well, it's the holiday season again, a season of sharing, a season of unreasonable demands, a season of contradictions.
Once again our heads are full of sugar plum fairies and poorly made action figures. The mailbox groans with the weight of catalogues. Against our every instinct, we find ourselves filled with good will towards our fellow carbon-based life forms, dreaming of a world where Hutus lie down with Tutsis, of a world where Barbra Streisand finally retires from the movie business.
But underneath our thin, rosy veneer of good cheer, we know the ugly truth: If we hear "Little Drummer Boy" one more time, we may snap. We are weary of trying to figure out what gifts to buy, especially when everyone we know already has everything any human being could possibly want. We don't even want anything ourselves. We're sick of CDs and books and knick-knacks and neckties and scarves. We just want to curl up in a ball underneath the empty Christmas tree and suck our nog alone.
Yet it's the season when our crudest capitalist fantasies are not only deregulated, they're frozen in place with magnets on the refrigerator door. The only thing standing between those fantasies and their realization is the disposable income of our loved ones.
At the same time, Santa and Rudolph and the baby Jesus are all gathering gifts together in some bright corner of the id, preparing to hurl them down the fireplaces of good little girls and boys around the world, whether they want them or not.
There's a dichotomy here, is what I'm saying: it's a season of giving, yes, but also of having. It's the time of year when we try to glue vague religious impulses onto the most crass of commercial desires, and when we try to put our deepest spiritual beliefs out there in the marketplace, in effect putting a price tag on that which ought to be priceless.
So, as I see it, there are two impulses at work during the holiday season: the urge to fall on one's knees and scream for forgiveness from an unknowable and possibly unforgiving Higher Power, and the urge to, you know, get out there and shop. When these two impulses collide, we get Christmas. Q.E.D.
And we also get what Hollywood thinks of as the "holiday movie." What is a holiday movie? Producer/director Chris Columbus ("Home Alone," "Jingle All the Way") tackled that question recently in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle: "This may sound spiritual, but I define a holiday film as the ones that really sort of hit you emotionally and put you into a spirit of deeper feeling."
Mr. Columbus really went on a limb with that definition, didn't he? Of course, he did cover himself. He warned us that "This may sound spiritual," for example, though what "spiritual" means these days is anybody's guess. An administrative assistant who has a day planner decorated with pictures of angels, and follows the horoscope daily, has at least as much spirituality as the Pope, perhaps more.
I also admired the way Mr. Columbus defines holiday movies as "ones that really sort of hit you emotionally." They don't "really hit you," or "sort of hit you," please note, they "really sort of hit you." Apparently experiencing a holiday movie is like being grazed by a thrown pudding. Sort of. Really.
As to his astonishing conclusion that holiday movies "put you into a spirit of deeper feeling," well, I don't have the foggiest notion what that means. What is a deeper feeling? Rage? Sorrow? Fear 'n' pity?
Okay, pick one. Now then, what is a SPIRIT of deeper feeling? The ghost of rage? The shade of sorrow? The jolly old elf of fear 'n' pity?
I don't want to be too hard on the guy. Christmas is, after all, one of those seasons where you have to dance around the spiritual without approaching anything that resembles actual faith. You have to call it "the holiday season," for example, instead of "Christmas," so as not to offend non-Christians.
And the movies have to reflect this ecumenical spirit. If it's an action movie, you have to tone down the body count a tad. If you're going to show Macaulay Culkin pouring boiling oil on home invaders, you have to temper the image by having him be nice to the grumpy old coot next door.
I've only seen the previews, mind you, but I gather that "Jingle All the Way" features Arnold Schwarzenegger beating the hell out of a department store Santa, slamming his little helpers against the wall and coldcocking a reindeer.
Maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger himself is the spirit of deeper feeling. If so, what is that deeper feeling? I know I'm not representative in any way of my fellow man and woman, but judging by this shriveled excuse for a heart, I would say it's a rich cocktail of resentment, frustration and disgruntlement.
This may sound spiritual, but I think Santa Claus in the '90s may really sort of resemble Dennis Franz: "You've been bad, kid. And I'm takin' you off the street!"
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