…If you’re laid-up with a breakdown
Throw away your vitamin
Don’t get worse; grab your nurse,
And come to Holiday Inn
Happy Holiday, Happy Holiday
While the merry bells are ringing
May your every wish come true…
— ‘Happy Holiday’, composed by Irving Berlin for the 1942 film ‘Holiday Inn’
The Christmas of 1942 must have been depressing for many, if not most, Americans. US soldiers were fighting in Europe and in the Pacific. Food, gas, and clothing were rationed. Communities conducted scrap metal drives. To help build military armaments, women were working as electricians, welders and riveters in defense plants. Japanese-American citizens were locked up in detention camps. People were growing increasingly dependent on radio reports for news.
The United States Office of War Information released posters in which Americans were urged to “Do with less — so they’ll have enough…” (“they” referred to US troops). The news media was tightly controlled by government censors, to hide the ugliness of the war from the general public, as much as possible, and thus help maintain citizen support for the American war effort.
Hollywood did its best to keep the American public distracted with comedies, cowboy westerns, mysteries — and of course, fictional tales about heroic GIs risking their lives — and often, paying with their lives — to defeat the Germans and Japanese.
It was clear, back then, who the enemy was. America knew who to blame for our pain and suffering. We knew against whom we were united, in our struggle.
One of the more uplifting movies of that period featured Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale, dancing and singing such musical favorites as “White Christmas”, “Easter Parade”, and “Happy Holiday”.
The story begins on a less-than-happy note. Jim, Ted and Lila have a popular New York City musical act. On Christmas Eve, Jim prepares for his final performance before retiring with Lila to a farm in Connecticut…
But Lila tells Jim she has fallen in love with Ted instead. Heartbroken, Jim bids them goodbye.
The following Christmas Eve, Jim is back in New York City, with plans to turn his farm into “Holiday Inn,” an entertainment venue open only on holidays. (Thus providing the movie’s songwriter, Irving Berlin, and choreographer, Danny Dare, the impetus for a score of catchy musical numbers.)
The 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had occurred halfway through filming, and as a result, the film’s “Fourth of July” segment was expanded to include a patriotic number that highlighted the strength of the US military.
It seems we are still dependent upon movies and similar entertainments — including the news media, and social media — to help keep ourselves distracted during our current battle with an invisible enemy: the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
A virus, science tells us, has no conscious mind. It merely reproduces and spreads because it can’t do anything else. It’s merely a string of RNA proteins, with no evil motives or aspirations. How do you blame a virus? You can’t. The virus has no master plan to ruin our lives. It doesn’t want to control us, or deceive us, or undermine our democracy, or destroy our education system, or impose socialism, or dismantle our economy.
We understand that. It’s just a unthinking virus.
So we have to find someone — a person, or a group of people — to blame. But we can’t seem to agree about exactly which person or group of people should be blamed.
Tony Fauci? Donald Trump? Nancy Pelosi? Mitch McConnell? Bill Gates? Rudy Giuliani?
CNN? Fox News? Black Lives Matter? The Proud Boys? Governor Jared Polis? San Juan Basin Public Health?
Who is the enemy here?
So many choices.
Fifty years ago, the cartoonist Walt Kelly was providing daily insights into the lives of the various whimsical creatures who occupied the Okefenokee Swamp, a shallow, 438,000-acre, peat-filled wetland straddling the Georgia–Florida line, considered by some to be one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Georgia. One of his cartoons… well, it happened to be published on ‘Earth Day 1971’… the second annual celebration of a new holiday.
Not exactly a holiday. More like an international day of mourning?
The ‘Pogo’ cartoon, that day, portrayed the strip’s central character, Pogo Possum, taking a stroll through the swamp with his friend Porkypine.
Porkypine was obviously making an attempt to keep his mind on the bright side of things as they made their way through the swamp.
Pogo was a bit more realistic about the situation.
I suppose we realize — most of us, anyway, somewhere deep inside — that we’re our own worst enemy.
Or maybe there’s no enemy, at all? Maybe we’d be better off if we just started singing and dancing?
Here’s wishing us all, a happy holiday.