Taking Christmas movies seriously
Regular readers know of my fascination with Christmas movies. That even extended at one time to planning a course on the films -- a demonstration that even some of the cheesiest of holiday films merit academic consideration. The course hasn't happened but you might be interested in the argument I made for it. So here ...
Race in America is underscored in Tradion power, media manipulation, depression and other issues buried under the more obvious them.ng Places, This Christmas and The Preacher’s Wife, the last of which is a story first done in 1947 with a white cast and then retooled for African-American stars. Holiday Inn, which introduced the song “White Christmas,” also had what one historian called “a breathtaking medley of Hollywood’s most infamous racial stereotypes” along with a blackface number that by the 1970s would often be edited out of telecasts of the film.
Hallmark’s Christmas movies, argues one writer, “celebrate things that are important to most women: family, homemaking, friendship, balancing your job with your personal life, and, unapologetically, romance”; the popularity of such films may also be seen as a reaction to the so-called “War on Christmas” in the early 2000s. But some critics long complained that the Hallmark movies were excessively white, and only in 2018 did the company begin casting people of color in lead roles.
In Christmas movies, commerce is often an enemy, whether in A Christmas Carol’s Scrooge, the Duke brothers in Trading Places, or It’s a Wonderful Life’s Potter. Die Hard is at once an influential action film, a Christmas movie – and a salute to Reagan-era politics. (Indeed, the 1980s Christmas movies in the course when taken together can spark conversation about whether Reagan’s ideas held sway over the films.) It’s a Wonderful Life, considered by many to be the greatest holiday movie, has a central character battling depression and suicidal tendencies; Batman Returns and Lethal Weapon also blend depression with the holidays. “Fake news” drives plot in Meet John Doe and Christmas in Connecticut. The post-9/11 world is an element of Love Actually and of Elf, with the latter reasserting New York City as a place of joy and beauty instead of the scene of a horrible disaster.
With these and other topics, the course will include viewing of key holiday movies along with a discussion of the ideas at work in them, examinations of scenes from related films and readings of relevant essays. Students will write responses to each of the movies. A final essay will look at a Christmas movie or movies chosen by each student, but not included in the assigned viewing, to analyze one or more cultural aspects of the chosen work. A multimedia presentation on the essay’s subject will also be required.
The class will meet weekly for about two-and-a-half hours, so films can be shown in their entirety during a single session; several features are more than two hours long.
Christmas movies provide an excellent field for deep consideration because there are so many covering decades, because holiday movie-viewing has long been a common family activity making the subject comfortable for students, and because the underlying assumptions and arguments are often obscured by the traditional holiday themes and images.
In addition, when offered in the fall semester, the course overlaps not only replays of old holiday films on television and in theaters but the arrival of new ones, potentially freshening discussion. Students will look past the holiday decorations, gaining more practice in close reading and a greater awareness of how even seemingly mild pop-culture projects can fuel larger cultural debates.
And it should be fun. We are, after all, talking about Christmas movies.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Trading Places (1983)
Die Hard (1988)
Scrooged (1988)
The Preacher’s Wife (1996)
Love Actually (2003)
Elf (2003)
This Christmas (2007)
Christmas Under Wraps (2014), a Hallmark film
Selections from other films include Batman Returns, The Bishop’s Wife, A Christmas Carol, Christmas in Connecticut (1945 version), Holiday Inn, Lethal Weapon, Meet John Doe and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Thus, the initial viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life can focus on whether the students thought the film was good, and why, as well as why the movie is so often ranked among the best Christmas films. Discussion will then turn to issues in the movie, among them the nature of business (including in its ending), George Bailey’s suicidal depression, the portrayal of small-town life, and gender and racial roles.
For the formal essay, students may challenge premises discussed in class, with support from their own reading of the text and supplemental research.
For the final essay, students will be expected to select, view and analyze a Christmas film in the manner of the second essay on each assigned film – but will have to find a movie on their own that merits such consideration. They will also prepare a multimedia presentation for class about their subject.
Grading
Reviews: 30 percent.
Analytical papers: 40 percent.
Final essay: 20 percent.
Multimedia presentation: 10 percent.
Attendance and class participation can also affect the final grade.
