Well, today is the 13th annual Groundhog Day. As you probably know, Groundhog Day is the fictional holiday introduced to the world on February 12, 1993, when the movie of the same name was released. In the movie, on the second day in February, a make-believe animal called a "groundhog" (played wonderfully by a woodchuck) is placed in a hole in a rural Pennsylvania town. Then a large white man wearing an oversized top hat and a tuxedo cajoles the "groundhog" out of the hole. What comes next is something that could only come from the demented mind of Harold Ramis. According to the movie, if the "groundhog" sees his shadow and goes back in the hole, winter will last for another 6 weeks (which is ironically the length winter would last anyway -- touche Harold Ramis, touche). But if the "groundhog" doesn't see his shadow, then spring will come early.
Since the movie's release, Groundhog Day has caught on like wildfire, so much so that the rural town showcased in the movie, Punxsutawney, actually holds a Groundhog Day celebration each February 2nd, mimicking the movie's fictional holiday rituals. Even though the "groundhog" saw his shadow today for the 10th time in 13 years, it looks as though Groundhog Day is here to stay.
You may think this is a ridiculous example of life imitating art, but it is certainly not the first time Hollywood has turned a movie or TV show's fake holiday into a real one. Here are some other examples:
-The hit TV show "Seinfeld" popularized a make-believe non-denominational holiday called Festivus.
-In 1978, John Carpenter brought to the world a delightfully macabre autumn holiday where children dress up in costume and go door-to-door asking for candy. The holiday soon took its name from Carpenter's film, "Halloween."
-"Born on the Fourth of July" gave Congress the push it needed to officially establish July 4 as America's Independence Day.
-And of course who can forget "It's a Wonderful Life," which in 1946 brought post-War America a strange new holiday to accompany the country's predominantly Christian population through long, hard winters: Christmas. Building off the popularity of this new fad that was sweeping the nation, the next year "Miracle on 34th Street" gave us a jolly man in a red suit who purported to deliver toys to every child in the world on Christmas.
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5 comments:
how can you in good faith leave out CHRISMUKKAH
I simply gave some other examples. I could have very well included Chrismukkah.
I could have also included Thanksgiving, which came into being after 1973's "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Or a holiday marked by good-natured hijinx that took its name from a 1986 horror film, "April Fool's Day."
none of that discounts bad faith.
I would suggest Independence Day, named after the 1998(?) film starring Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, and Randy Quaid.
..or else, it's that America declared Independence Day a holiday and then decided to kill some fuckin Redcoats.
and what of Martin Luther King Day? are you too timid to field that particular political football?
Perhaps you missed my point about "Born on the Fourth of July," which pre-dated "Independence Day." The latter certainly helped increase the popularity of the 4th of July, but it by no means was the impetus behind the national holiday that we now take for granted. I mean come on, aliens? It's a little outlandish to think that a science fiction flick about fending off creatures from another planet had anything to do with the establishment of our nation's Independence Day.
And as far as MLK Day, that had nothing to do with TV or movies. In fact, it was the result of a large-scale campaign in the early '80s, supporters of which included Stevie Wonder, whose song "Happy Birthday" was released to build support for the campaign. President Reagan signed the bill to make it an official national holiday in 1983, with the first official federal observance coming on Jan. 20, 1986. I guess I just figured everyone knew that already.
Groundhog Day is named after me, from my drug running days. While shipping coke back and forth from Bogata every few weeks, i developed a severe coke habit.
Whenever the crates would arrive, I'd crack them open, dig through the coffee grounds (which, as axel foley taught us, throws off the dogs) and go right for the blow. Anyone put their hands in those coffee grounds before me, I'd snap their fingers off.
Everyone would always laugh. The Columbians gave me a free bag on my birthday (Feb 2), and called it the Day of the Grounds Hog ("Dia de el Ground Hog, in Spanish)
Fuck your Hollywood bullshit story.
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