family getting into the holiday spirit together:

Image Credit: gapmuse.com

Some cards get a little more visually complex, combining other images with the main photo. Here, it gives the family a chance to share a few more images from the same shoot:

Image Credit: A Frame Forward Photography

This couple combines their photo with a painted image:

Image Credit: Perfect Postage

The rendering of the three wise men and the star shares the page with the modern photo of the couple, separated only by their names and the Christmas wish. Using this image allows the couple to suggest how close their lives are to the Bible. Other families use the multi-image holiday card to show off travel and experiences:

Image Credit: lilduckduck.com

The full-color images in the center show the children abroad and at home, so the viewer immediately gets the idea of what the card is about. The many sepia-toned outer images, which fade into the background at first, reward the person who looks further with a greater range of experiences. Whether the image is multiple or single, the holiday card is a great chance to display what you’re proud of about your family.

The card also gives people occasion to show creativity or humor, since the holiday card itself is such a cliché. Some directly mock the idea of demonstrating family closeness through a holiday photo:

Image Credit: bankruptciti.com

The image has the stereotypical family posed in a Christmas-y setting. This family, however, does not pretend to be idyllic. Showing everyone bent over their phones makes the photo perhaps a more realistic portrayal of family than the shining moments captured in professional photo shoots for standard holiday cards. Yet the family is still displaying what it’s proud of – the ironic humor and honesty shown in the photo. Some show off their senses of humor in a more cutesy fashion:

Image Credit: lollyjane.com

Within the fiction (spoiler alert) of Santa’s existence, the family mildly suggests that they have a certain rebelliousness. They defy the standard holiday card, but they still want to show you a cute picture of their family all together wearing nice matching clothes.

Since a holiday card picture traditionally shows a family, every holiday card image also makes the argument that what it shows constitutes a family. As a pet lover, I enjoy the images where people pose with their dogs or cats as other people do with their kids:

Image Credit: christmas-kid.com

Mom, Dad, Rover, Fido: a family. This type of argument, however, can also be turned to more serious purposes. Last holiday season, a GLAAD campaign sent holiday card photos of gay couples to the governors of states in which gay marriage was not yet legal. They used a holiday card photo image to advertise the campaign:

Image Credit: GLAAD

Cute smiling kids, holiday wishes, family name, date, white text on red, snowflakes – this image has all the elements of the standard holiday card. It’s a family holiday card, so this must be a family. Cooper Smith Koch, one of the two dads pictured, told GLAAD that he wanted Rick Perry to “see the love that we have for our children and how it's the same as the love he has for his.” Here, the holiday card makes the argument that if it looks like a family, it is a family, regardless of the details.

As you make your holiday cards this season, remember visual rhetoric! What argument do you want your card to make about your family?

Tags:

photography

Visual Rhetoric

holidays