Rudolph, Jingling Horses, and Six Geese a Laying: Six Popular Christmas Songs Analyzed by an Animal Rights Activist

About this episode

The episode analyzes six popular Christmas songs from an animal rights perspective.

This Christmas, I thought it would be fun to analyze six popular Christmas songs referencing animals-other-than-humans (mostly mammals who are forced to pull people around the snow in sleds, and then some birds, mainly fowl who are killed and eaten by humans but sometimes avians humans admire for their beauty). The songs are Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Run Run Rudolph, Sleigh Ride, Jingle Bells, The 12 Days of Christmas, and Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song. In this 24-minute podcast (originally recorded Christmas 2024), I deconstruct these Christmas songs from a Critical Animal Studies perspective. In other words, as an animal rights activist who is sympathetic to the more-than-human-world and the perspectives and interests of other animal individuals and our shared habitats, I analyze these classic songs and what lessons they teach us about fellow animal species and how we could be more respectful, kind of like those Politically Correct Bedtime Story series that gives you a critical yet humorous perspective on classic tales in Western society. My Radio Free Georgia version of this episode has the license to broadcast these popular songs, but for my podcast friends, I…

People in this episode

Host: cpfreeman

Topics covered

• animal rights
• Christmas songs
• Critical Animal Studies
• humor
• cultural analysis

Keywords

• animal rights
• Christmas songs
• Critical Animal Studies
• humor
• cultural critique
• Rudolph
• Jingle Bells

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Run Run Rudolph, Sleigh Ride, Jingle Bells, The 12 Days of Christmas, The Christmas Song

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