By the end of this week you will have watched a total of four holiday films:
Rare Exports, It’s a Wonderful Life, Medea’s Christmas, and one film of your own choice. In a blog post of approximately 500 words, discuss all four films and what each seems to be saying about the holiday season.
This is due on Friday, December 16th. You’ll post your work here in the box below, but you must first create a google doc in which you will compose the essay and then cut and paste it into the text box. Additionally, you must share the Google Doc with me. The address is michael.rich@oldham.kyschools.us.
SOHS Film Studies 
Of the four christmas films I have watched, It’s a Wonderful Life, Die hard, Rare Exports, and Madea’s Christmas, convey certain truths about christmas, such as the obligations that come with christmas. Some films branch out from just christmas, such as Madea’s Christmas, confronts problems involving race or It’s a Wonderful life, confronts big business, Mr. Potter, taking over little towns, Bedford Falls.
All of the films confront the obligations that come with family around christmas, in Madea’s Christmas the film follows madea and her friend Eileen pay her daughter a surprise visit to her daughter who is now living in Alabama with her new husband, which her mom knows nothing of. Through this we see Eileen trying to control her daughter, Lacey, to do what she wants. This caused Lacey to hide her life and try to escape her mother’s clutches. Their relationship between parent and child is a sensitive thing, if you (as a parent) pull too hard and try to control them it forces the kid to push back even harder, we see in this movie, Eileen trying to control Lacey and Lacey trying to push back. We also see, later in the movie, Lacey’s in-laws (who are white) and as Eileen and Madea are forced to stay with them for Christmas we see the problems unravel.
It’s a wonderful life confronted the issue of big business taking over small business, like Mr. Potter trying to take away the Building and loan. In the movie, George Bailey again and again tries to leave Bedford Falls and go explore the world. But he is stopped by Mr. Potter trying to take over the town, the Building and Loan was the only thing that stood in the way of Potter doing it. When George Bailey’s father died the board of the building and loan left him in charge to run the company. This shows the constraints and obligations that come with christmas, George had waited his whole life to get out of Bedford Falls and see the world, however the board of the Building and Loan voted otherwise and he forced to stay in Bedford falls. It shows that Christmas and family overlook your own personal interests and while it is recalled to a joyful time, for some, like George Bailey, it represents a time of obligation and restriction on your personal life.
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What I’m taking from the films we’ve watched this week, I’ve seen that they all somehow relate to family getting along in some way, or connecting something to being together with someone or just expressing love in some sort of type of way. I think they convey this well in ‘A Wonderful Life’ because he obviously has an internal issue and he takes it out on his family. When he does this, it results in him lashing out at them, rather than trying to take on his problems head on. This is why it seems like he’s growing apart from his family as the movie goes on and on. Then, towards the end of the movie after he realizes that he has messed up and how much he misses and loves his family, he seems to get another chance at the redemption that he needs in order to get his old life back (where he had told the angel he had never wanted to be born). At the end of the movie, he is extremely happy to have his life back and then goes back to his old house. He meets his kids again and hugs them and like I said before, expresses love and joy to be with his family on that joyful day. Then he meets his wife again and hugs them, and a bunch of the towns people come and donate money and they all meet together, as friends, family, and all together just as good people. All of these movies have the same concept to me, and that’s struggling internally with some issue and then figuring it out or solving it and then fixing that issue by the end of the movie for a common happy ending, like most movies do. That is why I think that the Christmas movies that we have watched so far are all the same when it Cokes to conceptual ideas because it’s the basic stereotype of most Christmas movies.
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Nathan Doyon
Film studies Holiday blog
Each of the four films that I watched seem to have different ideas of what the holidays should be. Out of Medea,It’s a wonderful life, Die Hard and Rare exports, Its a Wonderful life was probably the most conventional. It was about family and kindness and all that good hallmarky stuff. My initial impression of it was one of cheesiness. It just seemed hoaky, although that could just be the result of jimmy stewarts acting. As the movie progressed however, it got darker and more intellectual. The film began to explore ideas of suicide and murder and ideas that are not generally associated with Christmas. This is where I became interested. I noticed that instead of cramming the basic Christmas message of family down our throats, It’s a Wonderful Life explains that despite what we may see as shortcomings, society values those that sacrifice for others, those that are generous and those that love others more than themselves.
Unlike Jimmy Stewart’s classic Christmas movie, Die Hard can hardly be considered a holiday movie, much less a Christmas one. I only watched die hard on my own because I’m not a particular fan of Christmas movies. I find them cheesy. Therefore I went for the one that was the least Christmas-Esque of the lot. Despite my original intentions of avoiding the feel good morals of holiday films, Die Hard somehow managed to bring up the classic and in my opinion, most cliche, of the holiday values: family (barf). Mclane only goes to the office of his wife so that he can spend time with her and his family. I was disappointed when this ended up being the moral.
Die Hard wasn’t the worst movie though.
For that honor, we leave Medea. I can proudly say that Medea was the worst short, worst cast, worst acted, worst produced film I have ever had the misfortune of being forced to sit through. It’s message was so blatantly obvious that my neighbors retarded guinea pig could’ve figured it out. It was family and racism. Medea taught us how to enjoy Christmas together as a mixed family of different ethnicities ranging from the Larry the cable guy rednecks of the white trash sect to the inner city “brothas” that Medea so tastefully portrays. (I don’t know how I could say that any more sarcastically). While trying to preach values of racial equality, Tyler Perry brings his entire race down by conforming to the stereotypes that civil rights leaders have been fighting against for years. Medea truly is a horrible movie and a horrible Christmas movie because it fails so miserably at its purpose. It does far more damage than good.
