Hallmark Christmas movies have become a twenty-first-century American pastime quite quickly.
In fact, the genre of movies is no longer restricted just to the Hallmark Channel, but Lifetime has launched their own brand of Christmas-themed, cheesy movies, and Great American Family has recently become a staple as the conservative, family-friendly alternative to even the increasingly woke Hallmark.
Content creators, like comedian Trey Kennedy on YouTube, have amassed over 1.2 million subscribers and two of his most popular videos are stylized as skits satirizing “Every Hallmark Christmas Movie.”
I have had the extreme pleasure of watching a few Hallmark Christmas movies so far this Christmas season, and my wife and I take turns predicting the plot. It’s pretty algorithmic.
Every movie starts with a big city journalist or artist who is going to get inspiration in some small town in a red state. The female protagonist gets annoyed by the handsome male lead who is a farmer but also runs a cookie shop. She then determines she “misjudged him at the beginning” (thanks Trey Kennedy), but eventually the two fall in love.
Somehow each of the networks previously mentioned have big enough budgets to make countless of these films every year in order to play them 24/7 from Thanksgiving through New Years’ Day.
But the social and political impact of these films is quite subtle, yet they shout of the longings of God’s image-bearers for something greater than they currently have.
An anonymous Twitter account, Giordano Lives, stated the real issues facing American women today are summarized by the popularity of Hallmark Christmas movies.
“Actual real issues with women that are obviously apparent from watching Hallmark Christmas Movies:
– Women in their 30s are lonely and long for domesticity, marriage,
– They’ve been uprooted and forced to live in a corporate diaspora hell. They want their hometowns, communities,
– They were all deeply scarred by their parents’ divorces, which is why all the main characters have at least one dead parent,
– The fact that every streaming svc [service] is shoveling these movies out seems to suggest that these issues are far more real than the fake famenist [feminist] stuff.”
These observations, on their face, are obviously, observably true. Our post-modern, feminist-influenced world created a society where no-fault divorce is readily available at the drop of any sign of domestic trouble, the rampant sexual revolution has created a society of promiscuous women and porn-addicted men, and they have been sold a lie that in order to be happy women are to become corporate slaves by getting an expensive degree at an indoctrination camp (public universities) and then spend their lives paying it back as a secretary or a bank teller. Women have been sold a lie that “they can have it all,” but anyone worth their salt knows that’s not true. American women, for generations now, have been sacrificing families for careers and a house full of cats.
On top of all of that, no one seems to be considering the long-term effects of girls, who start taking birth control at age 15, remaining on birth control well into their 30s because the younger generations continue to push marriage back further and further into adulthood.
Many will likely decry, “But if I want to do that, then I should be able to!!!” Fine. But God has hardwired his image-bearers to yearn for something more than fluorescent lights, a cubicle, streaming Netflix, and getting takeout. Regardless of how determined to have a career some women are, it’s reasonable to expect that the standard single woman in America would reach her early 30s and realize, “Oh man, I’m running out of time.”
These kinds of reactions are entirely natural and normal. But our young women have been sold a lie. Feminism markets stay-at-home motherhood as boring and “feeding into the patriarchy.”
After the Midterm Elections last month, it was widely reported that the Republican Party made significant inroads in every major demographic group spare one: young, unmarried women.
According to a CNN exit poll, 68 percent of single women marked their ballots for Democrats — a 37-point margin over the GOP. Additional data is suggesting unwed women are getting bluer in their voting patterns, too. This is the same party that is advocating for abortion on demand, increased “empathetic” social welfare programs, among other policy positions that young, secular women view as non-negotiables.
There is something particularly devious going on that is targeting American young girls, like “WitchTok,” or the false notion that “democracy is under attack” when anti-abortion laws are passed.
There’s some kind of spell that has entranced the young feminine mind causing their own unhappiness and now a population decline.
The Hallmark Christmas movies, as corny as they are, say something quite profound about the state of domestic life in America. American women are existing in a state of cognitive dissonance. They love the idea of domesticity and being a stay-at-home mom with a yard full of kids in the Hallmark Christmas movies, but want nothing to do with sacrificing the idol of the age that is abortion-on-demand or sexual liberation.
