Mariah Carey loses trademark bid for “Queen of Christmas”
If you were to ask a random sampling of gays just who the ‘Queen of Christmas’ is, most of them are gonna tell you its Mariah Carey.
Personally speaking, I cannot remember a holiday season that was not in some way impacted by ‘the elusive chanteuse’, so when she made a bid to trademark the title “Queen of Christmas” (along with “QOC” and “Princess Christmas”) it made sense to me, and I even supported it.
What I wasn’t aware of, however, were the slew of other “Christmas Queens” waiting in the wings to defend their titles against the pop diva. First there was Darlene Love who earned her holiday street cred with “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”, which Mariah herself covered on her massively successful album Merry Christmas (which also spawned the juggernaut jingle “All I Want for Christmas is You”).
Apparently, Love was already dubbed the ‘Christmas Queen’ by David Letterman in 1993, one year before Carey’s infamous Christmas album even came out. Love had already been appearing on Letterman’s show every holiday season since the mid-80’s to sing her holiday classic, a tradition now passed onto The View since Letterman’s retirement, which is why he bestowed the coveted moniker upon her.
When Carey made the move to trademark herself as the “Queen of Christmas” Love went on the record saying “at 81 years of age I’m NOT changing anything” with regard to her personal branding as the Christmas Queen.
Elizabeth Chan is another recording artist dubbed the “Queen of Christmas” by her fans. Her story is unique in that she works on Christmas music full time and has done so for the last 10 years after quitting her day job. She has had numerous Billboard charting hits and a new album called 12 Months of Christmas. She was definitely not going to take this lying down.
“Christmas is a season of giving, not the season of taking, and it is wrong for an individual to attempt to own and monopolize a nickname like Queen of Christmas for the purposes of abject materialism,” Chan said in a statement.
And the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board seems to have agreed with her, striking down Carey’s claim of ownership to the title. Had Mariah been successful she could have marketed anything she wanted under the “Queen of Christmas” trademark and sued anyone who dared use it, but alas it wasn’t meant to be, at least not officially.
To all her fans Mariah will always be synonymous with Christmas, however, a fact that even the international treasure that is Dolly Parton concedes to. When Better Homes & Gardens suggested that she was the Queen of Christmas Dolly said: “Now, don’t you say that! I’m not going to compete with Mariah … You think of Christmas, you think of Mariah. I’m happy to be second in line to her.”
To which Mariah replied on Twitter: “Dolly, let’s settle this one… You are the Queen of Everything! The Queen of the World, The Queen of Christmas, The Queen of Mine!! Love you!!!!”
Legends supporting legends, you love to see it!
So, despite Mariah’s loss in the court of law, something tells me that she’ll be just fine for this holiday season and many more to come.
