With the holidays comes family, food, cheer, and the typical almost cliché Scrooge allegory repeated in Christmas movies again and again and again and again and again.
The Story of Scrooge
The story of Scrooge is about a grumpy old man with a heart full of greed and cynicism. He’s visited by a friend of a dead colleague warning him about his wicked and capitalist ways. Later that night, three ghosts visit him showing him his past, present, and future. They paint a pretty grim picture of a pretty grim man that’s overcompensating with his frugality, and greed to cover a heart full of sadness, loneliness and cynicism. Scrooge learns the error of his way and has a change of heart because if he lets joy and love in, then he can feel love and joy.
Essentially the message is summed up by a cliché. Money can’t buy happiness. This is what I call, “The neverending Story of Scrooge”.
It’s produced a lot of clichés of its own including “don’t be such a Scrooge” and of course the catchphrase “Bah Humbug”. Think of some of the most common Christmas films; A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), One Magic Christmas (1985), Scrooged (1988), Home Alone (1990), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), The Polar Express (2004), Krampus (2015), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000; 2018). All of them follow the same Christmas theme, even Die Hard (1988)!
Breaking the Mould
Obviously, there are more Christmas movies that follow that allegory that wasn’t mentioned but some honourable mentions include. Each of these movies shares the same message in a different way. Some may argue that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is not about financial gain but Rudolph wasn’t great at his job of being a reindeer and learned that his self-worth and the worth of others is tied into their use as a worker. Thus, capitalism.
There are other Christmas films that broke the mould though. There are Christmas films that aren’t about being a cynical grumpy asshole that has an epiphany and learns the value of a hug. Right?
That’s why I wanted to give Christmas a bit of a different style. Christmas seems to have become a cliché in and of itself so let’s find the most bizarre and anti-cliche Christmas carols we can find.