Move over, Vladimir Putin, because according to at least one left-wing writer, Donald Trump has an even more sinister collusion partner.
Saudi Arabia? No. The mob? Uh-uh. The Illuminati? Try again.
It seems the latest willing participant in Trump’s MAGA machinations is…the Hallmark Channel.
No, seriously, stop laughing. At Slate, Zachary Jason gleans from the fact that Hallmark is debuting a whopping 21 Christmas-themed original TV movies this year something more profound and unseemly than “people like to watch Christmas stuff around Christmas.” Instead, he thinks Hallmark is providing “rooty-toot artillery for” Trump’s popular refrain that the secular “Happy Holidays” won’t replace “Merry Christmas” if he has anything to say about it.
Are these movies — which Jason charmingly describes as “42 hours of sugary, sexist, preposterously plotted, plot hole–festooned, belligerently traditional, ecstatically Caucasian cheer” — conscious efforts to reinforce Trumpism, subconscious reflections on it, or attempts to capitalize on it? It’s not entirely clear, but Jason says he watched all of them, and the results are, like, super-problematic and stuff.
[Small towns in these movies] brim with white heterosexuals who exclusively, emphatically, and endlessly bellow “Merry Christmas” to every lumberjack and labradoodle they pass. They’re centered on beauty-pageant heroines and strong-jawed heroes with white-nationalist haircuts. There are occasional sightings of Christmas sweater–wearing black people, but they exist only to cheer on the dreams of the white leads, and everyone on Trump’s naughty list—Muslims, gay people, feminists—has never crossed the snowcapped green-screen mountains to taint these quaint Christmas villages. “Santa Just Is White” seems to be etched into every Hallmark movie’s town seal.
Good Lord, we’re just a couple of paragraphs in and he’s set a new standard of crazy.
People offering Christmas greetings during Christmas in Christmas movies is alarming because…well, it just is. Haircuts are hallucinated to have neo-Nazi connotations. The absence of Muslims in stories about a Christian holiday is a stumper. The sexual orientations and political ideologies of supporting and side characters are assumed because they’re not ham-fistedly shoehorned in. Racial messages don’t have to be there; they just have “seem etched” there.
The piece goes on in a similar vein for a while, with Jason further scandalized by the lack of minority actors in lead roles and the perpetuation of (gasp!) traditional gender roles and stereotypes. The former grievance is interesting if for no other reason than that it’s surprising Hallmark wouldn’t try to diversify just to preempt criticism like this, but as for the latter, I have some breaking news: in the real world, normal people don’t care all that much when people tell their daughters “I thought you’d go shopping or get your nails done” or husbands ask wives about cooking.
Jason quotes Hallmark CEO Bill Abbot as saying the channel is intended to be a “safe space” alternative to modern television’s “past the point of edgy” norm of ripped-from-the-headlines sex, violence, and social/political commentary. Weird; one might expect the folks at Slate, of all places, to appreciate the idea of a safe space from ideas and topics people dislike.
To any non-lunatic, the reasons for all of this are no conspiracy; there’s a market for seasonal programming, fluff entertainment that people can check out for some harmless escapism, turn on without fear of any content being too objectionable for kids in the house, or leave playing while only half paying attention while doing other things around the house. Jason even quotes Hallmark executive vice president of programming Michelle Vicary stating the simple explanation: “The one thing we never hear from our viewers is that they have had enough! Hallmark owns Christmas on TV.”
There is, I suppose, something sadly fitting about leftists weaving a cultural conspiracy rather than recognizing simple market forces at work.
from The Federalist Papers http://bitly.com/2Bk3NAv
via IFTTT Slate: Why “Hallmark’s 21-Movie Orgy of Trumpian Christmas Cheer Is a Huge Hit” http://bitly.com/2Bk3NAv