Sixty years ago, A Charlie Brown Christmas made its debut on CBS. Today, as part of CBS’s new initiative to modernize content, CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss updates this Christmas classic.
Charlie Brown and Linus lean on a brick wall. Snowflakes fall around them.
CHARLIE BROWN: I think there must be something wrong with me. I just don’t understand Christmas, I guess. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.
LINUS: Charlie Brown, you are the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. Maybe Lucy is right. Maybe it is because of woke.
Charlie Brown sits in front of Lucy’s psychiatric booth.
CHARLIE BROWN: I feel depressed. I know I should be happy, but I’m not.
LUCY: It’s because of mainstream media cowardice. In an age of lies, telling the truth is a huge risk. I think we’d better pinpoint your fears. Are you afraid of being silenced because of your “privilege”? How ’bout for the crime of listening to a diversity of opinions? Are you afraid of getting canceled for freethinking? Or for fighting a culture war between people who think the Confederate flag is a beautiful symbol of resistance, and those who hate America?
CHARLIE BROWN: There’s a culture war?
LUCY: There is if you open your eyes to the truth.
CHARLIE BROWN: Actually, Lucy, my trouble is Christmas. Instead of feeling happy, I feel sort of let down.
LUCY: You need involvement. How would you like to be the director of our Christmas play?
CHARLIE BROWN: Me? I don’t know anything about directing a Christmas play.
LUCY: Don’t worry, I’ll help… Incidentally, I know how you feel, getting depressed and all that. It happens to me every year. I never get what I really want.
CHARLIE BROWN: What is it you want?
LUCY: Acceptance to the only school where you can think without fear of censorship or retribution: the University of Austin.
Charlie Brown and Lucy enter the school auditorium.
LUCY: All right, I’m here to assign roles. Frieda, you’re playing Dominique Francon.
FRIEDA: Does Dominique Francon have naturally curly hair?
LUCY: Pig Pen, you’re Ellsworth Toohey. Shermy, you’re Gail Wynand. And Linus, get rid of that stupid blanket! How’s Howard Roark going to own the libs while holding a stupid blanket?
CHARLIE BROWN: Lucy, what is this play we’re putting on?
LUCY: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
CHARLIE BROWN: That’s a Christmas play?
LUCY: Charlie Brown. In this age of mob thinking, it is our duty to resist the crowd.
The children begin dancing to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”
CHARLIE BROWN: Good grief…
LUCY: Let’s face it, Charlie Brown. We all know that censorship has ruined Christmas. That’s why we have to support the academic renegades on the intellectual dark web and their righteous fight against the suppression of free speech.
CHARLIE BROWN: Well, I don’t know anything about that, but I think what our Christmas play needs is the proper Christmas mood. We need a Christmas tree.
LUCY (claps with excitement): Hey, a tree! That’s it! Way to free-think, Charlie Brown! Get the biggest, bravest, most truth-seeking tree you can find. Paint it red, white, and blue!
Charlie Brown and Linus enter a tree lot. They walk to a small green pine tree on a simple wooden stand.
CHARLIE BROWN: This one seems to need a home.
LINUS: I don’t know, remember what Lucy said? It doesn’t seem to fit the modern vision.
CHARLIE BROWN: I don’t care! We’ll decorate it, and it will be just right. Besides, I think it needs me.
Charlie Brown returns to the school auditorium with his tree.
VIOLET: Boy, are you stupid, Charlie Brown. You were supposed to get a truth-seeking tree. Can’t you tell a truth-seeking tree from a manipulative, antifa mind-trap?
PATTI: You’re hopeless, Charlie Brown.
LUCY: Charlie Brown, you’ve been duped by the elite consensus and its woke worldview. You think this tree needs help? That’s exactly what it WANTS you to think!
The children and Snoopy laugh, then exit.
CHARLIE BROWN: I guess you’re right, Linus; I shouldn’t have picked this little tree. I guess this tree represents something other than Christmas now. I don’t understand anything anymore. Isn’t there anyone who understands what Christmas is all about?
LINUS: I can tell you what it’s all about.
Linus goes to the center stage. A spotlight shines on him.
LINUS: “Above all, starting today, we need to uproot, root and branch, the ideology that has supplanted truth at the core of American higher education. And that ideology goes by the name “DEI.” Some call it wokeness, or anti-racism, or progressivism, or safetyism, or critical social justice, or identity marxism. Whatever term you use, what is clear is that this worldview has gained power via a conceptual instrument called DEI.” DEI arrogates power and undermines America. It demonizes hard work, merit, family, and the dignity of the individual.
Linus picks up his blanket, walks back to Charlie Brown.
LINUS: That’s a direct quote, Charlie Brown. That’s what it’s all about.
CHARLIE BROWN: What does that have to do with Christmas?
LINUS: “It,” Charlie Brown. “It” includes Christmas and freedom and everything Americans hold dear. You’ve got to understand, Charlie Brown. DEI ruins everything.
Charlie Brown picks up his tree. He walks outside and stares at the sky.
CHARLIE BROWN: Linus is right. I can’t let DEI ruin my Christmas.
The children watch as Charlie Brown throws his little tree into a dumpster.
LUCY: Charlie Brown is a blockhead. But he did take a stand against conformity by rejecting that dishonest, cowardly little tree.
LINUS: I hate that woke little tree.
The children circle the dumpster. Snoopy flies by, chasing the Red Baron. He shoots the tree. The dumpster lights on fire.
EVERYONE: Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!
Together, as they watch the dumpster fire burn, they hum, “Proud to Be an American.”
