What you chose not to copy and pasting seems noteworthy
Instead of characters driven by real feelings, therefore, the guiding hand of normalcy pulls the characters along through narratives and unsurprisingly, that idea of normalcy doesnt have a lot of room for the true diversity of American experiences.
This much is evident in the efforts to include Jewish characters in recent Hallmark holiday movies which, by all accounts, seems like a complete disaster in part because the rule of normalcy reorients everything towards a very narrow, sentimentalized version of Christmas.
In the Hallmark-Lifetime Cinematic Universe, Hanukkah and the characters who celebrate it exist only in relation to Christmas, Nancy Coleman of th New York Times complained, adding that the Hallmark movie Holiday Date could, with remarkably little editing turn into a Jewish Get Out.'
Britni de la Cretaz, writing for the Washington Post, not only complained that the Jewish Hallmark movies were Christmas movies with Jewish characters, but also that the movies rely on some of the oldest anti-Semitic tropes in the book, such as painting one Jewish character as the perpetual outsider who is sneaky, untrustworthy.
The drama hinges on Jewish characters being compelled to observe Christmas, and the tension resolves only when these outsiders learn how to participate in or appreciate the dominant religious tradition, she adds. ... If you dont believe me, listen to authoritarians themselves. At the Federalist, which is ground zero website for generating frankly fascist culture war arguments, Hans Fiene argues that, culturally speaking, Hallmark Christmas movies are noticeably Christian.
By this, Fiene isnt talking about characters who actually go to church or pray even self-identified conservative Christians dont want to see that but a set of patriarchal and authoritarian values that are more about white evangelicals defining themselves as an ethnic group, and not about a genuine feeling of spirituality.
The movies always depict a heroine who begins the story loving her self-involved life in the city chooses family and a life of self-sacrifice in her hometown, he writes, arguing that its the last remaining hideout for those who want a fantasy of a world where the cynicism and immorality of modern life arent allowed. By cynicism and immmorality, Fiene explains hes talking about fornication and acceptance of sexual deviants, by which he means LGBTQ people.
None of this, of course, means that everyone who watches Hallmark Christmas movies is some kind of fledgling fascist. These movies are not for me, but I believe people when they say they find it relaxing to watch these predictable movies that have low stakes because none of the characters feel like real people. Ive got my own flavors of trashy entertainment I fully enjoy without mistaking it for high art. (Baby Yoda, whats up?)
Still, its critical to be mindful of the role that Hallmark movies are actually playing in our society. The very fact that theyre presented as harmless fluff makes it all the more insidious, the way they work to enforce very narrow, white, heteronormative, sexist, provincial ideas of what constitutes normal.
Its easy to spot fascist propaganda when its goose-stepping Pepe-the-frog memes. Its a lot harder to notice how its working when its tied up in Christmas cheer and suggesting grinchhood of anyone who questions the rigidity of its worldview.
As University of Richmond communications professor Nicole Maurantonio wrote in a recent piece exposing the sneakily racist propaganda of Confederate-themed Christmas ornaments, seemingly apolitical objects like cookbooks, toys and Christmas ornaments commemorating Confederate history serve to normalize, and in doing so, make white supremacy seem less harmful than it actually is.
Decide for yourself whether any of this critique is unreasonable or not, but it's not based on nothing. ---