We are approaching the holiday season, which means it’s time for conservatives to drum up their annual Christmas culture wars!
The festive fun got started Thursday on Fox News, when host Jesse Watters announced they sent one of their producers to Target, where they uncovered one of the troubling items available on the retail giant’s shelves.
A gay nutcracker!
Dun, dun, dun!
For expert analysis, Watters turned to Riley Gaines, the ex-college swimmer who peaked at age 20 and then pivoted into being an ardent anti-trans troll.
The 23-year-old railed against Target, and claimed the majority of Americans couldn’t fathom the idea of a gay nutcracker… never mind a Black disabled Santa.
“You have to ask yourself, why do they keep pushing this?” she complained. “Who are they trying to appeal to?”
“Despite what the media portrays or how politicians are voting, this doesn’t represent the overwhelming majority of how this country, really how the world, feels on this issue. I think the majority of people, parents especially, they can acknowledge that gay nutcracker, Black disabled Santa, has gone way too far.”
This is a giant waste of time, of course, but we would expect nothing less from the man who thirsted over Trump’s mug shot.
On social media, the sane among us pointed out the sheer absurdity of Gaines’ gripes.
She finished 5th and turned being a spoil sport into a revenue stream
— Karleigh Chardonnay Webb (@ChardonnayM) November 17, 2023
Right-wingers railing against Target for selling a gay-friendly nutcracker is ridiculous for many reasons, mainly because it’s probably the gayest Christmas play of all (more on that later).
But first, let’s start with the basics: the gay nutcracker isn’t even new! Target released the inclusive holiday item in 2021.
The nutcracker in question, which is both a person of color and carries the Progress Flag, instantly went viral when it was first released two years ago.
Unsurprisingly, conservatives are a little behind the times.
Word spread so quickly, Pride nutcrackers started becoming sold out across the country.
It’s not surprising the Pride nutcracker is a big hit: the “pink dollar” is worth an estimated $917 billion annually to businesses. That’s why Target and other major retail chains sell LGBTQ+-inclusive products. It’s good business practice!
Despite selling LGBTQ+ products for literally years, Target was one of many companies that experienced right-wing backlash over its Pride merchandise in June. Stores in at least five states received bomb threats.
While the retail chain removed some Pride items from its shelves last Pride, the gay nutcracker appears to be on sale this holiday season.
That’s good news, because there might not be a more appropriate holiday product than a nutcracker decked out in rainbow colors.
Why?
The beloved Nutcracker composer… was gay!
It’s true: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a gay man who wrote intimately about his attraction to men. The brilliant composer engaged in homosexual relationships with dozens of men in his life, and as LGBTQ Nation notes, wrote about his actions in real time.
But Tchaikovsky’s writings were buried under state censors for a century. Russia has erased queerness from its history since before the Soviet Union, due to long-standing homophobia.
While Tchaikovsky’s cause of death is unclear, he allegedly swallowed poison to avoid being outed.
That’s a tragic story, and makes the faux outrage over Target’s gay nutcracker even more repugnant.
Conservatives sure know how to get into the holiday spirit, huh?
Covid Hermit
Even more shocking, I purchased a 12″ rainbow colored “bottle brush” tree at my local Meijer store recently. Ho ho homo! We’re definitely taking over everything as part of our evil master plan for world domination.
LumpyPillows
Pinky and the brain!
m
If you don’t like the rainbow nutcracker, don’t fvcking buy it twats!
abfab
I loved the winters when The Nutcracker was a Maurice Sendak production. It was perfect. God I miss him.
LumpyPillows
Bingo.
Georgeiv2
M.Greetings from La Belle France Thank goodness there are Americans like you with basic common sense (PS Tha’ts why I would never buy a Trump product but don’t object to their sale, think of all the unemployed Chinese children that would produce ! )
dbmcvey
Jesse Watters is a pathetic man-child and a bully.
abfab
Right up Diplomats back alley.
LumpyPillows
The article seemed to be more about Riley Gaines. I think my cold medicine is making me goofy.
dbmcvey
I don’t know a lot about her but whining about what ornaments other people choose to decorate their home isn’t a good introduction.
bachy
I’m noticing more and more LGBT products in Target, but they’re subtly intermingled with the other products, not up-front with waving flags. I prefer the stealth marketing. We don’t need the marching band, “conquest” pyrotechnics. We’re already embedded in the general culture.
dbmcvey
If they’re still making them they must be selling.
abfab
I thought we were calling it the Tar-Zhay. Come on kids! Gay it up a little bit.
LumpyPillows
I agree, we don’t need our own section. That smacks of being a ghetto, or a boutique. Now I’m confused, one is bad and one is good.
