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Passing Windmills
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The Normalizing of Horrible Christmas Movies Must Be Stopped
 with Kevin Fallon Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
This week:
The Onslaught of Bad Christmas Movies Has Finally Defeated Me For as long as I've had this job, I've had a nemesis: Hallmark must be stopped at all costs.
 For so long, it was maddening. This is prime time for great films. It's finally the time of year when you can actually watch all those fantastic projects that critics have been teasing for months after previewing them at fall festivals. These are the movies that are going to win Oscars. That might change history. That star Lady Gaga in a Russian-Italian accent plotting murder.
I am self-aware enough to acknowledge my snootiness when it comes to all of this. Sure, there is ostensibly nothing wrong with wanting to see Candace Cameron Bure combatively flirt with, like, an architect or something, or Mario Lopez and Melissa Joan Hart band together to save a failing small-town bakery—and, of course, Christmas, too—all in a constant marathon of cozy monotony. The near-identical structure to them is soothing; a comfort blanket of inanity and bad writing.
Plus, it's the holidays! For all the talk about joy and love and all that fa-la-la, this season, generally speaking, can really suck. Who am I to fault those who want some escapism? What I can't get over, though, is the pure ferocity of the chokehold these movies have on us during this time of year. According to Entertainment Weekly, 146 new Christmas movies were set to air this year. As in new. Not yet seen. One hundred and forty-six movies were made for ephemeral holiday release, to be viewed while you drink eggnog and fart under your living room quilt, drifting in and out of sleep on a Sunday afternoon. That is preposterous to me—and yet, finally unignorable.
With a grimace on my face and my finest Scrooge top hat on, I swan-dived into the avalanche of content. When pop culture like this is such a behemoth, it does become an intriguing test case for where we are as a society and how we're changing. (That I am assigning that significance to a Lifetime movie starring Haylie Duff should bring none of us joy.)
It was barely a few years ago when this assault of Christmas movies from Hallmark and Lifetime featured such a lack of diversity that watching them came with the risk of snowblindness affliction.
In some ways, it is remarkable to see the larger conversation we've had about inclusivity in storytelling in Hollywood make tangible, observable progress in this genre of entertainment. A scan of this year's lineup—if you have the hours in your day to read through it all—reveals an impressive diversity, whether its race, disability, sexuality, or even religion. This year, there are Hanukkah love stories, too. And what is progress, truly, if not seeing yourself reflected in horrendous holiday movies on Hallmark?
I don't want that snark to minimize the significance of this, though. This is such an influential and important cottage industry of entertainment—though so large now it might be more apt to call it a mansion industry—that there's been backlash to that inclusivity and that progress.
This fall, the channel GAC Family was launched as a haven for those who think—get this—Hallmark has gotten too edgy and lost its wholesomeness. Hallmark! It was started by the former chief executive of Crown Media, Hallmark's parent company, who was in charge in 2019 when, under pressure from conservative groups, the network pulled ads from Zola that featured a same-sex couple.
It is truly a testament to how ridiculous and extreme the culture wars have become that GAC Family even exists. (Would you believe that Lori Loughlin is one of the network's inaugural stars?) But that anyone can take this genre so seriously definitely begs some critical exploration.  It would be a lie to say that I even made a dent in those 146 new movies. But I did watch a bunch. They are still not good! Not good at all!
Still…maybe it's the suffocating shawl of bleakness that has snuffed all the joy out of being alive. Maybe the pummeling volume of these things has finally just worn me down. Or maybe I just don't want to feel left out of the conversation when everyone in the world is talking about Vanessa Hudgens and all her wigs and accents. Somehow, against my best judgment and everything I thought I knew about myself, I have come to like these films.
The Princess Switch 3? What a plot! Held my interest the whole time. Single All the Way? I am here for a When Harry Met Sally about attractive gay friends with Kathy Najimy and Jennifer Coolidge along for the ride. And I do not care to share how hard I laughed at the utterly ridiculous VH1 movie featuring RuPau and a bunch of Drag Race stars.
I can't imagine how the scale of these movies every year could possibly sustain itself. All I need is for a childhood friend played by Lacey Chabert to force me to make gingerbread houses while she drains me of my cynicism.
Sex and the City's Natasha Storyline, Revisited Warning: This post contains spoilers about the first three episodes of And Just Like That.
There's a fundamental issue at the heart of Sex and the City that has terrorized me since the beginning and has since infected the arteries of the greater SATC universe, including two movie sequels and now, a new series. Carrie and Big weren't soulmates. They should never have ended up together.
It's a plot point for which loyal viewers have been happy to suspend their disbelief for decades as they watch the episodes over (and over…and over), adopting the series as their religious text, Carrie's puns as their Bible verses. It's never ruined the show, not really. People making wrong relationship decisions and passing them off as fairy tales is one of the franchise's most relatable elements. I encounter four examples of that at a typical brunch with friends.
Now, the fallacy of Carrie and Big's star-crossed romance provides the foundation of the HBO Max sequel series And Just Like That. And with it comes that baggage about their relationship. In this week's new episode, which takes place a few weeks after Big's funeral, Bridget Moynahan's Natasha Naginsky is back, and so is Carrie's insecurity over whether she and Big really were that good and that happy together. (They weren't!)
