Jingle all the Way
Every Christmas Day for the past 10 years, I’ve watched the 1996 Holiday film Jingle All the Way. For the first five years, it was just a strange coincidence, I would just so happen to catch it on TV. After awhile, it simply became a personal tradition of mine, I always made time for Jingle All the Way. Christmas was not quite the same without it anymore.
The film came out in November 1996, and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad as two dads racing each other to buy the last turbo man doll, this years hottest toy. If that’s not a winning formula, I’m really not sure what is. The film ended up getting a 17% on rotten tomatoes, which in my opinion makes this movie criminally underrated. I will not go so far as to say that this movie is great. Honestly, it’s really a stretch to call it good. It is a feel good, so bad it’s good holiday movie with a good message.
It was my first holiday season in retail work when this movie really started to resonate with me. In the movie, the insanity that is Christmas shopping is lampooned quite critically. Dad’s Schwarzenegger and Sinbad do all sorts of lousy and dangerous things to one up each other and other people, including a faking a bomb threat in a major skyscraper, (pre-911, but still pretty crazy stuff for a family film) and fighting, stealing and conning each other. The movie is ridiculous and exaggerated, but not nearly as exaggerated as it should be. I saw a lot of the same sort of behavior working retail for a large chain clothing store. People fighting over the last item on a display was a common occurrence. A lot of negative interactions in a season that was supposedly for positive interaction with loved ones.
Just about every holiday out there is about reclaiming the “true spirit of Christmas” in some way or another. Jingle All the Way is the one movie I can confidently say gave me a grounded perspective of the holiday season. It helped me to look past a culture defined by consumption rather than cooperation. This bad holiday movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end of his string a terrible family comedies helped me gain a new perspective on Christmas. Media is pretty amazing that way.
