Guest column: Yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie

By: Joseph R. Wiebe

The holiday season is defined by traditions. Antiquated cuisine like fruitcakes emerge from recipe archives. Mid-19th century songs like Jingle Bells pervade shopping centres. Flamboyant sweaters are donned perhaps not quite as ironically as people insist. Television shows have Christmas specials with no plot relevance to the rest of the series that viewers stream sequentially.

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Watching a lit fireplace on screen has become a December mainstay in homes with central heating. You can even watch Nick Offerman drink Lagavulin next to a fire for 45 minutes.

And then there’s Christmas movies.

Each tradition has its impassioned adherents but arguing over Christmas movies seems to be the most heated. The 1988 action blockbuster Die Hard has become the target for debating what constitutes a Christmas movie. Christmas music seems to be self-evident, despite controversial songs like “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” getting cancelled for its suggestive lyrics rather than the fact that it doesn’t mention anything about the holidays other than snow.

But people will argue vociferously that Die Hard remain on the seasonal syndicate. I’ve said that we should drop the arguing about a war on Christmas. This year, I say let’s drop the war on Die Hard.

There are plenty of cases made for defending Die Hard’s status. The Denver Gazette gives seven reasons why it’s a Christmas movie. Director John McTiernan and screenwriter Steven E. de Souza have both proclaimed that it is. Main actor Bruce Willis has declared that it is not. Simon Abbot and Byron Martin have made their musical, Die Harsh: A Christmas Musical a new tradition in Edmonton.

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Ask ChatGPT and it refuses to take a stance, stating different criteria for what qualifies as a holiday film is subjective. But don’t say that to an academic. There’s a scholarly case for Die Hard as a Christmas movie. Scholar-practitioner Nathan Scoll, who has both a PhD in English and screenwriting credits, uses a genre analysis to substantiate the argument that: “Yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie.” It’s not a matter of taste but an example of well-marketed convention for a consumer audience.

I’m using Scoll’s title to here end the debate on what defines a Christmas movie. The fervid arguments over criteria doesn’t surprise me. In one philosophy class I taught, the conversation that had the most emotionally charged participation from undergrads wasn’t about social justice issues, religious devotion, or authoritarian politics but whether hotdogs are sandwiches.

On the other hand, in a cultural moment characterized by persistently downplaying the religious nature of the holidays, maintaining a “Christmas” film genre at all seems quaint.

Let’s change how we define traditions this season.

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In a conversation about food with my friend and colleague from the Faculty of Native Studies, Paul Gareau, he said hamburger soup is a Métis dish. What makes it Indigenous food, he said, wasn’t based on its roots in a pre-colonial era.

It’s not about coming up with an authoritative standard of ingredients or cooking methods that are used to determine how it’s Indigenous. Rather, it’s about how this soup served social and political relationships. Hamburger soup could simmer on the stove for long periods while the community and families visited.

Those meetings and exchanges are central to Métis nation and peoplehood, fuelled in part by particular meals. What makes eating meals traditional are our relations and how these relationships shape our communities.

To turn back to Christmas, but continuing with food, perhaps we should treat Die Hard the same way we treat fruitcake. Some people like it, some people see its only good use as a doorstop.

But it’s a Christmas food not simply because it makes its appearance annually after November; it’s the shared recipes between family members, the memories of eating — and hating — it with loved ones, and laughing together over why it’s still made. What’s important is how something serves relationships, reminding us how our relations make us who we are.

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Christmas traditions are not representative of an objective criteria or rubric applied uniformly to each contested thing; rather, they are representative of the people who connect with, around, and through them.

So if watching a gratuitous B-movie that has questionable content with loosely relevant seasonal themes is part of your holiday tradition through your relationships, let’s call it a Christmas miracle and let people be.

Dr. Joseph R. Wiebe is associate professor of Religion and Ecology at the University of Alberta Augustana, and the director of the Chester Ronning Center for the Study of Religion and Public Life.

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