Asher-Perrin, Emily. “Die Hard is great, but Shane Black is the King of the Christmas Explosion.” Tor.com, December 18, 2017. https://www.tor.com/2017/12/18/die-hard-is-great-but-shane-black-is-the-king-of-the-christmas-explosion/
Belek, Cassie. “Let women have our Hallmark Christmas movies. We deserve them.” The Washington Post, December 18, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/12/18/let-women-have-our-hallmark-christmas-movies-we-deserve-them/?utm_term=.386f97b5535f
Capra, Frank. The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. New York: Macmillan, 1971. Print.
Charity, Justin. “A theory on Christmas movies.” The Ringer, December 23, 2016. https://www.theringer.com/2016/12/23/16041136/what-is-the-best-christmas-movie-df39ff8713e1
Cohen, Paul. “Cowboys Die Hard: Real Men and Businessmen in the Reagan-Era Blockbuster.” Film & History (03603695). Spring2011, Vol. 41 Issue 1, p71-81.
Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books, 2000 (1992 edition with new introduction).
Ebert, Roger. Review of The Preacher’s Wife. Rogerebert.com. Originally published December 13, 1996. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-preachers-wife-1996.
Fagen, Donald. “The Man Who Told a Christmas Story.” Slate.com, December 24, 2015. https://slate.com/culture/2015/12/jean-shepherd-the-man-who-told-a-christmas-story.html
Hassenger, Jesse. “Batman Returns digs into seasonal depression.” The AV Club, December 4, 2013. https://film.avclub.com/batman-returns-digs-into-seasonal-depression-1798242284movies?”
Hill, Pamela Nettleton. “The hallmark of Christmas: Why do we love cheesy Christmas movies?” U.S. Catholic, December 2018, Vol. 83 Issue 12, p38-39.
Hong, Jiewen, and Yachen Sun. “Warm It Up With Love: The Effect of Physical Coldness on Liking of Romance Movies." Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 39, No. 2 (August 2012), pp. 293-306.
Lyne, Charlie. “Fight for your right: The ‘war on Christmas” films nobody needs to see.” The Guardian, December 17, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/17/christmas-films-war-saving-kirk-cameron
McBride, Joseph. Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Print. McCormick, Patrick. “Forget home for the holidays.” U.S. Catholic. Dec2004, Vol. 69 Issue 12, p46-48.
Peele, Stanton. “It’s a Wonderful Life – Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Depression.” Psychology Today, Dec. 4, 2009. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-in-society/200912/its-wonderful-life-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-depression
Rey, Ashley. “Why Don’t Christmas Movies Include More People of Color? This Holiday Tradition Needs an Upgrade.” Bustle.com, December 22, 2017.
https://www.bustle.com/p/why-dont-christmas-movies-include-more-people-of-color
Roberts, Soraya. “The Unwatchable Whiteness of Holiday Movies.” The Walrus, December 20, 2017. https://thewalrus.ca/the-unwatchable-whiteness-of-holiday-movies/
Ribstein, Larry Edward, “Wall Street and Vine: Hollywood's View of Business” (March 8, 2009). U Illinois Law & Economics Research Paper No. LE05-010. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=563181 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.563181
Rosen, Jody. White Christmas: The Story of an American Song. New York: Scribner, 2002. Print.
Schudson, Ariel. “The Myth of Macho: Lethal Weapon.” Mandatory, October 3, 2012. http://www.mandatory.com/fun/197187-the-myth-of-macho-lethal-weapon
Shepherd, Jean. A Christmas Story. New York: Broadway Books, 2013. Short stories that inspired the film, published 1964-66. Print.
Stack, Liam. “How the ‘War on Christmas’ Controversy Was Created.” New York Times, Dec. 19, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/us/war-on-christmas-controversy.html
Stevens, Deanna. “Build Your Own Hallmark Holiday Movie.” Ohio.com, Nov. 24, 2018. https://www.ohio.com/news/20181124/build-your-own-hallmark-holiday-movie
Werts, Diane. Christmas on Television. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006. Print.
Christmas Movies: Ideas and Issues, Text and Subtext
Description
Where holiday films are often discussed in terms of familiar themes such as faith and family, a closer consideration of them finds meditationsRace in America is underscored in Tradion power, media manipulation, depression and other issues buried under the more obvious them.ng Places, This Christmas and The Preacher’s Wife, the last of which is a story first done in 1947 with a white cast and then retooled for African-American stars. Holiday Inn, which introduced the song “White Christmas,” also had what one historian called “a breathtaking medley of Hollywood’s most infamous racial stereotypes” along with a blackface number that by the 1970s would often be edited out of telecasts of the film.
