Down With Santa Claus

Thursday, the 15th of December marks the final film night of the year at the Victoria Park Baptist Church (we will be starting up again on the 12th of January) and for our final film of the year, I plan to break the habit of a lifetime.

That's right, folks. This Thursday, for the first time ever, I will be showing... a Christmas film.

The Christmas Movie is basically a film genre in its own right. There have been more Christmas Movies (by orders of magnitude) than, say, Easter movies, Yom Kippur movies etc. (I did briefly consider showing Chanukah at Bubbe's, but I'm not going to...) In fairness, there are many, many Diwali movies, but we can save those for some future film series devoted to the magic of Bollywood.


When it comes to classic and beloved Christmas Movies, there is one film that emerges time and again as THE Christmas Movie; the one that everyone comes back to without fail; the one that is guaranteed to bring joy to the hearts of everyone who sees it (and not just because we get to see James Stewart doing one of his many on-screen nervous breakdowns).

For many people, It's a Wonderful Life defines Christmas. It's the film without which Christmas is not complete. It is the Christmas Movie to end all Christmas Movies.

I'm going to show the other one.

I know I'm going to get attacked by an angry mob of film critics for this, but... I don't think It's a Wonderful Life is a very good film.

There. I said it. (It's just my opinion; please don't hit me with your internets.)

I'm not going to spend this entire column outlining everything I think is wrong with It's a Wonderful Life (I can do that on Thursday!) because I'd rather talk about Miracle on 34th Street, which is the film I am showing.


Miracle on 34th Street was released in 1947 (the original of course, not the remake) and features Edmund Gwenn as a kind old gentleman who may or may not be the real Santa Claus.


He certainly claims to be, and he is unquestionably a very nice old man who makes everyone's lives better, but whether he really is the one and only Santa Claus is a matter of some debate within the narrative of the film.

And because this is an American film, they attempt to answer the question in the most American way possible. 

They put him on trial.


If you follow certain Conservative news outlets in the US, you may have encountered some discussion of the "War on Christmas". 

Bill O'Reilly talked about this for many years on Fox News (until the Network fired him, following accusations of sexual assault by multiple women). The War on Christmas is an imagined plot by Atheists and secularists to get Christmas banned in the US, apparently. 

Speaking as an Atheist and a secularist, I'm flattered that Conservatives seem to think I have so much power (perhaps they think I'm going to destroy Christmas with my Jewish Space Laser?).

Actually, Christmas was banned for many years in the New World, but it was banned by the Puritans (or the "Pilgrim Fathers" as they are usually called). Secularists, Atheists and Communists have generally been fairly indifferent to Christmas, and some of the most beloved Christmas songs of the modern age were written by Jews ("White Christmas"; "Chestnuts Roasting"; "Santa Baby"; "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"; "Let it Snow"; "Deck the Halls with Boughs of Challah"...).

None of this has stopped Conservative America from taking a stand against the War on Christmas. Donald Trump made this a major campaign promise, and his followers are still obsessing over it. This cartoon was published by a far-right political cartoonist just last week:

(Don't you love how healthy and young Trump is looking? It must be fun to belong to a Cult.)

Anyway, if you were to wage a war on Christmas, one of your first manoeuvres would surely be to put Santa Claus on trial, which is exactly what happens in Miracle of 34th Street.

Unlike some other Christmas films I could mention, the resolution of Miracle does not rely on everyone implausibly overcoming their innate cynicism, or suddenly "seeing the light". On the contrary, everything that happens in the narrative happens because everyone is acting out of self-interest.

Miracle on 34th Street is the ultimate "secularist" Christmas movie, but it is also full of joy and very genuine Christmas spirit. And a very precocious 8-year-old Natalie Wood.

We will be screening Miracle on 34th Street (our final film of the year) at 7.30 on Thursday, the 15th of December at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.

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