DIE HARD

I’m really bored of the ‘Die Hard Is A Christmas Movie, Ho Ho Ho’ argument. Not because I think it is, and not because I think it isn’t, but because the heated discussion has itself become a very tedious Christmas tradition.

It’s now so cliché to prove that it is, that there’s hardly anyone left who’s still passionate that it isn’t. I mean it. I’ve not heard anyone in ten years, maybe more, argue that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. Which means either: (1) all those people are hiding, out of embarrassment, (2) they don’t care enough to argue about it, or (3) they don’t exist in the numbers that the majority who still feel urged to say ‘Die Hard is a Christmas movie’ think they do.

My guess is a mix of mostly (2) and (3). Either way though, that is the debate over, isn’t it? The die-hard Die Harders have won by volume and numbers.

And yet still, every year in lists of Christmas Movies and articles about ‘Non-Festive Movies that Somehow Still Make You Feel Festive’, the editors are compelled to include some jokey line about why the original Bruce Willis epic must be considered a Christmas Movie, or you’re not a true believer in Christmas at all.

Don’t you think it might be time to stop going on about it?

There are lots more festive arguments brewing out there at this time of year. The First Day Adventists still get cross at Christmas trees in November, yet will be blasting out Slade and Mariah Carey on December 1st. I’ve blogged before about fake versus real trees, and let’s not get started on deconstructing the John Lewis and Sainsbury’s ads.

What do I think? I think a Christmas Movie is one that you like watching because it makes you feel Christmassy. That’s it. If blowing the roof off the Nakatomi Plaza and crawling through blood to kill off German terrorists is your festive thing, then enjoy! If watching an improbable couple get together just as the snow falls and the children at the orphanage get their presents after all, then season’s greetings to you too! There’s no battle here, nobody taking you hostage until you agree that some violent action movie is actually the epitome of peace on Earth and good will to all men. It’s all very tedious to be stuck in that skyscraper.

Die Hard, by the way, was released in the middle of a summer. Ho Ho Ho.