Hallmark’s Christmas movies, argues one writer, “celebrate things that are important to most women: family, homemaking, friendship, balancing your job with your personal life, and, unapologetically, romance”; the popularity of such films may also be seen as a reaction to the so-called “War on Christmas” in the early 2000s. But some critics long complained that the Hallmark movies were excessively white, and only in 2018 did the company begin casting people of color in lead roles.
In Christmas movies, commerce is often an enemy, whether in A Christmas Carol’s Scrooge, the Duke brothers in Trading Places, or It’s a Wonderful Life’s Potter. Die Hard is at once an influential action film, a Christmas movie – and a salute to Reagan-era politics. (Indeed, the 1980s Christmas movies in the course when taken together can spark conversation about whether Reagan’s ideas held sway over the films.) It’s a Wonderful Life, considered by many to be the greatest holiday movie, has a central character battling depression and suicidal tendencies; Batman Returns and Lethal Weapon also blend depression with the holidays. “Fake news” drives plot in Meet John Doe and Christmas in Connecticut. The post-9/11 world is an element of Love Actually and of Elf, with the latter reasserting New York City as a place of joy and beauty instead of the scene of a horrible disaster.
With these and other topics, the course will include viewing of key holiday movies along with a discussion of the ideas at work in them, examinations of scenes from related films and readings of relevant essays. Students will write responses to each of the movies. A final essay will look at a Christmas movie or movies chosen by each student, but not included in the assigned viewing, to analyze one or more cultural aspects of the chosen work. A multimedia presentation on the essay’s subject will also be required.
The class will meet weekly for about two-and-a-half hours, so films can be shown in their entirety during a single session; several features are more than two hours long.
Course Rationale
This course offers another way for students to look more deeply at everyday presentations to consider the ideas being put forth, whether intended by the authors or resulting from the cultural ideas underlying the making of the films; students will have to look at movies both as historians and as present-day viewers, to see the comforting bromides of Hallmark films as a rejection of the ideas in much earlier films in favor of a “nostalgia trap” summed up by Stephanie Coontz as “the way we never were.”Christmas movies provide an excellent field for deep consideration because there are so many covering decades, because holiday movie-viewing has long been a common family activity making the subject comfortable for students, and because the underlying assumptions and arguments are often obscured by the traditional holiday themes and images.
In addition, when offered in the fall semester, the course overlaps not only replays of old holiday films on television and in theaters but the arrival of new ones, potentially freshening discussion. Students will look past the holiday decorations, gaining more practice in close reading and a greater awareness of how even seemingly mild pop-culture projects can fuel larger cultural debates.
And it should be fun. We are, after all, talking about Christmas movies.
Lesson plan
Films to be shown in their entirety include:It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Trading Places (1983)
Die Hard (1988)
Scrooged (1988)
The Preacher’s Wife (1996)
Love Actually (2003)
Elf (2003)
This Christmas (2007)
Christmas Under Wraps (2014), a Hallmark film
Selections from other films include Batman Returns, The Bishop’s Wife, A Christmas Carol, Christmas in Connecticut (1945 version), Holiday Inn, Lethal Weapon, Meet John Doe and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Assigments
Students will be asked to write a brief, review-like response in class after seeing the film, and an analytical essay following discussion of the film, selected readings and the viewing of companion pieces.Thus, the initial viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life can focus on whether the students thought the film was good, and why, as well as why the movie is so often ranked among the best Christmas films. Discussion will then turn to issues in the movie, among them the nature of business (including in its ending), George Bailey’s suicidal depression, the portrayal of small-town life, and gender and racial roles.
For the formal essay, students may challenge premises discussed in class, with support from their own reading of the text and supplemental research.
For the final essay, students will be expected to select, view and analyze a Christmas film in the manner of the second essay on each assigned film – but will have to find a movie on their own that merits such consideration. They will also prepare a multimedia presentation for class about their subject.
Grading
Reviews: 30 percent.
Analytical papers: 40 percent.
