It鈥檚 not yet December, but Netflix is rolling out the Christmas movies. Not content after punishing audiences with The Christmas Prince in 2017, they have gone all in on Christmas romance. Of course, when you live with someone who enjoys a bad Christmas movie it鈥檚 difficult to avoid watching them, so I stand among the reluctant partners who have dejectedly poked at their phone while someone watched some lady decide between a rich doofus and a nice young boy with artistic ambitions.
The fact that these movies are terrible isn鈥檛 really the issue here, because of course they are. There is a long tradition of terrible Christmas films stretching back to the beginning of the medium. Now they鈥檙e on Netflix, while before they were on cable channels, often branded as a 鈥淗allmark Original Movie.鈥� All of them have the same plots, the same look, the same cast of former soap opera actors and people you otherwise think you should recognize. They are where acting careers go to die.
No, my issue is Netflix specific, a new wrinkle in their house style that has made me surprisingly angry. These movies are now advertising each other, in an endless cycle of terrible Christmas-related garbage.
The first instance was in The Holiday Calendar,聽 a movie about a magical advent calendar that can tell the future, and somehow use that ability to make a woman decide between a world-travelling photographer and a doctor who dropped a tree on her. At one point, the characters take a break in the insanity to sit down and watch a movie. That movie? A Netflix Christmas film from 2017. 鈥淚f you like this watch, this other terrible thing we did,鈥� said Netflix.
While I would like to emphasize that I loudly protested sticking with the streaming service holiday disaster zone, we later watched The Princess Switch, a take on The Prince and the Pauper, where two Vanessa Hudgens took a break from wondering how a once promising career lead to this to play a sassy Chicago baker (if you forget she lives in Chicago she wears a hat that says Chicago) and a duchess from a made up country. While there are many dramatic failings in the film 鈥� it has a perverse obsession with setting up a crisis and then immediately waving it away 鈥� I鈥檒l instead bring up its Netflix moment.
Again, characters sit down to watch a movie. They decide to watch 鈥淭he Christmas Prince,鈥� a Netflix original from 2017 which is also absolutely garbage. It is declared to be one character鈥檚 favorite, and then there鈥檚 a scene where she was so moved by the film that she cries.
Netflix is using its bad Christmas films to advertise its other bad Christmas films. It wants to make it a big loop, you see a Christmas movie and you, the kind of person who watches Christmas movies, will see other Christmas movies and watch those. Soon you will watch more Christmas movies. Eventually you have spent your entire Christmas season in a Netflix-induced coma, where all you can see are princes, handsome artists and rich men who are secretly kind of terrible.
The plots all run together, to the point where you don鈥檛 remember when one character changed hair color and why everyone is watching this other holiday movie, or where this adorable child came from and who she belongs to.
There is only one way to stop it, you can鈥檛 watch any of them. Spend the holiday season on a Netflix sabbatical. If you get the temptation to sit down and watch a bad movie about a Christmas prince or princess, do something else that will take up some time. Bake some cookies, make a wreath, read a book about people overthrowing monarchies. Anything to keep your eyes away from Netflix.
We must stop the scourge of bad Christmas movies at their source, and we are the source, the people who keep watching them even though we know better. Now is not the time for movies, now is the time for rebellion. We must overthrow the Christmas prince.
