My wife’s grandmother was watching one such movie recently during a visit.
CW: Emotional abuse.
spoiler
It is about some HOA president (yes, that’s how the movie describes him over and over, as a full time job) that keeps showing his romantic interest in the leading feeemale character by fining her and citing her for insufficient holiday decorations and other such "why don’t you smile more 
" abusive shit for the first half of the movie.
The rest is other people in the Black Hole Sun music video worthy town passive-aggressively reminding that feeemale character how the HOA president was looking at her while she scoffs and rejects the abuse… until she doesn’t. And that’s the happy ending.
Scary shit. It’s intersectional: providing what the demographic wants and expects and further normalizing and expanding upon it.
I watched a Wisecrack video that stuck with me on the unique evil of the Hallmark movie. It’s really that real deal hard-line capital L Liberalism straight into your fuckin’ dome. It’s really the niceties of Christmas with all of the dressings of cheer and goodwill with none of the substance. Hallmark movies wear the flesh of Christmas cheer to hide the Eldritch great beast underneath.
(For the record I love Christmas as any holiday that promotes goodwill, kindness, giving, all that stuff is dope. Also people do a lot of home cooking during Christmas season which is also rad. It really bums me out all the
happened to it.)Charlie Brown’s Christmas movie was way more pleasant even while having an outright (brief) sermon of sorts from Linus.
Agreed!
The Hallmark movies truly vile (and generally bad movies), and the summation of all of them don’t have a decimal percentage of the charm the Charile Brown’s Christmas has. Linus doing his pulpit sermon takes infinitely more creative courage than the Hallmark by-the-numbers factory film-making they do. I always think the “content” of streaming services is bad, and then the Hallmark channel movies remind me there is a whole quantum subatomic backrooms of slop beneath it. The Hallmark movie machine I think became self-aware long before any A.I. did. It’s crazy how they are all exactly the same.
I also forgot but there is a great Citations Needed Episode on this subject as well.
There was a whole
episode about them and their scabbing during the WGA strike. Actually there might have been that one and another directly addressing the bland, soulless, and of course propagandizing elements of hallmark’s movies.there are two! second one interviewed someone involved in the production side
My ex family friend is a huge loser who loves these movies and she’s a shitty person. Coincidence?
“WHY AREN’T THE PEOPLE AROUND ME NORMAL LIKE THESE BLACK HOLE SUN MUSIC VIDEO EXTRAS ON THIS HALLMARK TREAT?”
Is there any conceit given that insufficient holiday decorations is absurd?
I had a similar moment recently while staying with my mom who was recovering from a stroke. She was watching this Netflix show, Virgin River. All the male leads are veterans or criminals, and there’s a teenage boy who’s hiding from his girlfriend that he wants to join the marines. I’ve noticed that trend lately, trying to market joining the military as essentially rebellious, that other people just don’t get it. There are flashbacks where the lead is underfire, a comrade dies, he’s shook. Dunno who the enemy is, don’t see em, don’t know why they’re there. At one point a doctor tells the lead ex marine that it’s a shame that Iraq was just about oil, to which our hero pauses, then says I think it’s a little more complicated than that. And does not elaborate. MORE COMPLICATED HOW MAN?? And marine recruiters just appear everywhere a teen could be. Our female lead is a doctor from LA who goes to this small town and learns that it’s a good life and big city bad. There’s also a woman who becomes pregnant despite basically hating the guy now (the lead marine) and abortion is never mentioned. I mean of course it’s her choice but there’s sooo many complications brought on and the fact that she could not have the kids -they’re twins!‐ is completely absent.
Very hallmark-y, I had a similar feeling about it after seeing a good amount of it. An eldritch horror dressed in the skin of a holiday/lifestyle is a good way to describe it. I’d thought of letting it go with my mom being a boomer on the mend, until my millennial cousin stopped by, mentioned having recommended it to her, and asked what I thought and isn’t it soooo gooood?
Is there any conceit given that insufficient holiday decorations is absurd?
It really was presented as a “welcome to Christmas heaven town, the burden is on you to fit in” thing where resistance from the outsider was the problem.
At one point a doctor tells the lead ex marine that it’s a shame that Iraq was just about oil, to which our hero pauses, then says I think it’s a little more complicated than that. And does not elaborate. MORE COMPLICATED HOW MAN??
I think at a spiritual level, the most deeply invested Burgerlanders really do see the death and killing and dying as the point in a way that transcends words. Death cult shit.
That’s so bizarre. I had thought that maybe, though still bad, it was a situation of “oh, she’s cute, I’ll make up a citation to talk to her.”
I mean, it is hallmark, so they need to peddle their bullshit wares, but that’s just so blatantly consumerism, and that the message may be taken up by real people is so unsettling.
You’re right about the death cult thing. There’s no reason, only “respecting the dead” and any questioning of that is an invitation to join the cult in is fully realized form.
It really was presented as a “welcome to Christmas heaven town, the burden is on you to fit in” thing where resistance from the outsider was the problem.
Holy shit, it’s Christmas With The Kranks without the irony
they started using my city to make their non union films that are just as bad as any pureflix atheist youtube film critic bait, sucks they don’t get dragged for it enough and everyone pretends they’re just cheesy fun shlock instead of being dangerous
No one is immune to propaganda and the twee Thomas Kinkade-like glaze over this particular propaganda makes people ignore it while those consuming it are taking in and normalizing some pretty horrifying ideology. Even if that ideology was already there in the consumer, absorbing more of it certainly isn’t helping.
This sounds like something Paul Verhoeven would put on in the background of his sci-fi dystopia movie to show how spiritually hollow and dead inside the whole of society has become
The only thing an HOA president would do in something I write would be [redacted]
Ah we had the sequel on at my dad’s place where a new family moves in but they do Christmas stuff different and that’s the whole conflict
but they do Christmas stuff different and that’s the whole conflict
HOA brain. Not even once.
HOA’s are my nemesis and I don’t even own a house
These are great movies if you are new to the process of riffing, and want to learn how to improvise dunks on cheesy movies. Do not watch them sober otherwise
Big oof.
My mother watches these religiously because she likes “the decorations and everyone’s makeup”
Just a few steps removed from “the nazis had some amazing uniforms I better talk a lot about the Wehrmacht and daydream about what it’d be like if they won the war”
real landlord shit
RENT IS A FUCK
jeb lund and david roth podcast where they watch hallmark movies
it’s christmastown https://daveandjebarentmean.libsyn.com/
