www.dailywire.com
Is Every Christmas Movie Secretly Conservative?
In the waning days of the Obama administration, the most fun thing you could do on the website then called Twitter was debate whether something was actually something else. Is a hot dog a sandwich? Is “Die Hard” a Christmas movie?
It was a blast, for a time. Then people got too into it (“PopTarts are ravioli”) and ruined the fun for the rest of us, right around the time that Trump took office, and Twitter got lame. Still, a version of this game has persisted on the right, because conservatives love nothing more than declaring clearly non-conservative things secretly conservative.
I’ll admit, there was a time when I loved this game. It got me a few good tweets and at least one passable op-ed. But like the sandwich debate, it got out of hand. I don’t want to read 5,000 words on how “Eyes Wide Shut” is actually about Christianity and tax cuts. You’re embarrassing yourself.
But like a reformed thief who can’t help but case every room he walks into, I can’t completely quiet the contrarian movie revisionism that lives inside me. Is “Anchorman” a commentary on Watergate? Is “Jerry Maguire” a modern retelling of King Midas? Probably not! But who cares? I’m free to think whatever I want, and the worst thing that happens is I bore my wife to death.
Except today. Because today, dear reader, I’m going to bore you to death.
The goal: see if we can make the case for why every Christmas movie is conservative. The criteria for film selection and judgement: vibes, and a healthy dash of the Christmas spirit.
Let’s dive in.
White Christmas
Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, and Danny Kaye (Photo by George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)
By far the easiest one on the list. As I wrote last year, “White Christmas” is a movie about America adjusting from World War II to the postwar boom. More broadly, the movie teaches us that it’s “okay to be okay, to be successful and happy, even — especially! — shortly after a period of national tumult.”
Defeating the Nazis, getting rich, and marrying Rosemary Clooney: they really were the Greatest Generation.
Verdict: More conservative than General Patton.
The Santa Clause
This may or may not be the movie that launched this ridiculous exercise. In this 90s Disney classic, Scott Calvin (Tim Allen), a hardworking toy salesman and loving single father, has his son taken away from him because he lets the lad believe in Santa.
The enemy: his ex-wife, Laura, and her new husband, Neal, a smug psychiatrist with an admittedly cool sweater collection. Egged on by Neal, Laura weaponizes the courts and the public school system to take Charlie from Scott, all because he wants his son to believe in Santa.
If you wanted, you could read the whole movie as an allegory about parental rights, belief in God, and the dangers of an overreaching state. Or you could just enjoy the killer 90s style and classic Tim Allen performance.
Verdict: As conservative as Tim The Tool Man, the best Republican celebrity.
Four Christmases
(JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images)
Kate (Reese Witherspoon) and Brad (Vince Vaughan) are unmarried, childless partners who spend every Christmas avoiding their families. When their vacation gets cancelled, they have to split their time between all four of their divorced parents.
Like “The Santa Clause,” this is a movie about how you shouldn’t get divorced (a lot of Christmas movies are about divorce being bad, by the way — Hollywood therapists must really be rolling in it this time of year).
But “Four Christmases” does double duty, because it’s also a movie about how you should get married and have children and not waste your life on frivolities. Kate and Brad insist they’re happy as they are, but as the movie goes on, it becomes incredibly clear that this isn’t true.
Also, Robert Duvall uses the phrase “first class ass sniffer” while drinking a Bud Heavy. Need I say more?
Verdict: Four Conservatives.
It’s A Wonderful Life
(Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
I’ll be honest: I don’t like this movie and haven’t seen it in a long time. But it’s definitely the Christmas movie with the most think pieces behind it. Dorks on the Left and Right alike love to opine about how the Frank Capra classic is really about capitalism or industrialism or whatever.
But I only remember two things about it: young George wants to have a harem when he grows up, and there’s an angel who confirms the existence of Heaven and, by extension, God.
Based.
Verdict: it’s conservative, you old building and loan!
Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
An average Joe puts on some muscle mass and grows a righteous beard, bags the town hottie, and defeats a scowling German fascist. It’s basically Captain America.
Ironically, this is the only Rankin/Bass claymation classic that makes the conservative cut. “The Little Drummer Boy” is heretical, probably. “Frosty the Snowman” is about voodoo. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is a love-yourself monstrosity that’s one glitter bomb short of a Lady Gaga musical, and also promotes Hermie, who wants to be a dentist. Pervert.
Verdict: conservative, but suspicious by association.
How The Grinch Stole Christmas
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
An important corrective to the aforementioned red-nosed reindeer. In Dr. Seuss’s classic tale, a community successfully shames an outsider into conformity and accepting the magic of Christmas. (See also: every Hallmark Christmas movie).
Also, since the Whos of Whoville only care about Christmas, we have to conclude that the Grinch eventually accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Dahoo Dores? More like Deo Gratias!
Verdict: Conservative like a rare slice of Roast Beast.
Love, Actually
You may be shocked that this one made the cut, considering it’s very fashionable every year for people to “realize” that “Love, Actually” is kind of a twisted flick, actually.
The guy from the “The Walking Dead” stalks his buddy’s wife. Professor Snape cheats on Emma Thompson and then adds insult to injury by giving her the worst Joni Mitchell album ever. The British prime minister sees the American president trying to grope his secretary and responds by… groping his secretary. There are multiple lobsters in the Nativity play. There’s a whole subplot that’s just people filming a porn! It’s all kinds of nasty, and not very Christmasy.
But here’s the thing: it’s British people doing all this gross stuff. The movie is actually an expose on how the English are moral degenerates. And the American president is clearly supposed to be Bill Clinton. Honestly, I’m amazed we didn’t produce this movie.
Verdict: conservative enough to make Maggie Thatcher crack a smile.