http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a13102731/santas-husband-book-war-on-christmas/
Daniel Kibblesmith, a writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Ashley Quach, a Los Angeles illustrator, have teamed up for a book that seems to challenge every conservative Christian tale about Christmas with a simple premise: In their story, Santa Claus is black and gay.
Their all-ages book, Santa's Husband, seems ready-made to test O'Reilly's arteries, but they see it as a joyful response to all the rage and resentment. It's a playful nudge towards the realization that everyone already has their own Christmas traditions, that we're all continually adding more, and that what Santa Claus looks like might just be the least important thing of all. I jumped on the phone with both Kibblesmith and Quach to hear why.
"Trolling" is probably the wrong word, but it does seem like you guys want to piss some people off. The conservative movement now is almost defined by trolling—did you want to troll back?
AQ: If it is trolling, it's definitely the cutest, sweetest, nicest trolling you've ever seen in your life. Daniel, what was that website you shared earlier?
DK: Oh, we were on The Daily Stormer today.
AQ: Right. I had never heard of that before.
DK: You live a blessed life.
AQ: But I'm learning a lot this week. The thing that was really funny to me was that they ran the story about us, and they were talking about us filling Christmas with toxic trash. But they ran it with the cutest picture that I've drawn, of Santa up on one toe, holding a mistletoe over his husband's head. And it's adorable. I'm like, do you know what you're doing? Or is it a white flag, is someone in the editorial department trapped, and we've got to get them out?
That's why I was reluctant to use the term "troll," because there seems to be a genuine worldview behind it. When Santa's feeding Rudolph out of a "Pole Foods" bag, it seems like an affirmation of the liberal coastal way of life, which has faced some backlash recently.
DK: I think it just went hand-in-hand with the tone we chose. When the whole premise of the book is, here's a nontraditional look at a traditional figure, in order to inject a little satire into the book—a few actual jokes above and beyond its base premise—I think that things like that were less a conscious defense...in the sense of quote-unquote "coastal elites" and our depraved lifestyle, and more just a natural extension of what we were writing about and the people we figured we were writing it for. I think it was a lot more basic than that. They just struck us as funny in-jokes that fit our cliché of a modern interracial gay couple.
Is this a children's book? Is it a parody for adults?
DK: We call it "an all-ages book." There are parents who have given it to their kids, or are reading it with their kids. Because at the end of the day, it's really just equitable to any other introductory book about Santa Claus that you could give to a five-year-old. It's just in our version, Santa Claus is black and married to a man.
Daniel Kibblesmith, a writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Ashley Quach, a Los Angeles illustrator, have teamed up for a book that seems to challenge every conservative Christian tale about Christmas with a simple premise: In their story, Santa Claus is black and gay.
Their all-ages book, Santa's Husband, seems ready-made to test O'Reilly's arteries, but they see it as a joyful response to all the rage and resentment. It's a playful nudge towards the realization that everyone already has their own Christmas traditions, that we're all continually adding more, and that what Santa Claus looks like might just be the least important thing of all. I jumped on the phone with both Kibblesmith and Quach to hear why.
"Trolling" is probably the wrong word, but it does seem like you guys want to piss some people off. The conservative movement now is almost defined by trolling—did you want to troll back?
AQ: If it is trolling, it's definitely the cutest, sweetest, nicest trolling you've ever seen in your life. Daniel, what was that website you shared earlier?
DK: Oh, we were on The Daily Stormer today.
AQ: Right. I had never heard of that before.
DK: You live a blessed life.
AQ: But I'm learning a lot this week. The thing that was really funny to me was that they ran the story about us, and they were talking about us filling Christmas with toxic trash. But they ran it with the cutest picture that I've drawn, of Santa up on one toe, holding a mistletoe over his husband's head. And it's adorable. I'm like, do you know what you're doing? Or is it a white flag, is someone in the editorial department trapped, and we've got to get them out?
That's why I was reluctant to use the term "troll," because there seems to be a genuine worldview behind it. When Santa's feeding Rudolph out of a "Pole Foods" bag, it seems like an affirmation of the liberal coastal way of life, which has faced some backlash recently.
DK: I think it just went hand-in-hand with the tone we chose. When the whole premise of the book is, here's a nontraditional look at a traditional figure, in order to inject a little satire into the book—a few actual jokes above and beyond its base premise—I think that things like that were less a conscious defense...in the sense of quote-unquote "coastal elites" and our depraved lifestyle, and more just a natural extension of what we were writing about and the people we figured we were writing it for. I think it was a lot more basic than that. They just struck us as funny in-jokes that fit our cliché of a modern interracial gay couple.
Is this a children's book? Is it a parody for adults?
DK: We call it "an all-ages book." There are parents who have given it to their kids, or are reading it with their kids. Because at the end of the day, it's really just equitable to any other introductory book about Santa Claus that you could give to a five-year-old. It's just in our version, Santa Claus is black and married to a man.
