Themes in X-mas Movies
Typical Plots in Holiday Entertainment
Hallmark, Lifetime etc. x-mas movies have similar plots. The main plots are about breaking up with an inappropriate (selfish, inattentive, cheating etc.) partner and finding a soul mate. Most of these connections are white and heterosexual. However, there is a subgenre of Black characters and Gay characters. Royal connection is a strong subgenre: The visiting prince forms a relationship with a down to earth local in small town America. Anyone who is writing these movies needs to remember these assumptions:
Small town America is a wholesome place. These towns are mostly white but there is no racism and usually not even any anti-Gay bigotry. Gay people also deserve to find love and sometimes do. Trans people however don’t exist. The towns are somewhat integrated. Most of the Black characters are well-respected and often wise. Usually, the main white characters have a Black friend/confidant who they have usually known since childhood. They rely on them for good advice.
For the most part the main characters are white. The movies sometimes feature Black main characters with the other plot aspects staying largely intact.
Semi-rural small towns are where the real people live and where happiness can be found. The big city is a rat race. The big city boyfriend or girlfriend is corrupted by urbanity and trying to get ahead in business. The young woman (and it usually is a woman) who returns to her small town is won over to benign slow-paced small-town ways and finds a man who shares her values there.
There is no class conflict within the small town. The shopkeepers and restaurant owners are benevolent and seek the good of the community. The whole town gathers around them and appreciates their benevolence.
It’s a Wonderful Life wasn’t anti-capitalist. It supported benign, local, small-scale capitalism. It was however opposed to greedy people who were capitalists. Modern Christmas movies also do not oppose capitalism, but they don’t even criticize local capitalists for the most part.
Evil comes from outside the small town. There is usually no banker like Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. The outsiders are often developers who want to uproot the idyllic semi-rural life of the town, or urban owners of large corporations who want to nefariously close the local factory and put the locals out of work. There may be some local people who side with the evil outsiders, but they are mostly agents or dupes of the outsiders. The authentic townspeople oppose the nasty outsiders
The conflict with the outsiders is never dealt with by struggle, especially not class struggle. Usually, the evil outsider is won away from their evil ways by the force of love. Often the heroine leading the charge against the outsider warms the heart of the outside evil doer. He softens and decent compromise is reached. Love conquers all. Love fuels class collaboration. Sometimes the roles are reversed and the evil outsider is a woman and the local hero is a man.
Sometimes this conflict of evil developers vs. wholesome old line benevolent family business is played out on an urban stage. Otherwise, the same themes apply.
None of the main characters are poor. They all seem to have lovely,large, modern, well-appointed apartments and houses. The poorest main characters are often petit bourgeois bakers, restaurant owners or at most professionals. These are often women who may not be looking for love but are quickly swept off their feet by visiting royals. Only princes visit the U.S. looking for love. The princes are all heterosexual. There are no princesses coming to the U.S. to look for love. The women who find love with the prince are usually quite willing to give up their previous aspirations and become queen of ….ia
The prince looking for love has overbearing but benign parents or protectors. The prince is a bit of a rebel but not too much of one. They reconcile at the end when the parents recognize the prince’s true love.
The map of the world, especially Europe, is different than the world we know. Europe is overrun with tiny monarchies almost always ending in ia. The royals are benign rulers who only have the good of their people in mind. There is no obvious working class in any of these states. The people love their rulers and regularly cheer and applaud for them at public events. The royal states usually have a large semi-feudal class of Dukes and Duchesses, Barons, and Baronesses etc. Sometimes, some of these aristocrats are conniving and must be put down by the good Kings and Queens. The monarchies seem to be examples of Feudalism with electricity.
These themes reflect the changes in society since It’s a Wonderful Life. Integration of the national and international economy has created the idealized ground for local-national/small town-urban conflicts. Opposition to greedy capitalists, but not to capitalism appeals to people’s innate hatred of exploitation without stoking anti-capitalist feelings. The solutions presented are personal and based on negotiation within the system: love-based class collaboration. The integration of people of color and gay people reflect the changes in attitudes over the last 80 years. Though the roles that woman play reflect the sexist structure of society, women have more agency than in some previous eras. These in turn reflect the power of mass anti-oppression movements.
As with Hollywood in general, these movies need to appeal to the oppositional feelings people have in order to gain an audience. However, they don’t want to imply a systematic critique of capitalism. The treatment of royals is a good example of reinforcement of the status quo. Hollywood is not campaigning for recreation of a monarchy. However, it wants to stoke monarchist nostalgia. This reinforces the idea that the problem is never the system, but bad rulers. None of this is to imply that there is some directing committee in Hollywood that mandates these themes. Instead, they reflect the general consciousness of writers, directors and producers flowing from pervasive capitalist ideology.
