I’m Bingeing All the Terrible Holiday Movies So You Don’t Have To
Part One: A Feminist Prepares
It’s that time of year! Lights sparkling, cookies baking, and… unrealistic expectations for relationships? Yes, it’s time for my favorite winter tradition: The Holiday Movie. Specifically, the hokey, unrealistic, over-the-top, holiday romance movie. I’m not talking star-studded classics like Love Actually (the holy grail), While You Were Sleeping (my personal fave) or even The Holiday (although replace the Oscar noms in this movie for nobodies and this could have gone downhill fast.) I’m talking about the made-for-tv variety created for Hallmark, Lifetime, and most recently, Netflix.
Every year, my otherwise level-headed-self waits with bated breath for the newest batch of movies. This year, in the middle of texting my bestie about which new releases to watch and which to skip, two things struck me.
First, how do we qualify these intentionally cheesy movies as good or bad? And second, why do I, a scream-it-from-the-rooftops feminist, enjoy these?
To answer these questions, I needed to figure out what qualifies a movie as a “Terrible Holiday Movie.” Plus a means of determining which end up in the terrible-but-totally-watchable category and which you shouldn’t waste your time on. A Nice List and a Naught Worth Your Time List, if you will.
I might have nearly failed my tenth-grade chem class (sorry, Mom), but I know what makes for good chemistry on screen. And as any good scientist knows, you’ve got to define your data set before you can perform an experiment. (I think? Seriously, a huge shout out to the actual science-minded people out there. I did not do well in Chem class.)
After years of preparing for this, however, I’ve decided that a Terrible HOLIDAY Movie can fall into this category if it features the (majority) of the following elements:
- Heroine, often in distress, be it financial, professional, existential, or just suffering from her singlehood (Same TBH.)
- Otherworldly Element, sometimes it’s actual magic and sometimes it’s an artifact from the heroine’s past
- Love Triangle, these usually come in one of three varieties: (1) childhood boy-next-door vs new, shiny fiancé, (2) perfect (except for his personality) boyfriend vs quirky and emotionally available newcomer, or (3) man that stands in contradiction to all of our heroine’s goals but has a heart of gold vs our heroine’s goals
- Illogical Timeline, usually somewhere between 48 hours and the 31 days that comprise December, save when the Love Triangle element includes the “boy-next-door.” In these cases, we may see some flashbacks. You’ve been warned.
- Dramatic Setting, either a specific large city (with measurable snowfall) or a completely made up aptly-named small town (with measurable snowfall) or completely made up an insanely-named small country (with measurable snowfall)
- All-knowing Spirit Guide, usually in the form of an older woman who has been jilted by love herself, but sometimes appears as the beloved grandfather or a snarky BFF
- YES, the answer to the proposal at the end of the movie (Duh.)
Okay. So now that you know the type of movie I’m dealing with, you might be thinking, “Okay, but how are you going to rate these movies?” Well, as I mentioned before, this is a science. So here’s my process:
- I will watch a movie
- Each HOLIDAY Element will get a Nice or a Naught Worth It rating based on its enjoyability factor
- I’ll add up the Nices vs the Naughts
- BUT WAIT! There’s more. I reserve the right to add or subtract additional Nices and Naughts as feels appropriate. These criteria will include but are certainly not limited to: (1) characters who have jobs outside of the food industry or event planning business, (2) celebrity appearances, (3) when people, in general, dress weather appropriately for their climate.
- The final element? I’m not expecting any of these movies to pass the Bechdel Test or anything, but I’ll take into consideration how the movie holds up to 2018 standards
Ready? Okay, here we go. First up: Netflix’s The Princess Switch. Stay tuned for the review!
