Is ‘Die Hard’ a Christmas movie?

For years now a debate has raged, sometimes reaching hilariously emotional levels. You know what I’m referring to: is Die Hard a Christmas film? Well, I have the answer. The irrefutable, definitive answer. You wanna know? Okay. The answer is… Christmas films don’t exist. Confused? Don’t worry, I’ll try to clear this up.

So, the issue with this debate fundamentally, I think, boils down to this: a Christmas film is simply not a thing. At least, it’s not a thing anymore than any genre or subgenre is a thing. We made these concepts up, they’re not tangible, real things that have definitive critera and rules. Is The Silence of the Lambs a horror or a thriller? It’s basically the same question, and it’s impossible for it to have an all-ecompassing and definitive answer because, well… what is a horror? What is a thriller? What is a Christmas film?

The thing is, no matter what crtiera people try to force on these things, there will always be outliers. Genre isn’t concrete, no matter how much we all try to pretend that it is. Popping art — and yes, movies are art — into little boxes with a set of specific points that they must meet makes about as much sense as forcing people into little boxes with a set of specific points they must meet. And we’d be crazy if we tried to do that now, wouldn’t we? Wouldn’t we…?

Of course, this becomes even more fuzzy and confused when we chuck in the whole ‘Christmas film’ angle, because what even is a Christmas film? If the only qualifier is that it’s a film you watch at Christmas (which is what it should be, let’s clear that up now) then, like, for me The Lord of the Rings trilogy are Christmas movies, because that’s when I watch them. Likewise The Great Escape, or Wallace & Gromit, or basically any movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock, because for some reason I always seem to bust them out when the season is upon us.

While thinking about this piece I posted asking for examples of the critera people consider integral to what makes a Christmas film, and in particular I wanted to hear from people who don’t believe Die Hard fits the bill. I got a lot of responses, though my sneaking suspicion was that no matter what they’d say, Die Hard probably would meet their arbritary, self-imposed rules anyway, but they wouldn’t care. Lo and behold, then, that this is exactly what happened. The general response seemed to be that for those who do think Die Hard can fall under the umbrella, whatever you consider as a Christmas movie is a Christmas movie, and for those who don’t, well… it’s just not, only movies they like are, and fuck you.

A prime example of this unfolded in a particularly irritating conversation with a fellow threader (that’s someone on threads. You should get on threads. It’s wayyy better than Twitter. Or, the site formally known as Twitter) in which the respondant in question seemed to be insistant that there simply was nothing noticably Christmassy in the film, except when I pointed out that like, actually, there is — it’s set at Christmas, at a Christmas Party, McClane himself is there to see his family for Christmas, sleigh bells are all over the soundtrack, there’s a Christmas tree, tinsel, ‘Ho-ho-ho, now I have a machine gun’, Christmas hat, Christmas is said specifically within the dialogue multiple times, it snows at the end, McClane is carrying a giant teddy bear wrapped in a bow as a Christmas present, and so on and so on and so on — the argument shifted to how this somehow wasn’t ‘relevant’ to the plot.

Now, moving aside the fact that the entire basis of this person’s initial point had now shifted dramatically (we’ve gone from ‘there’s nothing Christmassy in the film’ to ‘there’s loads of Christmassy stuff in the film but it’s not relevant’) I think what’s especially telling about this attitude is that, well… it just boils down to ‘I don’t think it is so no one else should either’ and herein lay the problem. A Christmas movie isn’t a thing. The aforementioned threader kept referring back to A Christmas Carol, arguably the greatest Christmas story ever told, as the prime example. When I suggested that you could just as easily set that story at Easter and themes and ideas would remain much the same, they said, ‘but then it would be called An Easter Carol’ as if that was some kind of gotchya.

Yeah. And Die Hard at Easter would be called Die Hard. What’s your point?

The issue is that fundamentally, a Christmas movie then is just a movie that makes you feel Christmassy, and all the other stuff — the aesthetic, the narrative, the style, the genre, etc. — is irrelevant. What makes one person feel Christmassy isn’t going to be the same as everyone else, of course, but that’s why there’s, erm… lots of different types of movies that get labelled as Christmas movies, right? No one claims a comedy isn’t a comedy because they personally didn’t find it funny. That would be an insane stance to take.

Really, what I think people take issue with in the whole Die Hard as a Christmas movie thing is that it’s an action movie. A violent one at that. But this is just silly. A Christmas Carol is a ghost story, and there’s some deliciously frightening versions of that tale realised on screen… would it suddenly not be a Christmas story if Jacob Marley looked like Jack from An American Werewolf in London?

