I used to enjoy Christmas.
Then one movie ruined it.
In December 2006, I was enjoying a holiday lunch with my friends at the research center. We were sitting around a beautifully decorated table covered with delicious items. Everyone was happy. We talked about our holiday plans. Toward the end of the meal, we talked about movies.
Someone asked me to name my favorite Christmas movie. I said Scrooge, the musical featuring Albert Finney and Alec Guinness. Everyone agreed this was a fine film. We then went around the table, each person naming his favorite movie. To my surprise, everyone's favorite was A Christmas Story, a movie I had not seen. When I mentioned that I hadn't seen it, my colleagues were surprised. A nurse said, "I'm sure you've seen the movie. Maybe you've just forgotten." I explained that I rarely see movies. The dietician said, "You probably don't recognize the title. It's about a young boy who wants a BB Gun for Christmas." I replied that, sadly, I had not seen the movie. The physical therapist said, "But Dr. Blevins, it's a Christmas classic!"
Torrents of sympathy moved in my direction. My colleagues pitied me. The receptionist offered to lend me the DVD. Then the social worker had an idea: One of the cable stations would be having a 24-hour movie marathon on Christmas Eve. A Christmas Story would be showing all day. I could watch it then. "That's great," I said. "I promise I'll watch it." Everyone was delighted, and I looked forward to an enjoyable evening.
Two weeks passed and Christmas Eve arrived. I opened the TV Guide. Sure enough, one of the cable stations was having back-to-back showings. I stretched out on the couch and watched the movie.
It was the worst movie I'd ever laid eyes on.
Here's a synopsis.
Ralphie is a nine-year old boy who lives in northern Indiana. He wants a BB Gun for Christmas. His father is an asshole; his mother is a loser. He lives in a town populated by horrible children, horrible teachers, a horrible Santa Claus, and horrible elves. At the end of the movie, he gets the BB Gun.
I was dumbstruck. How could my colleagues be so deluded? How could they have plunged me into this cinematic inferno? I was nauseated and angry. I didn't mind wasting two hours on a bad movie, but I did mind wasting those hours on Christmas Eve. Before watching the movie, I had been enjoying a lovely holiday. Now I was filled with revulsion.
Inexplicably, many of the movie's images have become iconic. In one scene, Ralphie's father is infatuated with a lamp shaped like a lady's leg. Today you can buy that lamp on ebay.
Another scene shows a young boy with his tongue stuck to an icy pole. This passes for Christmas humor!
The movie is considered an American classic -- and it is a classic, in the hemorrhoidal sense of the word. It abounds in cruelty and abuse. So why do people like it? Because instead of giving Christmas a glossy finish, it depicts the world "realistically." That's right, folks: peace and joy are no longer realistic; they are the products of a senile mind. Evil, by contrast, titillates the post-modern cortex, seducing us into the nihilistic horror of our dismal world.
Well, I say "two thumbs down." I don't care if this movie fondled Roger Ebert's nut sack. It's a piece of crap and a desecration of Christmas. Sickened by the movie, I decided to do something I had never done before: write a review on amazon.com.
I turned on my computer and went to amazon. To my surprise, 300 reviews had already been written -- and all were glowing! I wrote a scathing review, not expecting anyone to find it, but that didn't matter: I wanted to vent by anger. After publishing it, I turned off my computer and went to bed.
On Christmas Day, I got up and went to church. After Mass, I went home and turned on my computer to check on my review. To my astonishment, twenty people had already commented on it -- and all wanted to kill me. One wanted to drive a knife through my liver. Another wanted to drown me. A third wanted to pour acid down my throat. In twenty-four hours I had become the most hated man on amazon.com.
Never before had I been treated so insolently. I couldn't let these attacks go unanswered, so I inveighed against my tormentors. I attacked them ferociously, even threatening their pets. This led to a counter-insurgency. By the time Christmas was over, I was a certified cyber-felon. Since that day, Christmas has been a living hell: I wake up, go to church, come home, and spew bile on my enemies. This is not what Christmas was meant to be.
Well, today I'm throwing in the towel. That's right: I'm giving up. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of wasting my time online. Above all, I'm tired of behaving like a monster. I used to be warm and loving. I want to go back to being nice again.
So here are my final words on A Christmas Story. Henceforth I shall remain silent on the subject.
If you like A Christmas Story and are tolerant of those who don't, thank you. I'm glad you like the movie. I want you to be happy. Just because I didn't like it doesn't mean you shouldn't. Maybe I'm wrong about the movie. In any case, I'm glad it has brought joy to millions.
If you'd like to discuss the movie with me, I welcome the opportunity. Let's have an honest and civil debate. To paraphrase President Obama, we can disagree without being disagreeable.
But ... if you want to hang, quarter, and disembowel me for not liking this movie, I hope that one night -- while dreams of sugar-plum fairies are dancing in your head -- an evil elf will break into your room, wrap your tongue around an icy pole, and shove a loaded BB Gun up your ass, just long enough for Jesus Christ to crack your freakin' skull open with a leg lamp -- because that's exactly how I felt as I watched this godforsaken movie.
