The holidays are wonderful, aren’t they? Sure there’s a lot to be cranky about. The mad dash to find gifts, the stress of traveling and coordinating family events, not to mention the inevitable religious arguments between people celebrating different occasions (or none at all). However, ultimately, when the dust settles, stores close down, and the world seems to pause in unison for just a minute, we get a chance to reflect and appreciate what matters most in our lives.
Christmas movies, as one facet of the holiday season, augment this experience by filling our heads with visions of sugarplums and our hearts with warm feelings. In fact, they often make us feel so good that we forget that the things these films teach us can actually be a little twisted.
Even if they do fill us with good cheer, appeal to our sense of nostalgia and family, and generally get us in the mood to express that good will towards mankind that we’ve all heard about, here are ten examples of Christmas movies that, despite their best intentions, express some very unsettling lessons. Starting with one of the worst offenders:
10. Home Alone – Abandoned Kids Can Fend For Themselves Better Than Adults
Let’s set aside, just for a moment, that Macaulay Culkin’s most recognized role is as a child who is more sadistic than his role in The Good Son. It’s slapstick, right? So, it’s not supposed to be scary that after running through a man’s foot with a nail and setting another guy’s head on fire, the kid still giggles as he throws them off a roof. We’ll ignore that for a bit.
This kid is pretty clever, though. More clever than his parents. When Kevin McAllister discovers that he’s on his own, he knows enough to get groceries, establish a convincing cover, and even pull off on-the-fly video editing with a VCR. When I was this kid’s age, I would’ve felt accomplished programming my alarm clock. Yet, his mother, whom we have to assume he takes after a little bit, can’t seem to manage to get home any faster than her family who just waited for the next flight. All her bribery and begging and hitchhiking won her, at best, a five minute advantage.
The argument could be made that this is just a silly kid’s movie and it doesn’t have to be realistic. If that’s the case, it would’ve been lovely if the drama didn’t feel so painfully in tune with real-life. The insults hurled between members of the family feel so mean-spirited that it can’t help but seem a little too lifelike, which is in stark contrast to the almost cartoon-ish light-hearted feeling of the rest of the movie.
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3 Comments
3 is the only one on this list that whilst troubling, is sadly true in this world. Think about it: people are validated in society simply BECAUSE of their usefulness. The older people get, the less useful ‘different’ people seem to them. Thusly they come to resent the different person since said person does not confrom to the social customs and norms that are seen as prerequisites to the “normal” person. In this way, it’s easier for gossip, stories, and even outrageous lies to be spread about the different person as it’s easier to conceive a person being a deviant to nature if they are deviating from society.
example:
You like movies and psychology, right? Well let’s say you find extreme joy in watching movies, then applying psychological principles to characters on screen by writing an essay. Seemingly innocent fun and even slightly impressive, right? But what if you wrote a paper for every movie you see from here on out, never submitting them to any form of publication for notoriety or money? At first it’s funny, and slightly amusing to everyone, however after 20 years of writing college length psychoanalytical papers, is there even a chance that everyone will consider you ‘normal’? In fact, would it be considered taboo if people actually debated the sanity of you, the “Movie psychologist”, a man who analyzes fictional characters for personal enjoyment?
What I’m getting at through an unnecessarily long diatribe is: while the title of # 3 is correct, the reality of what you mean is less “If you are different, you have to be useful for people to like you” and more “Society defines the usefulness of your talents, regardless of the value you attach to it”.
Sorry it’s so long, I have nothing else to do at work at 530 am.
Aside from 5 and 3 — live action Seuss is a deeply stupid idea, and full-length cartoon versions barely work (*cough* Lorax, Horton *cough*) and ‘Rudolph’ has always bothered me, despite my loving it — these are all way too literal. Films like these run on completely fantastic tropes that can’t be taken as anything but play in Huzinga’s sense.
What about “We’re No Angels” -1955, where Peter Ustinov, Aldo Ray and Bogie knock off Basil Rathbone with a pet snake?