They sell a lot of LGBT stuff. Don’t think they sell it to be nice. No corporation is that nice.
ZzBomb
“Despite what the media portrays or how politicians are voting, this doesn’t represent the overwhelming majority of how this country, really how the world, feels on this issue.”
1. What “issue”? That a retail company is providing a variant product to a wide variety of markets? It’s not like you couldn’t buy a regular old nut cracker either.
2. Target is not the media or a politician. It is a retail store.
Just goes to show you, the only people who ever bring up these non-“issues” are conservatives with not enough going on in their lives to worry about the inane.
dbmcvey
She makes a claim there with no proof. It may not be how SHE feels but apparently there’s enough interest at Target to keep ordering these items.
Maybe the overwhelming majority of this country isn’t as bigoted as these two.
abfab
Still shopping Target. Wow.
abfab
Zzbomb………..you’ve got SPUNK (thank you daddy Mr. Lou Grant) and you get high marks but you’ll NEVER get thru to these people.
Still, I think you’re fine.
LumpyPillows
They get touchy with their Christmas for some reason. They say we’re against it and then they are mad when we get our own Christmas merchandise. Schizophrenic.
bachy
It’s the “dumbass” logic they use to make their claims that I find so boggling. Are they really that stupid? Or are they just attempting to cater to a stupid audience? Either way they’re throwing gays under the bus in their desperate bid to stay on television.
Jaesly
Can somebody explain how a Black Santa that uses a wheelchair hurts anyone? These people, they just want to be insensed. Not only are they homophobic, they need to add racist and ableist to the list.
abfab
Today Martha said she was over Turkeys and Thanksgiving. Thank you Martha.. Perhaps these right wing religious Gay men will eventually be over Christmas….and themselves. Oh how they bore.
LumpyPillows
It hurts no one.
Baron Wiseman
Nothing says the spirit of Christmas like celebrating your sexuality with cheap c r a p made in China. If one has to equate Christmas with their sexuality, perhaps Target should offer “tuck friendly” Christmas panties and we’ll see them lose even more billions.
dbmcvey
Baron hates Capitalism.
dbmcvey
Nothing says Christmas like whining about the way other people celebrate Christmas. If Target keeps putting this stuff out it must sell.
Why does it bother you? No one is forcing you into a Target and filling your stocking with black, disabled Santa ornaments.
Diplomat
db…lol
Fname Optional Lname
Having a gay nutcracker or a nutcracker who at least supports the LGBTQ community is nothing more than camp. No one is trying to equate Christmas with sex but if your family includes a member of the LGBTQ community a gay nutcracker purchase may help someone feel included in this religious holiday. Hurts no one and is not problematic. Disabled Santa who happens to be black should not have even been mentioned. How sad when they get irate over an imaginary figure. I hope malls across America hire disabled Santa’s this year to share their love with as many children as possible.
Baron Wiseman
@dbmcvey
Did I say it bothers me?
You and your ilk think that conservatives are angry with a black, disabled Santa and a gay nutcracker; they aren’t. They are shaking their heads and laughing at you.
Where is the three wise men waving the pride flag ornament? Or maybe a nativity scene with baby Jesus swaddled in a gay pride flag. Perhaps Target will sell those items next year. Of course, made in China. Hopefully, Jesse will derisively report on those items next year too.
abfab
And by then you will have found a new outlet.
abfab
Honey, the device you type on was made in China. Oh boy that’s way over your head.
Baron Wiseman
@abfab
As usual, wrong again. What I’m typing on was not made in China.
Keep trying. With your 327 posts per day, you’re bound to get one right soon! Don’t give up.
LumpyPillows
I’ll be honest, I do think rainbow stuff is tacky too, but I will defend our right to buy it! In fact, I will buy some of this gay stuff at Target for Christmas. There. I feel better.
Bosch
Ok, Grinch.
dbmcvey
Hey Oxy, you wouldn’t have made that comment if it didn’t bother you.
abfab
She won’t see (or was never even taken as a child) to enjoy the always enchanting The Nutcracker.
It’s communism.
Diplomat
I’m disappointed in Riley Gaines complaining about this issue.
I totally back her in keeping peniphobic TNB males out of women’s locker rooms showers and sports. And writer Alex needs to settle down and address his peniphobia. No. Gaines is not a “trans phobe” for protecting her space from wandering bio-male peniphobic loons. Get a grip.
But complaining about this statuette is really rediculous.
dbmcvey
I don’t trust your opinions on who is a transphobe but she lost any credit she may have had when she went on this idiot’s show to whine about gay nutcrackers and black disabled Santa ornaments.
