Christmas stories

TV has lost a lot of its currency, in these end-times. First downloads, and then the desperate corporate clawback of Netflix, Neon and Lightbox have killed off freeview, leaving it a stinking puddle of simpering infotainment and crass Americana: Hoarders, Botched and the Real Housewives of the Anthropocene.

But everything changes at the end of the year, when it’s time for the annual Christmas movie programming tradition.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that there was only one movie on TV at Christmas: The Sound of Music. I could never understand why, because it seemed to have about as much to do with that Bible story as pine trees, credit card debt and ham. 

But then we began to get the annual dusting-off of imported nostalgia like Miracle on 34th Street, followed by new-school Christmas-themed films like Home Alone, Elf and Love Actually.

 Neo-liberal brat struggles against the proletariat, whose demands 
threaten his own status and resources. Source

But this year, idly skimming the listings, I’ve noticed a change.

Frozen, Pretty Woman, The Wedding Singer, The Shawshank Redemption. The underpinning religiosity of Christmas, long since mutated into a godless, reindeer-propelled tinsel-covered mess, has now mushroomed into some vague, generalised ‘family values’ fable, with a side order of prosperity theology. Glossy, moralistic stories, with a family values focus and a weird element of aspirational social mobility – this is the new-look Xmas fodder. There’s a self-righteous sense of justice and entitlement in all of these films - a striving for outcomes - that fits well with the ethos of Dance Moms and Reno Rumble. Are these the ‘Bible stories’ of the modern age? 

I can’t say I have a particular affinity with Bible stories, but I am quite attached to the

Sound of Music’s celebration of singing your heart out in the open air and making
goofy clothes out of the curtains. (And as the movie itself illustrates, not everyone’s cut out to be churchy, even the Mother Superior.) But what’s the messaging from these late-comer faux-Christmas movies?

·    You can have your own kingdom and get rich any old how cos you deserve it, but it might take you forty years (or if you’re a woman, you’ll have to get married and give up your well-paid job).

·    Believe in yourself, even though you’re a loser. Don’t go changing!

The stories we tell ourselves as a culture have strong aspects of crowd control, for children and adults alike: messages about morality, gender roles, and acceptable behaviour; what we value and what we desire. The Bible, a product of its time, is just the same - full of good guys and bad guys.

But these modern ‘ends justify the means’ stories seem to lack a certain focus – there’s no

Crisp apple strudel. Source

god-figure, no santa-figure, to pass judgement on our characters’ achievements. Just us, admiring the outcome of their wealth and/or romantic success. Is this what we need, post-Santa, post-God? 

Now that the Christmas season’s main focus is on quality time with the family, are these really the fantasies that tell our stories? Do we really need that lump in the throat from some movie about the perfect oddball family to make us see our own as worth the effort?

     

Listening

She said, there’s never any noise,

unless I make it myself

it’s cold, it’s empty, it’s

sad

She said I’m sick I’m sick I’m

sick to death

of turning around

inside

And she said, there’s a picture of a hill on my wall

and it looks a bit

like home, that’s all

it’s just that

sometimes I feel

like I’m my only friend

And I said sorry what?

Say that again?

Fandom

I’ve never been a fan of Robbie Williams. A bit too self-conscious, and constructed. Arch, even. A bit too…Benny Hill. Although I have to confess I was quite taken with the story I once heard, of how he asked to be driven to a pub in the middle of

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nowhere after this film shoot, dressed in this costume. Wandered up to the bar, ordered a round of drinks, then frantically patted himself down for his wallet, before running out into the night giggling.   

I suppose as a feminist I should thank him for commodifying himself to the same degree that so many women performers do; could be he’s a subversive activist, whose cheeky chappy career has been all about highlighting the disparities between male and female identities in the spotlight of commercialised sexuality. But, he’s probably just a dickhead.

So I wasn’t too disappointed then when I heard his latest song, which is, frankly, rubbish. Worse: it’s divisive, privileged, ignorant rubbish. Honestly, how dumb and sheltered is he?

It even got on the news for being so awful, and a Russian commentator was quoted as saying that there were, sort of, some recognisably Russian elements to his caricature of the culture, if you went back to the 1950s. Research, Robbie, research. (Check out the bit where he sings ‘revolution is in the wind’, as if it’s not 99 years later.)

My cringing reaction to Party Like A Russian was thrown into sharp relief for me the following evening when I went to see the movie 8 Days A Week. Didn’t expect much, as I’m not a huge Beatles fan (UNLIKE SOME OF THE AUDIENCE OMG), but actually, what a bloody good film.

  

In amongst the 1960s footage it was very touching to hear a present-day Whoopi

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Goldberg talk about how much Beatlemania meant to her, as a child in New York. How inclusive their music seemed, and how for her it transcended the bitter racial divisions that she was growing up in, and made her feel part of something that was for black and white alike. And that was even before the Beatles refused to play to a segregated audience in Jacksonville. Mind you, also before John Lennon’s unfortunate remarks about Jesus. And before this.  Can’t please everyone. 

But listening to Whoopi in particular, I was reminded of the feeling I had as a child when I first realised that the story I was reading – the rich, exciting, adventure book I was enjoying so much – was not written for me. It was written for boys. Something jarred, and I realised I wasn't the audience the author had in mind when writing; this voice I loved so much was not speaking to me at all. I felt betrayed.

It’s a feeling that’s never left me, because every day there’s a song, or an ad, a newspaper article or a painting, that reminds me that I’m not the audience. I’m scenery.

I expect that’s how any Robbie Williams fans in Russia are feeling right now; whoever he thinks he’s communicating with, it’s clearly not them.

But then, maybe he’s only ever been communicating with himself. So to speak.

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