As for my real friends at Open Salon, may this Holy Season bring the Blessings of Peace, Love, and Joy to you and your family, today, tomorrow, and all the years to come.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
AJCalhoun
Victoria Wolf
Lyn LeJeune
patrick daniels
evaritol
clay ball
Salon.com
Comments
I love A Christmas Story mostly because it was created from stories written by Jean Shepherd in the boo In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. I used to listen to him on the radio every night when I was a kid. My dad loved him. I once stood in line for an hour to get his autograph on a book for my dad. I believe that book was Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters.
Yes, Jean Shepherd was curmudgeonly. According to a nice piece by Donald Fagen in Slate a while ago, he was also a giant, angry asshole.
I respect your right to dislike A Christmas Story. There. I said it.
(It's A Wonderful Life will always and forever be my favorite Christmas movie.)
I did stick my tongue to a flag pole as a kid (under threat/dare by my big brother) and pulled off a good layer of skin so I can empathize with that.
You should get bonus points for the mention of Roger Ebert's nut sack!
Stick with It's a Wonderful Life. And for g's sake, don't watch it on TV with commercial interruptions! IAWL must be viewed in one sitting, with no snarky comments allowed. I hurtz people who slamz my George Bailey... but not as violently as you would. I might suggest you as a hitman to my friend, Joan. She needs someone to work on her list.
Anyone gives you trouble, you send 'em over to Jimbo's. I know how to deal with wack-jobs.
Merry Christmas!
the movie is based on a story by jean shepherd, who wrote some brilliant stuff about growing up during the depression. I know I read the story long before it was a movie, but I resisted the movie for years. it looked too cute cute. and while shepherd himself was wonderfully lighthearted, his stories really weren't. they combined the exact right measure of humor, seriousness and accuracy to the time.
the dad played by darin mcgavin was great but the rest of them were awful.
the tongue on the pole scene was painful to watch and nowhere near as funny as the penis in the zipper scene in "there's something about mary", which I also found extremely painful to watch. it took me two tries before I could get through that scene and enjoy the entire film. (I kept shutting it off right then). but I eventually had to give it to ben stiller, who's a chip off both old blocks. sadly little ralphy didn't do much but look like the kind of kid I would have had a crush on, when I was that age.
That is by far the funniest line I've read in ages! I'll let you hate the movie, just for that.
I, however, happen to love it. We even sport a leg lamp in the front window at Christmas, but then again, I also sport a mannequin dressed in a Santa teddy and an aluminum Christmas tree. I'm also a very good friend of a sassy old broad who once had a torrid love affair with Jean Shepherd, so I feel like I need to love the movie by proxy.
Great review!
You can see from the comments that that phrase struck a chord.
As for me, I never watch movies (they go on too long), except sometimes when visiting my older daughter and her husband, when they almost FORCE me to watch something or other and then say, see, didn't you like that? Except sometimes I'd snuck away in the middle, for a bathroom break and never came back. Even if I do sort of like some movie, like the first time I saw one on their impressive giant screen, that doesn't mean I ever want to see another one.
Plus, Christmas ceased for me when the kids moved out. Except, perhaps, for those Christmas days when I just sit alone, in silence, read a good book (we all have varying definitions of 'good'), eat something that isn't turkey, and am happy to be done with All That.
P.S. - Aren't you supposed to go to Mass on Christmas Eve rather than the next day? (Or is that just in Quebec...where they for heaven's sake then EAT afterwards...and probably watch a movie...)
Two thumbs down on the creeps who indulge in online attacks on other people, whether on OS, Amazon or wherever. That's just plain wrong at any time of year. It's one thing to disagree. It's quite another to shred someone for simply expressing an opinion.
Keep on being a voice of reason. You do it well.
Happy Holidays, Steve!
The happiest of holidays to you and yours, Steve.
Happy Holidays.
{[R]}
The movie compiles the foibles of adolescence, leaving us with a sense of inclusion withing the vast pool of kid problems, anxieties and fantasies. I identified w the secret decoder ring and Ralphie's continual struggles to find the solitude to wallow in his own delusions. I think this movie might give a kid nightmares, but for me, who was a frustrated, funny-looking, smallish, shy kid, it struck a deep chord.
Great piece Steve, and thanks so much for your wonderful comment this morning!
Sorry you almost got tarred and feathered over it!
I agree that X-mas movies can be incredibly polarizing. It seems like every year for the last five years I've had the same holiday argument with a friend who seems to have created a delusion that you're either an Elf person, or a Bad Santa person, and you're not allowed to watch or enjoy both.
Something tells me that Bad Santa would absolutely rub your nutsack the wrong way, Steve. But you might want to try Elf. But if you don't like it, that's okay. I won't try and kill you. I promise.
Merry Christmas, Steve! Come down to the ranch - we won't shoot your eye out. Promise.
R
That said, I have to agree the movie gives me the creeps. You are right to deplore it. The bizarre little brother who hides under the sink and is encouraged to eat mashed potatoes with his hands and face "like a little piggy." The pink bunny outfit. You know the rest.