LumpyPillows
I have also supported Riley’s position on trans women in women’s sports, but I think she isn’t the brightest bulb after this nonsense. Now she thinks she’s important and thinks her opinion on everything is important – it isn’t.
inbama
@LumpyPillows
Actually, as they’re carrying that so-called “progress pride” flag, it’s probably a Nutlesscracker.
Baron Wiseman
@inbama
Exactly! Perhaps Target could have a trans nut-less cracker that’s waving a trans flag and has had bottom surgery. Nothing says celebrating the birth of the Christ child like bottom surgery and a trans flag.
Bosch
Nothing says celebrating the birth of Christ like being a grumpy friendless troll who has to go on queerty to get reactions from people as a substitute for social interaction.
abfab
So. These two bothersome, irritating, annoyingly dooshy GAY?TROLLS are having hissy fits over a wimpy little man on their Fox News channel who is having hissy fits.
dbmcvey
Hey Oxymoron, if people want to buy a trans nutcracker it doesn’t bother me in the least.
Also, it doesn’t affect you at all.
abfab
DB.
LIFE affects her. A moth affects her. Gay men affect her. Her Ivy League education affects her (she’s so bitter). Think of all those student loans she has to pay off and where did it get her.
Diplomat
And why do I get this feeling Jesse watters is obsessed with getting belly down jack hammered up the ass?
dbmcvey
When he’s not out mocking the way Asian immigrants talk, or that they don’t speak English proficiently? Especially considering he barely speaks English.
abfab
Want your many obsessions worked on? See a shrink.
missvamp
but kroger has a rainbow unicorn one!
LumpyPillows
LGBT stuff is literally everywhere. They just have a burr under their saddle with Target.
LumpyPillows
The Nutcracker in any form, a nut cracker, a story and a ballet, has always been a little gay. Always. Get over it.
abfab
Super Gay! Soviet Era Gay! SOCIALISM! PINKO COMMIE FAIRIES! OH MY! GROOMERS!
LumpyPillows
Super gay, indeed!
abfab
The role of the Sugar Plum Fairy is considered one of the most difficult roles in The Nutcracker due to the complexity and technical demands of the choreography.
Bosch
If only they hated child traffickers and child molesters as much as they hate rainbow-coloured things.
abfab
And kiddie beauty pagents. Oh those Republicans do love those tiny dancers. One of them took John Benet Ramsey but shhhhhhhhhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone.
gjg64
God I thought they were having a fit over the ballet, not a cheap tchotchke!
Talk about thin gruel.
bachy
Personally, I find the term “cracker” (in the word “Nutcracker”) to be an insidious form of racism against white people. I demand the items be recalled and removed from shelves immediately.
dbmcvey
LOL!
I love in real life when white people pretend to be offended at “cracker.”
abfab
I love it when people pretend.
LumpyPillows
LOL. I do like me some saltines, honey. Just sayin’.
abfab
Entertaining Crackers
Ronbo
Let’s try to be good people here. Let the haters (including our own abfab dbmcvey) stew in their own fervent juices,
We face serious problems these days and serial “hate” is at the top. Please lower your voices and show others the way of success. Your elders brought about a modicum of equality with compassion, love and dignity.
The constant barrage of hate from abfab and dbmcvey only stir the pot of hate. Kill the anti-gay nuttyness with love and kindness, instead of giving them ammo. Please stop posting such volumes of hateful rhetoric that only escalates their hate. Be good people instead of pushing hate and division.
As Billy Porter rightly said, “hate is the enemy that should NOT be our weapon. It hurts all who carry it.” Please stop abfab and dbmcvey, your good intentions are leading the wrong direction.
dbmcvey
So, you take issue with the fact that I think it’s stupid to whine about what other people buy to decorate their home for the holidays.
You’re really, really stupid Ronbo.
abfab
Ronbo needs to have his nuts cracked. And DB, really. Our CONSTANT BARRAGE OF HATE STEWING IN THEIR OWN FERVANT JUICES is something that should be looked at.
LumpyPillows
There was probably a better post to crack dbm and abby on than this one. Just a holiday thought for joy and peace.
Baron Wiseman
@Ronbo
It doesn’t matter, Ronbo. The two Mean Girls of Queerty wrote that they were no longer going to respond to my posts. That lasted about 20 minutes until their incessant, inane, humorless blabbering started up again.
Like flies at a picnic – always buzzing, in the way and nobody wants them.
abfab
Ronbo please feel free to throw up. Baron has the hots for you.
dbmcvey
Oxymoron thinks he’s not a mean girl! LOL!