Good evening! This week's edition of the In Common newsletter comes from Kaitlyn Dryburgh, policy and communication co-ordinator at Common Weal. To receive this newsletter direct for free every week, click here.
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What do Christmas on Call, A Shoe Addict’s Christmas, A Christmas Touchdown, A Boyfriend for Christmas, and A Merry Scottish Christmas all have in common? They’re all dreadful Hallmark movies. If you subscribe to any streaming service, you’ve probably seen a cheesy Christmas movie pop up on your home screen; apparently the big one this year is Netflix’s Hot Frosty. Where you love them or hate them, you’ve got the Hallmark channel to thank.
It doesn’t really matter where you’re watching them, because they’re all the same. They follow a cookie-cutter design (not to be confused with A Cookie Cutter Christmas or A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe) featuring an overambitious woman with her "big city values," who most likely works as a lawyer, marketing executive, CEO, or wedding planner. She has no choice but to travel to the cutest small town on business. You might be wondering, why would a CEO be doing this? But who knows.
She bumps into a good-looking man, who’s probably running a Christmas tree farm, bakery, or candle shop, and is so charitable it’s beyond belief. They don’t hit it off at first, but she soon sees the error of her ways, falls in love, and drops her career to run the local Christmas bookstore with her new hunk.
Additionally, quite a few of them also involve amnesia. A woman wakes up, can't remember why she's in an adorable small town in middle America, falls in love with a grumpy yet lovable pastry chef, and regains a new sense of self. Because nothing gets you in the Christmas spirit quite like a head trauma.
This phenomenon was pioneered by the greeting card company Hallmark and its namesake TV channel. Their success cannot be overstated – they’ve created an entirely new genre of movies. These cheesy Christmas love stories make Love Actually look like Schindler's List.
This booming trend has expanded into Christmas cruises, where you can meet all the recurring actors who appear non-stop in these movies. Christmas-Con now exists – a three-day event to celebrate the Hallmark Christmas universe. And perhaps the saddest aspect of all: The Hallmark channel was one of the most-watched channels on US election night.
I do believe that Christmas involves a little cheesiness – most Christmas movies revolve around it. On one hand, these films are just a bit of harmless fun, a chance to escape the depressing instability of the outside world and enjoy a predictable, uplifting rom-com.
But, my god, it’s like stepping back into the 1950s with these movies. First off, the majority of the characters are white – the lack of diversity in the cast is quite shocking. Nearly always, the main characters are white, heterosexual, and non-disabled. But then again, I’m not sure Hollywood is a shining example.
The storylines nearly always centre around a snooty career woman, even though she’s really just a normal woman trying to do her best. At no point is the woman admired for having an ambitious career. We’re all supposed to roll our eyes when she talks about her promotion or something. At the end, she changes her whole self in a matter of a week or so in the name of some man she barely knows, and we’re supposed to applaud this.
Nearly every film follows the same tropes: The simple life is better and should be sought after above everything else. Now, I don’t think Hallmark will be the demise of feminism (it's cheesy telly conquering, but not all-conquering), but should we be slightly concerned that this format is so incredibly popular? Are audiences idolising a 1950s housewife world? I think the casual sexism could be dialled back; the misogyny is becoming too predictable.
It’s an insane world. The popularity of these movies is mind-boggling at times. The fanbase doesn’t seem to mind that the storylines are so similar that even AI could have developed more variety. They use the same actors and even the same artwork. It’s as though art came to die. I’m sorry for being a Scrooge here, but not really.
Not only has Hallmark created a new genre of films, they’ve also invented a new way of writing movies. Interestingly enough, most films follow a three-act format, but Hallmark films follow a nine-act format. This is to accommodate the ad breaks, and it’s a strict formula that every single one follows. After all, it’s a genre built by an international manufacturer, and consumerism is at the heart of it (regardless of the endless small-town bakeries they throw at us).
Interestingly, the Hallmark movie genre seems to have a bit of an obsession with Scotland. Of course, it includes some eye-roll-inducing stereotypes and very questionable accents. Yet, they always perfectly capture the beauty of a magical, snowy Scottish landscape. So, at least they’ve got one thing right.
