ex cathedra: Tis the season

Monday, December 17, 2012

Tis the season

Jolly. Holly. Folly.

Christmas flicks. Few classics, much drek.

Charlie Brown. Sentimental, yes, but grounded. And, hey, it's a cartoon.

Dickens Christmas Carol. Did you know that Christ is not mentioned in that classic? Christmas many times. Christ never. Still have a weakness for the 1951 Alistair Sim version.

On the other side of the ledger, a recent TV Christmas movie, which shall go unnamed. Upper middle class White family. The husband and wife in little more than a truce. No trace of respect for him from her, a full-time careerist and only part-time spouse and mother; from him, mostly diplomacy, accommodation and flight. The teenage girl is unbearable; nothing but moods, demands, disrespect, self-pity, utter narcissism. (The screenwriter is a woman, by the way). And from both parents toward her, only appeasement and diplomacy, never confrontation, much less discipline. Plus, we have a classic Magical Negro to fuel the plot. And the town Christmas pageant where all the groundless seasonal sentimentality triumphs is, like Dickens, utterly absent any mention of The Birthday Boy, just a talent show with antlers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: "But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time."

That's as close as Dickens comes to mentioning Christ.; 1:54 PM, December 17, 2012

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