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?