As A Christmas Story begins its twenty-four hour loop to commemorate the holiday season, I think of the various other film staples that have become part of this season’s diet. Rounding out a brief list is, most often, It’s a Wonderful Life, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Scrooged, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the brief cartoon, not the Jim Carrey / Ron Howard blaagh from a few years back) and Home Alone. Each of these films offers a variation on one of two holiday tropes: be thankful for what you’ve got; the gift of family is more valuable than money.
These films are sentimental and they tug at our heart strings, which is why we watch – and, to remind ourselves why we invite Aunt Alice to dinner each year, despite her tendency to drink too many white Russians before dinner, thus increasing the chances that seemingly innocuous racial epithets will be uttered before coffee and pie. Despite her verbal dysentery, she’s family and, in the end, without family, you’ve got nothing.
At the same time, there is a subculture of Christmas films that are set on or around Christmas, but, for the most part, have nothing to do with Christmas. And, as the twenty-third hour of A Christmas Story begins the last denouement of the season, and we wait for the Parkers to visit the Chinese restaurant, or we wait for Ebenezer’s rejuvenation, or Clark Griswold’s awesome breakdown during which he laments his failed attempt at recreating the “happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny Fuckin’ Kaye,” I often want to wean myself from the holiday spirit, preferring to pick out a movie like Gremlins, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, or Lethal Weapon. Each of these features Christmas as some bit of scenery or minor plot point, but, overall, “Christmas” has very little to do with whether Billy feeds Gizmo after midnight, the town lynches Edward, Jack Skelington comes to terms with his true purpose, or Martin and Roger continue to be “too old for this shit.”
Why set these movies during the Christmas season if not to wax about Christmas? Perhaps there are various underlying jabs at consumerism and one-upmanship – see Gremlins and Edward Scissorhands, or perhaps their setting is to create a deeper emotional appeal within the viewer. Would we sympathize with Martin’s recurring thoughts of suicide in Lethal Weapon had he not been watching a Bugs Bunny Christmas special while thinking about his wife? Doesn’t the mention of Christmas – or any family-based holiday for that matter — serve to, momentarily, make us recognize the personal mire through which he wades?
Regardless of the filmmakers’ creative intentions, or our desires to watch them, they still offer a fine digestif to the often saccharine films of Christmas lore; however, one stands out as the best “Non-Christmas, Christmas Film,” for reasons both creatively and thematically: Die Hard. Like its Non-Christmas movie kin, Die Hard takes place on Christmas Eve, but Christmas is more of a backdrop than an important plot point. Sure, it sets up a plethora of puns and plays on holiday familiarity (much like Die Hard 2 and Die Hard With a Vengeance), but the catalysts in the film are not the spirit of the holidays, Santa, his reindeer, or his Elfin serfs; instead, they are the twelve terrorists who have taken over the Nakatomi Plaza building in a heist attempt disguised as political radicalism.
And, this is what I like most about Die Hard. Certainly, the introduction of John McClane, who is certainly part of the bad-ass- action hero-super-cop canon, is awesome, as are the film’s action sequences, the decent all around performances – particularly Alan Rickman in his first major American film role – and the pithy dialog, but director John McTiernan does a fine job putting together a story that deviates enough from the typical 80’s “us against them” action films. Granted, the “us” is still the U.S., and the “them” – at least, the leader of “them” is Hans Gruber (Rickman), a German – but the rest of “them” are comprised of numerous ethnicities and backgrounds, which deviates from the target infidels in solely Germany or Russia.
Something else that is quite intriguing about this film is that it doesn’t shy away from America’s tendency toward “cowboy-diplomacy,” but rather mocks it and illustrates a conflict between the world’s perception of “us” and who we truly are. Take for example the head honchos in the film: Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson (Paul Gleason), and federal agents Big Johnson (Robert Davi) and Little Johnson (Grand L. Bush). All three are more impassioned by what professional endeavors victory over Gruber can bring them – particularly with dozens of media outlets covering the events – instead of logically approaching plans and weighing all intelligence – even if it comes from a random voice over the radio who could very well be a “bartender.”
In Die Hard, we win through McClane and the hostages: working stiffs trying to get their jobs done and go home. The narcissists lose. McTiernan also includes a rather flattering portrayal of the “them” that do not operate under Gruber. After seeing this film a few dozen times, it finally sunk in that Gruber is a radical who was kicked out of a rogue organization in Germany. We could probably also assume that his underlings have similarly been disavowed by whatever organization they started in as well. Therefore, various cultures and ethnicities are not castigated in this film; rather, Die Hard parallels the misconstrued perceptions on both sides of the aisle. To “them,” we are narcissistic, consumerist, cowboys. To “us,” they are various godless sects of radicals bent on destroying Democracy and capitalism. In reality – or at least the one imagined in the film – the handful of narcissists and the radicals are the minorities in their respective countries and subject to media circuses that misconstrue them as the ruling majority.
Perhaps there’s too much being read into a rather high-powered action film, but the final scene casts no doubt that the media is – at least in part – being vilified in Die Hard. Prior to Gruber’s plummet from the thirty-second floor and McClane’s emergence as victor, an overeager reporter, Richard (William Atherton) had put McClane’s children on air to plead for their mother’s life. However, this provided Gruber with a wealth of leverage against McClane; at the same time, Richard is antipathetic to the dire situation he has created and is solely trying to draw ratings and disseminate his name. While a rather impactful moment in the film, its greatest value is as a criticism of how competition often overshadows humanity, which, by default, helps fortify the stigma of “cowboy diplomacy.”
When all presents have been opened, filet mignon has been gobbled, all wine has been drunk, all sentimental movies have been played, and the last lonely pub on the street has closed its doors, perhaps it’ll be time to sit back, relax, and slowly wean yourself off of Christmas cheer without completely forgetting about it until next December.
