By: Christopher Baran ’23
During the Christmas season, one often unsurprisingly engages in the traditional activities that make the time of year so special. One of the most enjoyable of these traditions is sitting down with the family to watch a classic Christmas movie. Christmas movies are not generally supposed to make people feel angry, however one in particular has evolved to become so controversial in its name as a Christmas movie that it must be resolved. This film, of course, is 1988’s Die Hard, following officer John McClane as he takes down terrorists at a hijacked Christmas party.
To put it bluntly, Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. It is a movie about a man killing terrorists at a party which happens to take place on Christmas Eve. Quite frankly, the mental gymnastics some people perform to convince themselves that this action movie is in fact a Christmas movie are disgusting. Does this movie have Christmas references? Yes, and for some people, this is reason enough to place it in their Christmas catalog. However, the holiday joy stops there. The references are just references, little more than a passing nod to the object in question. Nothing related to the festive season in the movie is anything remotely substantial. A general rule of thumb I like to apply is that if you can remove every element of Christmas from a movie, and the plot is not affected in any way, it fails to achieve Christmas status. This point is exactly what makes a movie like Elf a Christmas classic. One could technically remove the holiday elements from that movie and still have it be a functional movie, but the plot would have to be heavily reshaped in order to compensate for the lack of it. Buddy the elf could obviously no longer be an elf, he could not be from the north pole, and the entire climax of the movie would have to be completely removed. Similarly, a movie like The Polar Express would suffer even more from the absence of Christmas, as a movie that was once about a magical train taking children to the north pole would turn into a strange man driving his train through suburban neighborhoods, abducting kids from their homes, and taking them into the wilderness. Obviously, this would change the tone to a monumental degree, and it would probably not be appropriate for children anymore.
Die Hard is not like those movies. The Christmas elements of Die Hard boil down to three things, each of which can be painlessly removed from the film to make it nothing more than an action film. Firstly, the movie’s soundtrack is littered with Christmas songs. This music does next to nothing to compliment the film, and really only serves as a forceful reminder that the film being presented is intended to be holiday related. I would even argue these musical choices can be jarring at times. In the end scene for example, after the cop mows down a terrorist with his pistol and Bruce Willis rides away in the limousine with his ex-wife, the inclusion of Let It Snow over the end credits gives me whiplash equivalent to veering my ‘08 Toyota into a concrete barrier. The second Christmas element of Die Hard is that the plaza can be seen containing Christmas decorations on occasion. There is not much to add here, as these decorations really only were thrown in to fill up the set. I can only imagine the film was encroaching on its budget and some Fox intern chipped in by donating the contents of his grandmother’s attic. The third, and argued as being the most important element of Die Hard, that makes it a Christmas movie is the fact that it takes place at a Christmas party. Once again, this point has no relevance to the story or themes of the movie, as any holiday could have been substituted and the plot continues to be untouched. McClane’s wife would still go to the party, and thus McClane would still end up at the party when terrorists take over. The point is, no matter how you look at it, Christmas comes off as nothing but an afterthought. Die Hard can function on any other day of the year. The movie benefits nothing from the festive decorations, music, and irrelevant plot points it provides. It is certainly not helped by the loose themes of family people try to connect to Christmas when it’s really just a man saving his lover, which is a theme more in line with action films than any sort of holiday ones.
No opinion piece is complete without addressing some accounts of the opposite stance. Reading just one of these will demonstrate the magnitude of shallowness that permeates these arguments. Let us look at one article titled, “9 Reasons Why ‘Die Hard’ Really Is a Christmas Movie” written by Heavy.com. I mean no insult to whatever faceless journalist pumped this out of the monstrosity that is modern media, but much like the Berlin wall, I will tear it down. It is worth noting that even this buzzfeed-quality article references a poll conducted by YouGov which concluded that the majority of people who have seen Die Hard do not consider it a Christmas movie, which does shine a glimmer of hope into the discussion. The article goes on to relay 9 motifs that “proves” the Christmas spirit. One of these motifs, and I kid you not, is that the wife’s name is Holly. If this bottom of the barrel analysis doesn’t already tip you off to the validity of the argument presented, then just wait. Point number four states, “Gruber (the leader of the terrorists) is a classic bad capitalist villain: he’s there to steal money.” This is somehow being told as if greed is exclusive to Christmas. If I’m unable to pay for cancer treatment does that turn the American healthcare system into the cartoonish villain of my personal Christmas movie? Are milk and cookies going to start raining from the sky at the hospital as if it’s the second coming? No, because a greedy villain is a staple in every form of literature, from your modern Marvel movie to Shakespeare all the way back to Aesop’s fables. Point eight in the article is simply that the limo driver is looking forward to New Year’s at the end of the movie, which is truly idioctic given that one can look forward to New Year’s at literally any point of the year. Point three is an argument that comes up often which simply says that it takes place on Christmas Eve. It is true that Die Hard could have been set on Halloween or Valentine’s Day or a birthday, but it wasn’t. The writers made a conscious decision to set this during the season, and that is reason enough for many.
However, the point, and this point is the main message behind many true Christmas movies, is that Christmas is not just for show. It is a mindset; there is meaning behind the ornaments and wrapping paper. Die Hard does not have this meaning. It is an action movie, and a truly exceptional action movie, but not one that evokes the feelings that are associated with the 25th of December. This is not to say that every Christmas movie must follow the same generic formula, as there have been many that expand the genre into something beyond what is traditionally thought of. Could there be a true Christmas movie which takes place in a deadly hostage situation? Yes. But this does not mean you can set a movie whenever you want just to give it that label. It needs a reason why.
The final point of the article, which they call the “clinching” argument, is that Christmas is a socially invented tradition, and like all invented traditions, it will continue to grow and evolve. Christmas may not look the same in a hundred years, but the day the jolly holiday becomes associated with terrorists is probably the day anarchists topple the government. If that were the case, worrying about what constitutes a Christmas movie would be the least of our problems. The point being, we look at things in the present. And the way I see it now, no one in their right mind should unironically view this as a Christmas classic. If watching Die Hard every Christmas makes you happy, there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone has their own traditions.