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 judgment: 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 Vaughn) 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.
