New Yorker’s ‘Climate Change” Carols: ‘Silent Night’ Cannibalism
Oh look, our betters at the New Yorker have found a way to trivialize a Christian holiday while warning us what happens if we don’t convert to their environmental religion. And it’s supposed to be funny, too!
For the New Yorker’s Christmas issue (Dec. 22, 2014) contributor Ethan Kuperberg published his “Climate-Change Christmas Carols.” Using traditional Christmas songs, he changed the lyrics to reflect (you guessed it!) climate change. “Oh, Christmas Tree” became a salute “plastic branches [that] don’t shed” in his piece while “Silent Night” featured cannibalism instead of Christ’s birth.
To support his “ingenuity,” The New Yorker included sound bites of carolers singing his newly re-written lyrics. The results are sidesplitting, we’re sure, on the Upper West Side. Elsewhere, not so much.
Although Kuperberg listed his version of “Silent Night” last, the song wasn’t the least – in despicable creativity. In the climate change world, “sleep in heavenly peace” turned into “uneasy peace” where singers resort to eating “Aunt Bernice:”
Silent Night! Endless night!
All is dark, there’s no light.Cyclone clouds have blocked out the
sky,
We’re almost out of our dry-meat
supply.
Sleep in uneasy peace.
We may have to eat Aunt
Bernice.
With no more “White Christmases,” Kuperberg whined, “I’m dreaming an ozone layer, just like the one I used to know.” And, with no more boughs of holly, he resorted to a new decking of halls:
Deck the halls of our mountain
hideout,
Fa la la la la, la la la la!
Hope all humans have not died out,
Fa la la la la, la la la la!
While some humans may have survived the weather change, Kuperberg was certain that Frosty didn’t:
Frosty the Snowman, did you say his
eyes were coal?
Can you pass that coal? We could
use some coal.
Let us rob his grave for coal.
The “Christmas Tree” didn’t make it either:
Oh, Christmas tree, oh,
Christmas tree!
Thy plastic branches don’t shed.
Oh, Christmas tree, oh, Christmas
tree!
We wish real trees weren’t all
dead.
But a “Winter Wonderland” existed – in California desert:
In Mojave, we can build a snowman,
And pretend that he is Mom or Dad.
He’ll say, “Did your parents escape
the horrific flash floods?,” and we’ll say, “No, man. But you can be our new dad now.”
With climate change, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire” included, “Cars and houses roasting, too.”
Other Kuperberg renditions included “The Dreidel Song” and “Let it Snow.”
When Kuperberg isn’t writing for the New Yorker, he films and writes for Amazon’s series “Transparent” – a media-beloved transgender comedy about a 70-year-old father of three who decides he’s a woman.
Kuperberg exemplifies how even the simplest of gestures – like live nativity scenes – challenge the media’s narrative of Christmas.
— Katie Yoder is Staff Writer, Joe and Betty Anderlik Fellow in Culture and Media at the Media Research Center. Follow Katie Yoder on Twitter.
