It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas; that is, the
mercury is dropping while temperatures are rising due to the war on
Christmas waged annually by the secular left and others. The “Happy
Holidays” crowd does all it can to erase from sight and mind the
very reason for all the December hubbub; the birth of the one that
80% of Americans call their Lord.
While many decry the battle waged by the ACLU against religious
displays in schools and public squares across America, the truth
is, the campaign against Jesus Christ and the celebration of His
birth has been prosecuted far more successfully in the
entertainment media than anywhere else. In theaters and on TV, all
but a mere trace of the religious aspect of Christmas has been
removed, excepting the occasional “documentary” questioning the
same.
In Hollywood, the quaint term “Christmas movie” has, of course,
morphed into “Holiday release” and is more of a programming note
rather than any indication that the movies being released have
anything to do with the holiday itself, let alone its namesake.
This year’s crop does not disappoint. While we’ve already
had the unleashing of the latest installment of the Harry Potter
series — whose treatment of the mystical has raised the hackles of
those on the “religious right” — most of the other entries do
little to inspire joy at the coming of the Prince of Peace.
Along with the perennial remake of King Kong, we have
Rent, an adaptation of the Broadway play which is based on
Puccini’s La Boheme but is actually populated with drug
addicts and drag queens; The Producers, Mel Brooks’s antic
romp featuring con artists and drag queens; and Brokeback
Mountain, which is already being referred to as “that gay
cowboy movie.” Heady stuff all, and undoubtedly Hollywood’s idea of
promoting “good will toward men.”
The sole exception appears to be The Chronicles of Narnia:
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. This movie is based on
the classic children’s books of noted Christian writer C.S. Lewis,
which naturally have long been criticized “for sexism, racism, and cultural
intolerance” and likely will be again.
On television, the dearth of real Christmas programming is no
less distressing. Since the arrival of the cute yet commercial
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” nearly all references to the
Christ child have been eliminated. A few years ago, a study was conducted to determine how often the birth of
Jesus and other spiritual aspects of the season made their way onto
our TV sets. The results were predictable:
What was once celebrated as one of the most sacred holy
days of the year in American society has now become represented on
television as nothing more than a fantasy day where dreams come
true. Of the 1,156 hours of television devoted to the theme of
Christmas during the month of December (2002), 90% of the shows did
not include a major spiritual theme and only 3% of the Christmas
programming was devoted to Jesus.
But it wasn’t always that way. Consider that, in 1951, NBC
commissioned composer Gian Carlo Menotti to write an original
Christmas opera. The result, Amahl and the Night
Visitors, is a beautiful work that tells of a poor, crippled,
shepherd boy who is visited by the Magi on their way to Bethlehem.
Replayed on NBC every year until the original video recording was
lost, it continues to be reproduced on stages across the country
but not, sadly, on network television.
Also popular was a charming Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation
of an adaptation of The Littlest Angel, a book by Robert Tazewell. The
story concerns Michael, a young boy who dies and goes to heaven and
is an unruly angel, but becomes joyful when his poor gift to the
coming Christ child is transformed into the shining star of
Bethlehem. Such was the Christmas fare of early TV.
Today however, the closest way to get to the true spirit of the
day is to wade through the Santa Clausian mush and look for a
faithful rendition of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Though Dickens is unfairly credited with spawning the “modern” way
we celebrate the season, it’s hard to feel too far away from its
redemptive qualities when reading his “ghostly little book.”
Recently, many ghastly attempts at filming his tale have haunted
the airwaves, poisoning the minds of children whose parents grew up
with the sublime Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge. In 2000 for
example, VH-1 aired “A Diva’s Christmas Carol,” starring Vanessa
Williams with the tagline, “Christmas can be such a bitch!” God
Bless us every one, indeed.
But Dickens always had the right idea. Perhaps the adults in
Hollywood today should take to heart this line from his immortal
classic: “It is good to be children sometimes, and never better
than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child
himself.”