Final essay: 20 percent.
Multimedia presentation: 10 percent.
Attendance and class participation can also affect the final grade.
Selected Bibliography
Arnold, Jeremy. Christmas in the Movies. New York: Running Press, 2018. Print.Asher-Perrin, Emily. “Die Hard is great, but Shane Black is the King of the Christmas Explosion.” Tor.com, December 18, 2017. https://www.tor.com/2017/12/18/die-hard-is-great-but-shane-black-is-the-king-of-the-christmas-explosion/
Belek, Cassie. “Let women have our Hallmark Christmas movies. We deserve them.” The Washington Post, December 18, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/12/18/let-women-have-our-hallmark-christmas-movies-we-deserve-them/?utm_term=.386f97b5535f
Capra, Frank. The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. New York: Macmillan, 1971. Print.
Charity, Justin. “A theory on Christmas movies.” The Ringer, December 23, 2016. https://www.theringer.com/2016/12/23/16041136/what-is-the-best-christmas-movie-df39ff8713e1
Cohen, Paul. “Cowboys Die Hard: Real Men and Businessmen in the Reagan-Era Blockbuster.” Film & History (03603695). Spring2011, Vol. 41 Issue 1, p71-81.
Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books, 2000 (1992 edition with new introduction).
Ebert, Roger. Review of The Preacher’s Wife. Rogerebert.com. Originally published December 13, 1996. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-preachers-wife-1996.
Fagen, Donald. “The Man Who Told a Christmas Story.” Slate.com, December 24, 2015. https://slate.com/culture/2015/12/jean-shepherd-the-man-who-told-a-christmas-story.html
Hassenger, Jesse. “Batman Returns digs into seasonal depression.” The AV Club, December 4, 2013. https://film.avclub.com/batman-returns-digs-into-seasonal-depression-1798242284movies?”
Hill, Pamela Nettleton. “The hallmark of Christmas: Why do we love cheesy Christmas movies?” U.S. Catholic, December 2018, Vol. 83 Issue 12, p38-39.
Hong, Jiewen, and Yachen Sun. “Warm It Up With Love: The Effect of Physical Coldness on Liking of Romance Movies." Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 39, No. 2 (August 2012), pp. 293-306.
Lyne, Charlie. “Fight for your right: The ‘war on Christmas” films nobody needs to see.” The Guardian, December 17, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/17/christmas-films-war-saving-kirk-cameron
McBride, Joseph. Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Print. McCormick, Patrick. “Forget home for the holidays.” U.S. Catholic. Dec2004, Vol. 69 Issue 12, p46-48.
Peele, Stanton. “It’s a Wonderful Life – Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Depression.” Psychology Today, Dec. 4, 2009. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-in-society/200912/its-wonderful-life-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-depression
Rey, Ashley. “Why Don’t Christmas Movies Include More People of Color? This Holiday Tradition Needs an Upgrade.” Bustle.com, December 22, 2017.
https://www.bustle.com/p/why-dont-christmas-movies-include-more-people-of-color
Roberts, Soraya. “The Unwatchable Whiteness of Holiday Movies.” The Walrus, December 20, 2017. https://thewalrus.ca/the-unwatchable-whiteness-of-holiday-movies/
Ribstein, Larry Edward, “Wall Street and Vine: Hollywood's View of Business” (March 8, 2009). U Illinois Law & Economics Research Paper No. LE05-010. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=563181 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.563181
Rosen, Jody. White Christmas: The Story of an American Song. New York: Scribner, 2002. Print.
Schudson, Ariel. “The Myth of Macho: Lethal Weapon.” Mandatory, October 3, 2012. http://www.mandatory.com/fun/197187-the-myth-of-macho-lethal-weapon
Shepherd, Jean. A Christmas Story. New York: Broadway Books, 2013. Short stories that inspired the film, published 1964-66. Print.
Stack, Liam. “How the ‘War on Christmas’ Controversy Was Created.” New York Times, Dec. 19, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/us/war-on-christmas-controversy.html
Stevens, Deanna. “Build Your Own Hallmark Holiday Movie.” Ohio.com, Nov. 24, 2018. https://www.ohio.com/news/20181124/build-your-own-hallmark-holiday-movie
Werts, Diane. Christmas on Television. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006. Print.
Comments
Post a Comment