Film director Martin Koolhoven kicked off his third season of Koolhoven’s view (VPRO) with an episode about coming of age. What that is, he explains in his latest film lecture on the basis of a series of defining moments in your childhood: the summer when you kissed a girl for the first time, your first job, menstruating, shaving, dropping out of school, arguing with your parents. All those moments, says Koolhoven, of which you later think: that is the moment when I became an adult.
I would like to add to that: the moment when you found out that Sinterklaas doesn’t exist. And don’t care much about the climate, but more on that later.
The panic in the Dutch living rooms was great when the Sinterklaas news (NTR) reported last week that the parcel boat had sunk. Would Santa still come? Sinterklaas certainly came, we saw on Saturday in the live broadcast of his entry. But not, as some hoped, by train or powerboat. No, a week after young climate activists chained themselves to private jets at Schiphol, we saw Sinterklaas fly to the Netherlands on Saturday. In his own plane: the Good Saint 1.
Zero climate shame, that man. Anyway, we knew for a long time that Sinterklaas lingered in the past.
Landing in the Netherlands initially seemed impossible, because of the crowds at the airports. The Saint wanted to flee to Germany. Until a suitable airport was found near Hellevoetsluis (location of the entry this year). The packages were left on the baggage claim there and then got lost. Lack of staff, probably. Once landed, the Sint and Pieten were picked up with a new steamer.
Meanwhile, there has been a lot of discussion on Twitter about the Sint’s private jet. A middle finger to the young generations, according to some who suddenly longed for climate change. Precisely a way of the makers to put ‘woks’ in their place, according to others. And then the joke of the Sinterklaas newsmakers about the controversial navigator Piet Hein are yet to be made.
Sinterklaas asked the maker of the new steamer, Hein Klein, to become Piet. So Piet Hein. ‘But you remain Small’, the Saint added jokingly. On the quay in Hellevoetsluis, reporter Jeroen Kramer, the mayor and the orchestra put it on The Silver Fleet in. Piet Hein Klein later came ashore in a piet outfit that was reminiscent of a villain’s suit.
It Sinterklaas news played a conciliatory role with their satirical corona broadcasts for the past two years. This year the makers caused a stir. It was as if she cared. And so, because of these mediocre jokes and after years of fighting the racist appearance of Zwarte Piet, we risk ending up in the identitarian trenches again. Thank you, Santa Claus.