Christmas is typically a time of joy, family and the spirit of giving. In the name of social justice, it is important to suppress all those good feelings and find something to take offense instead.
Attention usually turns to the popular suggestive duet “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, whether the lyrics are romantic or indicative of aggression, but this song is far from the only piece of classic Christmas media that creates a moral panic.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” is widely considered one of the greatest Christmas films of all time, with a beautiful and timeless message about the importance of valuing life and the community. His perfect cast, excellent writing and moving message, however, do not save him from committing the capital sin of being done in the 1940s and representing associated cultural values.
While the courtship of George Bailey and his later wife Mary leads to some of the sweetest moments ever filmed, he engages in frightening behavior towards her. After the two fall into the pool during a dance, George and Mary are forced to put on a bathrobe. As he takes her home, her cloak gets stuck on a branch and falls off, leaving her naked. She runs after a bush and asks George to give her the only way she has to cover herself, but he pauses, thinking about taking the opportunity to see her naked (kidding, but it doesn’t matter).
The film also contains the sexist assumption that the worst thing that can happen to a woman is that she remains single. When George sees what his hometown would be like if he had never been born, he is horrified to see that his wife is a single librarian – horror of the same magnitude as realizing that his brother died young, his former boss and mentor went to prison, his friend Violet became a prostitute, and the corrupt businessman took control of the city. Of course, the horror has other causes, like seeing Maria’s loneliness and unhappiness, not having the woman he loves to recognize him and knowing that his children no longer exist. In the search for offense, however, this nuance cannot be involved.
If classic musicals are more your style, “White Christmas” has a single song that undoes the whole heart of its two hours in length. In the story of two Army friends who became artists who work together to surprise their general fighter over Christmas, there is a song that becomes nostalgic for minstrel shows, a type of extremely racist performance that often included black and offensive stereotypes. Although the song itself is just an excuse to sing puns-filled lyrics and engage in vaudeville-style humor, it is still a song that craves a kind of racist show, even if the reference flies over the heads of many modern viewers.
Do you like the 24-hour marathons on “A Christmas Story”? The semi-autobiographical story about the memories of a boy from Christmas in the 1930s, when he tries to convince his parents to buy him a Red Ryder BB gun, is a lovely film about family and growing up. He also glorifies the use of weapons through the various fantasies of the protagonist Ralphie with the dangerous weapon.
Also, in a Chinese restaurant scene, strong, cartoonish accents from the staff singing Christmas carols are the subject of a joke. The only thing certain about the abomination that was “A Christmas Story Live” was playing around with the expectation of the same joke, just to subvert it with charming interpretations of classic songs, asking the Old Man and, by extension, the audience: “What do you I was waiting? “
“Elf” is a hilarious film with one of the best performances ever by Will Ferrell. He plays a human, raised in the North Pole by elves, who goes to New York to meet his biological father and interacts with the human world for the first time. Not being familiar with human customs, he gets in trouble for naivety. One of these situations occurs when he encounters his love interest in the shower because he supposedly doesn’t know that she is naked. To make matters worse, in the shower, she is singing the aforementioned “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, highlighting the discomfort of the scene in a post-Me-Too era.
In all seriousness, no film will be perfect, especially those made decades ago. It is good to note where cultural values have progressed, without discarding excellent films with important messages just because small parts of them reflect outdated and offensive values. We must learn from past mistakes, not erase them. Each of these films contains a timeless message about family, community and love, which we can all learn from all year round, but especially at Christmas time.
Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and a current student at Georgetown University at the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck