Hollywood needs to consider the November holiday for themed flicks
With the upcoming holiday season, movie studios are preparing to release Christmas films (Can I say that? Or is it “holiday” films?) that will offer the sugary sweet lessons of family and the true meaning of Christmas. Spoiler alert: They all center on the things that are really, beneath all the holiday chaos, important in life.
They will subsequently rake in enough cash off your dopey feelings to warrant grimy, un-showered people to protest them. I’m sure you are reading this and arguing, “But Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year!”
First of all, if you did think that, you are in need of a serious life evaluation. Call me Grinch, Scrooge or whatever makes you feel festively clever, but this same principle happens only a month earlier.
Hold your gasp, dear reader, because not only do we flock to the theaters for Christmas, but also on Halloween in search of themed thrills.
And this all brings me to the main issue: If we so adamantly attend the cinema for these two holidays, what happens to the middle child — the undervalued and quickly-approaching Thanksgiving?
Quick, name a few movies about Thanksgiving. If you said “Ice Storm” (1997), I hope that having a morbid complex is working for you. For the rest of you, how many movies did you come up with? One? Two? Did you already stop reading because I made fun of Christmas?
According to cinematic standards, Thanksgiving is a holiday that ranks below Valentine’s Day (widely known as the worst holiday ever) and to me this is an enormous travesty and it should be to you as well. Why? In the most basic terms, Thanksgiving is the best holiday, hands down.
If there is one thing that Americans love more than anything, it’s food. We have an entire television channel dedicated to it — and I have yet to see a “meaning of Christmas” channel. The most central aspect of Thanksgiving is the feast. There’s also the whole being grateful thing, but the food usually overshadows it.
The Thanksgiving pageant shown at your local elementary school completely crushes the Nativity scene. Think about it. Little kids dressed up as pilgrims are way cuter than a plastic baby Jesus and a rented donkey that decides to make the stable his personal commode. So how is it that Hollywood has not realized that Thanksgiving ranks first among holidays? It should have been fully commercialized decades ago. Is it because we would rather make movies about Native Americans and white people not getting along? Or could it possibly be because we as a society haven’t fought for our right to watch people gorge themselves and explore the rules of touch football on the silver screen?
I have made my case and now I will make a plea. Let us not sit idly by while a generic curmudgeon with a big heart saves Christmas or (God forbid) another Saw aberration is released. Instead, this Christmas season, boycott all Christmas movies in theaters and write your local movie studio urging them to reward us with films detailing the sacred combination of gluttony and gratitude we deserve.
Only you can end this unfortunate and inexcusable cinematic discrimination, I urge you to act now.
A Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night.