Cultural Significance
The aluminum Christmas tree was used as a symbol of the over-commercialization of Christmas in the 1965 Peanuts holiday special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. The program is considered a classic amongst Christmas specials, and its mention of the aluminum tree solidified the tree's legendary status while satirizing it as well. Peanuts character "Lucy" implored Charlie Brown to get a "big, shiny aluminum tree...maybe painted pink." Charlie lamented the commercialization of the true meaning of Christmas, ignored his friend's request, and purchased a small, scrawny natural tree instead.
The re-emergent popularity of aluminum Christmas trees has allowed them to find their way into museum collections. One example is the Aluminum Christmas Tree Museum (officially known as the Aluminum Tree and Aesthetically Challenged Seasonal Ornament Museum and Research Center. The museum, variously located in Brevard or Asheville, North Carolina was called "campy" by Fodor's in 2009. The Children's Museum of Indianapolis holds a vintage aluminum Christmas tree and color wheel in its collections. The Wisconsin Historical Museum has held the "'Tis the Season" exhibition at least twice, featuring a collection of vintage aluminum Christmas trees.
Read more about this topic: Aluminum Christmas Tree
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or significance:
“If we can learn ... to look at the ways in which various groups appropriate and use the mass-produced art of our culture ... we may well begin to understand that although the ideological power of contemporary cultural forms is enormous, indeed sometimes even frightening, that power is not yet all-pervasive, totally vigilant, or complete.”
—Janice A. Radway (b. 1949)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)