Rare exports was probably my favorite to watch, until the end at least. I liked that it was a new take on a Christmas movie. It didn’t conform to the whole commercial Christmas ideals that have enveloped our world. It showed Santa as the bad guy. I found it to me refreshing and interesting. To see the kids frightened of the stereotypically jolly man contrasted heavily from the mainstream holiday film. By making Santa the bad guy, the film attacks what Christmas has become and suggests that we should take a step back and maybe learn the history of the story. Rare Exports teaches that Christmas now is too commercial, too fake. Let’s get back to the roots of it and let all of our children be devoured by a giant frozen Santa with the horns of Satan.
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All of the Christmas movies we watched can be related back to family. They all display the importance of being with your family over this holiday. In Medea, the family is extremely dysfunctional, but they learn to look past their differences and still come together to have a good holiday. In It’s a Wonderful life, George Bailey has always done right by his friends and family. One day some money was misplaced from his company and he was about to be arrested for charges against it. He was ready to take his life when an angel saved him and showed him what the world would be like without him. When he returned to reality, his wife told people about his situation and everyone brought him money so he could replace the missing money, stay in business, and not be arrested. Rare Exports had a much darker view on Christmas festivities. It was based on a small town that was plagued by a evil beast version of Santa who controlled a bunch of old men as his elves. The old men were trying to free “Santa” from the ice he was frozen in and brought him all the kids in the area. A boy and his dad had to team up with some friends in order to bring down Santa and save the kids. My favorite of all the Christmas movies was the Christmas Carol one by far. It was about an old man who valued money over everything; even his love. Christmas spirits showed him his flawed ways and exposed him to what he left behind. They also let him see the amount of stress and hardship he put on his employee’s family. At the end of all these movies, a family was either brought closer or relieved of hardships that they faced.
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Out the four films that I watched that the one thing that all of them have in common is that family is the most important to get you through the holidays even though you all might fight and not get along you are family you will love one another no matter what everyone else thinks. The way they convey this in wonderful life is that when everything goes to crap and he sees the life with his family he wants to be with his family because he sees what’s it like and he never wants to lose that ever again. This is why it show you how important you need your family because when ever you are down or in a rough situation you always have family to help and that what it shows in the wonderful life. This should shows you that you should stay with your family on holidays and not be alone on the holidays. In all the movies it show its own sort of way that family is important and if you think you will disappoint them they will always forgive because they know that you need to live your own life and be happy but should do stuff with family on Christmas all the time
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Its a Wonderful Life, Rare Exports, Madea’s Christmas, and Scrooge all seem to say the same thing about Christmas- that it is a hassle. Its a Wonderful life shows a man on christmas eve on the edge of committing suicide, Rare Exports is about zombie santas, Madea’s christmas is about reverse racism, and Scrooge is about and old man who is so stingy that he nearly dies.
It’s a Wonderful Life takes place mostly not during the holiday season, but everything terrible that happens to the main character all leads up to christmas eve. George bailey’s miserable life starts out with him losing his hearing in one ear, and then being beaten by his boss at a later age. When he is much older, George is planning to go to college, but cannot because he was given the gift of having to take over the family business- which is banking. His brother goes off to school, and has some sort of arrangement with George that will allow george to leave the bank for a while and finally go off to college. However, George is unable to go to college, because when his brother gets back, he returns with a wife, which somehow puts a stop on whatever agreement george and harry had that would allow george to go to college. Furthermore, george can’t pay his loan on the bank. On christmas eve, the bank goes bankrupt, and george is framed for stealing money. He drives to a bridge and is about to jump off of it. Though the film has a happy message, Mostly, it has an overall feeling of horrible distress, which is associated with christmas, because that is when George Bailey loses it, and is about to commit suicide.
In Rare Exports, there is no happy feeling. A child that lives with his stern father finds out that santa is a cannibal and eats children that have been bad. Luckily, santa has been buried for a long, long time. Unluckily, an American group is about to dig him up, and of course they don’t know he’s a cannibal. On christmas, all hell breaks loose and a bunch of zombie santas are running around trying to steal and eat children. The problem is eradicated by the child mentioned previously, who has been subjected to horrible things, namely the dead naked men trying to kill him and his friends. The child is able to capture the zombie santas and all is well. Except that the child decides to enslave the zombie santas and force them to work as mall santas around the world. The message about the holidays seems to be that christmas is a horrifying time and santa is also horrible.
Madea’s Christmas isn’t horrifying like Rare Exports, but there is a feeling of distress. A woman has to lie to her mom about dating a white man, calling him the “farm help” while her family visits for christmas. She has to lie throughout the majority of the film, and when she tells the truth, her mom storms out of the house and plans to go back to her own home on christmas eve. This film, like Its a Wonderful Life, also has a happy ending, but mostly it feels stressful. Scrooge is the same way- The ending is peaceful, but everything that leads up to it is not, giving the holiday season a stressful feeling.
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