Christmas Movies, the proper-noun version, are often defined by naked sentimentality. They dare us to – during a season often used as an excuse for families and loved ones to come together, for bridges to be mended, and the company of old friends enjoyed – make no excuses for our feelings. Characters in these films, from Love, Actually to A Muppet Christmas Carol to The Santa Clause, are implored to love more fully, to see the best in the ones we’ve come to know as imperfect. With rare exceptions, they are intensely and unapologetically emotional stories. Is that so wrong?
The debate as to whether a movie taking place during or around the holidays is ultimately futile. In the most technical terms, there’s no reason a movie like The Long Kiss Goodnight or Iron Man 3 shouldn’t be defined as Christmas Movies. They take place during Christmas. What else do you want from them?
As we discussed last week, set dressing is not at the heart of the great Christmas films. Emotion and theme, that’s what separates them from the rest. Let’s be clear: measuring the extent to which a movie is a Christmas Movie is not a barometer of quality. Fred Claus is more of a Christmas movie than Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but anybody who’d rather watch the former over the latter, regardless of the time of year, needs to get medicated.
Still, at its best film is a lens through which we can better understand ourselves and our feelings. It’s a scary thing, confronting emotions so intense. It’s only become scarier over the last ten years. This decade has been defined by anything, it’s a generational shift towards a detached irony, a necessity for gen-Xers, millennials, and zoomers alike to survive in an increasingly complicated world. It’s a paradoxical thing as there’s never been a collection of generations that so adamantly prioritizes empathy and love, but allowing ourselves to direct those emotions inward, to explore them internally, remains as difficult as ever.
It’s at the core of why traditional Christmas Movies seem to have fallen out of vogue. A film like Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday that would warrant being called sentimental is instead dismissed as saccharine. Stories that wear their hearts and themes on their sleeves are accused of “lacking subtext.” But are the holidays really the time for subtext?
All of this is to say that I get why Die Hard has gone through such an aggressive public rebrand as a Christmas Movie over the last several years. The movement to re-envision the game-changing action film as the Ultimate Christmas Movie seems to have begun as a joke on social media (It’s funny because it’s not a traditional Christmas Movie! Classic.) but eventually took on a certain bizarre irony-cerity somewhat akin to that weird three-year stretch a while back when the same people got really into celebrating Krampus in December. These days there’s an entire microindustry of Die Hard holiday merchandise, largely available in gift shops crammed with ironic Nic Cage coloring books, kooky socks, and like, portable phone chargers shaped like panda bears or whatever.
Saying Die Hard is your favorite Christmas movie has become a personal branding choice more than an opinion, stemming from the same ethic of Bacon Culture and people who ironically spell America “MURICA.” Like saying Fast & Furious is your favorite superhero movie, it’s a non-opinion that excludes you from having to engage in the question.
Photo Credit: 20th Century Fox
It’s not entirely difficult to understand – there is no *cool* answer to the question, and pop culture discourse is built on an exchange of a peculiar currency of cool. Any charade of that cool falls apart once you admit that as a child of divorce you find The Santa Clause personally resonant or that you choke up when the kid runs through the airport in Love, Actually.
It’s a shame that this is the prevailing tone of the Die Hard Christmas Movie dialogue, because to an extent it isn’t not a Christmas Movie. The film is a deceptively rich text that crucially hinges on John McClane flying across the country to reconcile with his estranged wife over the holidays. That is, all things considered, pretty damn Christmas of him. Pair that with the bond he builds with Sgt. Al Powell via walkie-talkie over the course of the film (the moment they finally meet at the end of the movie and greet each other as old friends gets me as good as any great Christmas Movie) and you’ve got the makings of all the naked sentiment and emotional exploration required of a Christmas Movie.
Photo Credit: 20th Century Fox
The catch is that while the events of Die Hard are technically instigated by the holiday season, Christmas isn’t the lens through which these relationships are explored so much as the trauma stemming from the attack on Nakatomi Plaza is. John and Holly don’t reconcile because it’s Christmas so much as they reconcile because they’ve both seen the other narrowly escape death (multiple times) and had to contemplate living in a world without one another. Al and John’s friendship stems from survival and personal growth, neither of which have any concrete tie to the holiday. It’s a great movie, a great movie that takes place on Christmas. But don’t get it twisted: it’s not a Christmas Movie.
This isn’t to say you can’t enjoy it around the holidays or that it doesn’t operate in the general orbit of Christmas Movies. It’s not even to say that there aren’t fair counterarguments or that anybody who says it’s their favorite Christmas Movie is operating from a place of insincerity.
When it comes to the holidays, watch what you want to watch. Marie Kondo style, watch whatever sparks joy for you. But perhaps, when watching Die Hard, or Lethal Weapon, or whichever violent action movie you’ve decided is a Christmas Movie this year, ask yourself why you’re so compelled to avoid Miracle on 34th Street, or It’s A Wonderful Life, or even something as crass but ultimately directly Christmas-centric as Scrooged. Nobody will think less of you for picking a movie that doesn’t feature machine guns for but a single night of the year.
More on Geek.com:
- IS IT A CHRISTMAS MOVIE?: ‘Home Alone’
- First ‘Rise of Skywalker’ Reactions Hit Twitter After Hollywood Premiere
- ‘Superman: Red Son’ Trailer Gives the Man of Steel Good Politics
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