Maybe, Just Maybe, Christmas IS Bought in a Store
Maybe, Just Maybe, Christmas IS Bought in a Store
A Genre Approach to A Christmas Story (1983)
[Spoilers – for A Christmas Story (1983) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947)]
A Christmas Story (1983) – Genre
We’ve all got our favourite Christmas movies that we return to year after year, deepening the messages and shifting perspectives as we age with them, embracing that warm feeling of familiarity with each subsequent watch and knowing that a chaotic year may have passed since the last time you felt this feeling but it will be there to always welcome you back no matter what version of yourself you find by next Christmas. This film is not that for me.
I will say up top that Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story (1983) is not for me, but I know it is for a very many people and I love that you have that for you and your traditions each year just as I have my own. But we are going to run through a bit of a review because this past weekend I got to talk about this film with Jason Herbert on his podcast Historians at the Movies, and I have some more things to say about it after considering it for a few days more. So, as I said last week, these Christmas reviews will be casual, short, and sweet. Also, so as not to spoil any of the good stuff we discussed on the podcast, I have fudged the Review Roulette wheel a bit this week and will exclusively be talking about Genre here.
So, let’s get to it. Despite my personal feelings, A Christmas Story is a solid Christmas film. As I have said elsewhere regarding genre as a concept, I think it’s iffy at best, and specifically with Christmas films, I take the stance that Christmas is a subgenre that we apply to other genres. So really I think A Christmas Story is a child-friendly comedy more than anything, but it uses previously established tropes of Christmas films very well and, crucially, introduces some for future Christmas films to build off of. A Christmas Story is a bit of a watershed moment for the category of Christmas films, especially with regard to the central theme: commercialism.
Now, A Christmas Story is not the first Christmas film to talk about commercialism, not even by a long shot. Miracle on 34th Street (1947) is the most obvious example to use of the Hollywood Christmas approach to commercialisation. Miracle does this incredibly clever thing where it makes the majority of its audience feel so warm and fuzzy, and you’re so touched that Santa is speaking Dutch to a little girl, you feel that Christmas magic, you get caught up in the sights and sounds of a lovely little Christmas story with a little girl learning to believe, a single mother falling in love, the US postal service saving the day. It’s good, it’s light, it’s airy, and it’s also a feature-length commercial for commercialisation. It’s so deceptive and smart to make a whole film about denouncing commercialisation set *in* a department store with the ultimate heroes being Mr. Macy himself and the US government. (For more on these thoughts, if you’re interested, I had an academic article published on it recently, but that’s the gist, it’s deceptive and scammy.)
So, we have this and other films previously mentioning commercialism and the act of buying something as part of Christmas, but it was always framed as a kinda bad thing, or at least something to feign shame at like “oh you needn’t buy anything for me for Christmas, but I will take that mink coat.” But, and this is important, A Christmas Story says “the Grinch WHO? Christmas is about the GIFTS, baby.”
The entire film is purely about getting the right gift and desperately trying to get the gift and universalising the experience of wanting a gift so badly you will beat the shit out of a bully because you’re so angry no one is buying you the gift you want and then getting it anyway. There is absolutely no shame in this film regarding wanting the right gift, and I do think that it is the first of its kind within the Christmas category to loudly declare that “actually, if we’re being honest, modern American Christmas isn’t about anything but buying shit.”
I think it’s a bold strategy but it definitely paid off because so many people do just keep coming back to this film again and again and again. It captures a sense of honesty that, truth be told, is quite refreshing after watching and analysing films such as Miracle on 34th Street that just spoon feeds you manipulation dripping in sentimentality every minute of its runtime unapologetically – save for the moment when they tell you straight up through Macy that his actual business model is exploiting the honesty policy to increase customer loyalty and therefore sales. Seriously, they just tell you that and some people are still like “nah that movie said, ‘awful lot of -isms out there but one of the worst is commercialism’ and that’s clever so it must be true, it’s so anti-commercialisation of Christmas.”
So, A Christmas Story changed the genre by embracing the genre (subgenre). It leaned into popular depictions of the holiday in film and on TV and boiled down a nostalgic truth that for a lot of kids, the holiday is purely about receiving that one gift you’ll remember far into adulthood. And with that nostalgia, sure there’s connections between that gift and other memories, the people who made that gift possible or stood in your way. The Santa who, through a child’s eyes, was gruff and looked like he inspired Billy Bob Thornton and was adamant that he wasn’t working past his contracted hours (honestly, king shit).
The film uses these highlights of moments in a man’s memory of his most important Christmas as a child and delivers this strange film that connects with its audience in a very real and honest way by saying “you don’t have to feel bad for wanting that toy, and you definitely don’t have to hide that that item brought you so much joy and happiness at a time of year when that’s what it’s supposed to do.” It absolves the viewer of the sin of enjoying the holiday they’re meant to enjoy in the ways that they do, and even though I’m not a personal fan of the film, I have to respect a film that prizes honestly without the intention of manipulation or deceit.
Because I’m Never Done When I Say I Am
Formalist
Just a quick one – This entire film, I cannot stress this enough, this entire film is just children screaming. It is so god damn loud. Just screeching and screaming and it’s like a cortisol shot mixed with six of espresso. It was so loud and unsettling, I am pretty sure it was Christopher Nolan’s origin story. On a cinematography note, I really like how that particular scene with the Higbee’s department store Santa is shot. The lens is an ultra-wide-angle lens so you get this fisheye kind of look showing not only that we are looking through Ralphie’s eyes, but also the disorientation of the moment. Aided by, of course, the children just screaming every second around him.