The book, on the other hand, is hilarious, the movie's 'creatures' are instead actual 'characters' viewed lovingly and much more humorously through the mists of childhood memory. The Santa scene is kid's eye view vivid and scary, exactly as it would be, not mean-spirited and dumb.
One of my favorite lines from the book describes the little brother so bundled up by the mother against the killer prairie cold that "he looked like a bowling ball with feet." (Perhaps you can picture him as Roger Ebert's nut sack with feet...).
Regardless, to you and yours, Happy Holidays and a very Happy and Healthy New Year!
Another great post. Have a lovely Christmas and New Year!
My Christmas fave is The Shop Around the Corner. I especially like Ernst Lubitsch's Director's Cut from Beyond the Grave version, which ends with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan bursting forth from a time warp firing a spray of bullets at Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan and Nora Ephron for doing such a shitty remake.
Wishing you a Merry and Peaceful Christmas, Steve, and a Happy, Ass-Rape-Free New Year.
Exactly! You can kill birds randomly, or shoot your best friend's eye out, with a BB gun. What could be more festive?
Happy Holidays Steve, you just made mine better!
Although I like the whole evil elf idea... I may have to borrow that...
"George Bailey, I'll love you till the day I die."
Wishing you a peaceful holiday season.
"Is your house on fire, Clark?"
"Now don't throw me down, Clark."
~Aunt Bethany (rocks)
:-)
So much for your Christmas gift.
If anyone here wants a copy of A Christmas Story - The Collector's Special Edition DVD in a 18K gold custom made case inscribed with: To Doctor Blevins - Thanks for taking care of my Uncle...
I'm selling it for half the 2,500$ price.
Hope you enjoy your cheese log, Blevins!
That was such an easy read,
Rated.
A Christmas Story is about the ravages of childhood. The evil that lurks around each turn on the street as you conduct your own personal Bataan Death March too and from school in the snow. It's the inflated fear you have as your dad snaps at the mundane, that is the exploding furnace.
And in the end it is the old man pulling through and getting you the gift over the objections of the over protective mother bear.
It's a wonderful life is another great movie. Perhaps if your own father had not been such a sissy Mary and gotten you that BB gun in your ill spent youth you'd be able to appreciate the sentiment contained therein rather than trying to figure out how to shake your booty in Ft. Lauderdale.
Merry Christmas.
My daughter loves it and I watched it with her once and, honestly, didn't have the heart to tell her how I really felt. As a result, I'm going to her house on Christmas and will be subjected to it again unless I speak up. Maybe I'll just refer her to your post and hope she gets the subtle hint.
Merry Christmas!
I enjoyed the movie and I've seen it twice already. I don't hate it or dislike it. It's a light weight film of course. Yet, it obviously strikes an emotional chord with a lot of individuals. I have not yet met anyone who really hates it...of course, until now. Hatred is a strong reaction for a movie that wasn't meant to last beyond the year it was released.
Maybe that says more about the ones who made the movie and its lasting power through the years rather than the ones who denigrate it, and nod their collective heads in unison.
Have a wonderful Christmas, Professor Blevins.
;)
When my son was eight, I insisted he watch the movie with me -- and much to his surprise, he liked it, too. Now it has become a Christmas Day tradition at our house to watch Ralphie get duped by Ovaltine, speak the four-letter of all four-letter words and go blind from the Lifeboy, take revenge on Stud Farkas, almost shoot his eye out, and listen to the waiters at the Chinese restaurant try to sing Christmas carols.
Yes, it's hokey, and all the acting is over the top -- deliberately so, I think. But it takes me back to a time when the world was much more innocent -- and so was I.
Sincerely,
One-eyed Mike
I still taste soap.
Rated for gutsy, piratical gore, and honesty. I like the damn movie, but it never fails to amaze me how human beings act when they sit at keyboards and tappity-tap. Venomous violence over..."a Christmas Story"? The internets are so overloaded with irony it constitutes the metallic core of its own planet, Plane Stupid.
It's not like you dissed Alistair Sim or anything SERIOUSLY evil.
This did not surprise me because I had pointed out to her your latest entry and had her read that one. She loved that entry and promptly went back over your earlier entries and found this one.
Now, after reading your entry, I have to admit that I am one of those heathens who LOVE that movie. Why I love it is very simple...It could damn near be MY story. I relate to the storyline on so many levels that sometimes I think the writer is talking about me.
From the little kid who daydreams a lot and wants a Red Ryder BB gun, to the scene with the hounds stealing the Christmas turkey...it is damn near my life I'm watching on the TV each Christmas.
The story is "real" in that it evokes memories of how many of us spent Christmas back in that era. The only major difference is that having been raised in East Texas, I never had to contend with snow to the extent that the characters in that movie did. All the rest of it though....my life...LOL.
I don't mind though if you don't care for the movie and I can even understand why you hate it so much...no problem. Hell if we all liked the same things and felt the same about everything, this would be a pretty dull world woudn't it.
Rated for funny.
I'm a little late getting here, I know. I was directed here by a best of OS list by Nick Leshi.