2020 was clearly a banner year for LGBTQ+ representation in Christmas movies and here comes another one - Hallmark’s first to prominently feature a same-sex couple in key roles. However, despite all the fanfare surrounding it, The Christmas House, co-directed by Michael Grossman and Lance H. Robbins doesn’t place all that much focus on its gay characters after all. This one primarily concerns married couple Bill (Treat Williams) and Phylis (Sharon Lawrence) who invite their two grown-up sons home for the holidays to recreate a treasured family tradition - turning their home into a mega-decorated ‘Christmas House.’ However, Bill and Phylis have ulterior motives as they plan to sell up and move into something smaller. Oh yeah, and professional baker son Brandon (Jonathan Bennett) is married to Jake (Brad Harder) - what of it?
The main character here is arguably actually older brother Mike (Robert Buckley), the star of a (pretty awful looking) TV show called ‘Handsome Justice’. He’s become a big deal in the world of showbiz but is unable to resist the prospect of heading home to give his family’s barmy holiday house tradition one more go. This madness involves moving literally everything out of the house in order to decorate it from top-to-bottom, turning it into an insane winter wonderland for all the neighbourhood to enjoy, because this is the sort of attention-seeking behaviour that is standard in these movies. Mike will, naturally, cross paths with childhood crush Andi (Ana Ayora) with whom he used to be part of a cheesy magic act. Of course, she’s now a hot divorced single mom, aloof about Mike’s fame, but just waiting to charm his pants off and win his heart through the medium of small-town mystique. Oh yeah, and Andi is secretly Mike’s mum and dad’s realtor. Standard Hallmark stuff, then.
It’s definitely Mike’s film but the subplot about Brandon and Jake trying to adopt is arresting, helping to elevate this one slightly above your usual Hallmark fare. They’re desperate for a child after a number of failed attempts but keeping this a secret so as not to dash anyone’s hopes. This feels like fertile stuff for a holiday film to get its teeth into but, frustratingly, it’s not really explored that much and isn’t the driving thrust of the movie. I feel like a whole great film could be told just about these guys and their struggle to start a family, but this subplot really feels more like they’re just throwing the gay audience a bone here, rather than giving them much thought. I guess it’s some sort of progress?
The film is far more concerned with the psychological effect that selling the house has on the boys. Mike is devastated - through various cute festive flashbacks we see just how many happy memories the family have had in this house. I recall being similarly distraught when my parents downsized and sold our family home (I suspect this was done just to stop me from ever moving back in). Mike acts like a bit of a prick about the whole thing, attempting to sabotage the sale and whining a lot. Still, he learns, just like I had to, that sometimes we need to let go and not to be sad that something is gone, but happy you had it in the first place.
The film is riddled with the usual cliches and it’s not exactly a classic of gay cinema but I can’t deny that this is one of the better Hallmark films and is pleasantly moving. I’m watching this on the day we’re trying to sort through all the little details of selling our house, so I have all sorts of crazy emotions going on in my head which may lead to the film having more of an effect on my heart than it has any right to. This is the house where we raised our daughter and brought her home for the very first time, so with Brandon and Mike’s struggles to say goodbye to their childhood gaff, it sort of feels like fate that I watch this today. Also, Amelia seems weirdly fascinated with her mother’s breasts today, making me wonder if maybe she’ll be gay. Who knows? Who cares? I’m starting to feel like there’s never been a better time for it.
After watching this one, I come across a quite scandalous article online about the so-called Hallmark “Zola Scandal” of 2019. This concerns some TV advertisements for popular wedding website Zola that featured footage of same-sex brides kissing. Apparently the Hallmark Channel came under some serious pressure from ‘One Million Moms’, a division of the ‘Conservative American Family Association’’, that defines its core mission as a “fight against indecency”. These soulless killjoys allegedly protested against these ads so strongly - arguing that two women kissing on their wedding day was “indecent”- that they managed to get the adverts pulled. In a statement the group argued that “such content goes against Christian and Conservative values” and warned against “giving in to the LGBT agenda”. Shame on them.
Hallmark would go on to air a version of the ads with the same-sex couples completely removed. When word got out this, as you might expect, led to a major backlash against Hallmark and any other network that was party to this ‘airbrushing’ out of same-sex love. This prompted a flurry of support for and from LGBTQ+ audiences and likely goes a long, long way to explaining why 2020 was such a banner year for gay characters in festive movies. This story enrages me and makes me so sad that something crappy like this can happen. However, I’m thankful that this madness has not only shone a spotlight on these trolls but has also helped open the door for a lot more interesting, inspiring LGBTQ+ cinema.
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