No, genre shouldn’t play a factor. And indeed, it doesn’t (not to any sensible person anyway). For some Batman Returns is a Christmas movie. Good for them. If you watch it at Christmas, or if there’s a general Christmas vibe — whether that be aesthetically, narratively, thematically, or otherwise — then it’s a Christmas movie. That’s it. That’s literally it. Because Christmas movies aren’t actually a thing beyond just, well… films set at Christmas, I guess. You not thinking of it as a Christmas film doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, and this weird sort of, ‘ah, it’s not a Christmas film, it’s just a film set at Christmas’ is really, really kinda silly.

You notice how we don’t have this debate over Christmas songs, yeah? No one goes ‘a Christmas song has to feature sounds that are Christmas-related and therefore Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody isn’t a Christmas song because they just sing about it… where’s the sleigh bells, people!?’ do they? Of course they don’t, because that would be nonsense. But this isn’t what I want to talk about, really. Because, you see, Die Hard is a Christmas movie, and literally the only time that statement ever becomes an issue is when a bunch of people rock up to try and tell you that it’s not.

And this is where the debate gets sort of difficult, I think. It’s not that everyone has to think of it as a Christmas film, but there’s something that seems inherently insidious and, yes, gatekeepery to me about people who try to deny others their opinions. I mean, not everyone wears the little paper hats, or has a turkey, or watches the Doctor Who Christmas special, but you’re not gonna argue these things aren’t Christmas things, are you?

By and large — and I’m gonna make broad and sweeping statements here so… pinch of salt — the people who view Die Hard every Christmas, have their Hans Gruber advent calanders and their John McClane baubles and whatnot, they just wanna enjoy their Christmas, and they don’t really care if watching Die Hard doesn’t factor into your Christmas viewing habbits. But the people who insist that it isn’t a Christmas movie, they’re not just trying to deny Die Hard its place on the list, they’re trying to invalidate your Christmas experience in the process.

The ‘Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie’ crowd are essentially just a ‘You’re doing Christmas wrong’ crowd and, well… who the hell are they to tell you how to do Christmas? They may claim this isn’t their intent, they may argue that they’re not physically forcing you to not watch the movie and so on, but we all know, I think, the point that they’re getting at here, don’t we? “You can watch Die Hard if you want, but that’s not Christmas, that’s just a you thing, so it doesn’t count.”

And all you need to do to see how uncomfortable this thought process becomes is apply the logic in reverse. But, of course, we all know that it would be absolutely ridiculous for someone to claim you’re doing Christmas wrong by not watching Die Hard. To insinuate that by not watching Die Hard you’ve somehow misunderstood Christmas or are failing in doing Christmas in someway would just be really silly and kinda mean.

This is a problem, I think, with debates of this kind, because while it might appear on the surface to be two sides of equal value: a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, the implications of the ‘no’ are far different from the implications of the ‘yes’. If Die Hard is a Christmas film, then nothing else about Christmas changes, really, not for those who don’t watch it and not for those who do. But if it’s not, those who do have suddenly lost what is, in many cases, an integral part of their entire Christmas experience. And that’s not an exaggeration!

For me, watching Die Hard on Christmas Eve has been something I’ve done ever since I was little, when I used to sit upstairs on my own knowing that the next day would be extra hard because I’d have to put on my face and pretend that I was okay around a bunch of people who I didn’t much like and made me feel like I was a monster for wanting to be who I am. The first year I spent Christmas alone, the first year without my kids, Die Hard made it feel normal and, at the risk of sounding dark, stopped me from hurting myself, even if only for a couple of hours. And if Die Hard isn’t a Christmas film, if enjoying it as such is in some way doing Christmas wrong, then, well… that kinda sucks, doesn’t it?

If that made even one of you Die Hard isn’t a Christmas film ragers feel something in your coal hearts, by the way, then good. That’s the point. Movies are what they are to the people who enjoy them. And Die Hard is a Christmas film.

For years now a debate has raged, sometimes reaching hilariously emotional levels. You know what I’m referring to: is Die Hard a Christmas film? Well, I have the answer. The irrefutable, definitive answer. You wanna know? Okay. The answer is… yes. YES. Yes, it’s a Christmas film. Because, to me, it’s an integral part of my Christmas experience. Of a lot of people’s, in fact. And that’s it. That’s the only qualifier. Stop telling people it’s not; seriously, what the hell is wrong with you. You don’t like it, go watch Home Alone instead… unless you’ve got a problem with that too.

So, yeah. That’s it. Now let’s have the real conversation, shall we? Is Die Hard a slasher film told from the killer’s perspective?