I can assure you that this article is about the movie Die Hard, the first installment in the series, and the issue of whether it is a Christmas movie. How do I know this? Because I am the writer of the article. It logically follows that if the screenwriter of Die Hard says it’s a Christmas movie, then it’s a Christmas movie.
It can’t get much simpler than that.
In the world of the Internet and social media, where just because someone says something it is required to be taken seriously by all, there are all kinds of goofy, nonsensical, and just plain stupid ideas floating around. It shouldn’t surprise a normal person that ISIS recruits on the Internet and social media. The fact that employers now search social media as a part of their recruiting process isn’t so much they are looking for positive information about the potential candidate, but whether they are spewing nonsense that has the potential to undermine the company’s reputation.
It is true Die Hard has violence, good guys, bad guys, crimes being committed, innocent people being put in danger, but why does that make it not a Christmas movie? Because someone has nothing better to do than twist the intentions of the original writer? Where I live there were 222 home robberies committed between December 1st and December 22nd. Does that mean that there was no actual Christmas season because a small group of people decided to ruin other people’s Christmas holiday? The events take place in a context, something the speed-of-light, zero attention span culture of the Internet is neither interested in nor aware of.
There are movies with storylines that are intended to let the audience have at it and debate the meaning of a movie. Some movies have multiple layers and storylines, which adds to the fun, excitement, and interest of the film. But the majority of the movies people watch are linear — there is a starting point, and end point, and the dialogue and storyline are clearly followed. What is so complicated?
In Die Hard, McClane is going to Los Angeles for the Christmas Holiday, and meet his kinda-wife at the company’s annual Christmas party, and he is bringing a huge Teddy Bear as a Christmas present (and offering of goodwill). Bad guy enters the scene to rob the company, good guy shows up and tries to stop the bad guy, a lot of fighting ensues, bad guys lose, and the good guy and kinda-wife leave the scene to celebrate Christmas.
I’m sure there are a lot of people who try to read all types of subthemes into the storyline. They may or may not be there, but the movie is simply about a story that takes place during the Christmas season. Screenwriting (or for that matter, virtually all genres of fiction writing) require the events to take place in a setting. Even if characters are floating around in space, there is a setting. In Die Hard, there is ample evidence to show it is a Christmas movie.
If you think this blog to be overly simplistic and sometimes repetitive, it is because the obvious message is: why try to make things so complicated, obfuscate the basic reality of the movie, or argue with the screenwriter? He knows. You don’t.
But I understand this is the Internet, where reality is suspended and the simplest reality can be distorted, made popular, and end up on 1,000 different websites as a valid “point of discussion.” But you’ll have to trust me on this one — the writer knows all about what they are writing. Otherwise they would not be getting paid for writing but posting their ideas on discussion boards and in blog posts, hoping somebody will think their ideas make sense.
Follow Us