Natasha has always been one of the most interesting characters in the SATC mythology, and the whole storyline with her is one of the series' most daring. I could write a dissertation on her entire arc and have often questioned whether or not I want to live in a society where a PhD in Sex and the City subplots is not offered.
I admired it for how it challenged audiences in terms of Carrie as a character and what we're willing to excuse or tolerate, both as viewers and as humans, with our own relationship pasts and accompanying wounds and bruising. It exposed Carrie's narcissism, delusion, and destructiveness, not just testing how much Sarah Jessica Parker-branded charisma is needed to counteract that, but revealing that we're perfectly OK judging a person's behavior while still holding them dear (on TV, and in life).
It messed with notions of who is a villain in situations like these. We're conditioned to hate Natasha, but it's Carrie whose actions are arguably sinister.
I also liked that you didn't necessarily need to buy into the idea of Big and Carrie's fabled love to believe this storyline. The affair, the betrayal, and the chaos of it all seemed to operate outside of the arguments of who should end up with who. It was all very ugly and human and real—a storyline that reflected the impossibility of knowing what you want in life and from relationships, and the inevitability of fucking up the lives of those you love.
I really liked the way And Just Like That revived that conversation from the perspective of women who have decades to let those wounds heal—but who also can never get rid of those scars.
The impetus for all this is the revelation that Big had left Natasha $1 million in his will, to which everyone reacts, understandably, with a rousing "What the actual fuck?"
Carrie, obviously, spirals. "I'm really mad at Big," she says. "I almost forgot how I used to feel all those years ago: so nervous and insecure and desperate. Like what we had wasn't enough. Like I wasn't enough. And I just hate that after all the good years, this is what I'm left with. He ruined our happy/sad ending."
Charlotte tells her that she and Big were the happiest couple she knew, and there was nothing to worry about. (Let's all give it up for the Susan Sharon cameo in last week's episode, who under her breath called Big a "prick" who made Carrie's life miserable at his funeral—the only person who will tell the truth.) But that's not reassuring.
There are fun, classic Carrie high jinks as she goes into stalker mode and everyone starts to be really petty about the whole thing. It all culminates in a lovely scene between Carrie and Natasha, where, after all these years of nastiness and spite, they come from a place of kindness and honesty. "I'll never understand why he married me when he was always in love with you," Natasha says. Carrie finally gets to say, "I'm sorry as well, oh God, for everything," while Natasha forgives her: "I appreciate that. But we're OK. It's all in the past."   It's closure that, in essence, might be the biggest fantasy leap this show has ever made. How often does anyone get closure for something so complicated and so painful? I'm not sure Carrie earned that, and I'm not sure Natasha would be so gracious. But it was still nice to see and, for me, besides the point. I finally got my wish: an entire episode of Sex and the City in which we came to terms with the idea that Carrie and Big's relationship was never the brass ring we were all convinced Carrie should be reaching for, or grateful to have.
I Do Not Enjoy Thinking About Ben Affleck This Much We are, I fear, in the dying days of celebrities saying anything remotely interesting or honest in interviews.
There is the battalion of indignant A-listers who have submitted public statements in support of Succession star Jeremy Strong, following a specious accusation made in a New Yorker profile that Strong takes his job as an actor very seriously. Jessica Chastain will not let such slander stand!!!
And now there is the utterly bizarre backlash, which seems to have spawned at least three different news cycles, to Ben Affleck's candid and fascinating interview with Howard Stern. In the interview, which was released Tuesday, Affleck discussed his alcoholism and how the unhappiness in his marriage to Jennifer Garner contributed to it, and then how his drinking in turn exacerbated their relationship troubles—all in a cruel, unhealthy cycle.
Makes sense! It's probably reflective of a lot of people's experiences. I bet it was really helpful to many that he shared it.  But then this thing happened where, I don't know, his chronicling of alcoholism and depression didn't have that feel-good celebrity news zing that we like.
Jennifer Garner started trending on social media, with people rallying around her as if this account of what he experienced had wronged her in any way. Affleck's current partner, Jennifer Lopez, was reportedly "pissed" about the whole thing, since she's dragged into the crossfire of internet trolls because they're dating. And then on Wednesday night, Affleck went on Jimmy Kimmel's show to clarify his comments and reiterate how much he and Garner "respect" each other.
Affleck said a vulnerable thing related to issues we're told not to speak about. Then he was pilloried for it. J. Lo became involved. And now we're dragging Garner into it? No one asked for this.
Here Are Some Nice Things for Christmas! It is my homosexual responsibility to peruse the entirety of holiday-themed TV specials and curate the best performances of Christmas songs by gay icons (read: women who are good at belting) for you to enjoy in the lead-up to the big day.
 And then there's this, which is just a delight: Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham arrives to shake the rafters while singing in a red dress so beautiful that I clapped when she made her entrance during Michael Bublé's Christmas special. She's belting along to "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," showing off her West End-honed musical theater chops. (Watch it here.)
A Perfect Image and a Perfect Thought There are two things I have not stopped thinking about this week, and possibly may never. The first is this stunning shot from the season finale of Succession:  And the other is this tweet: 
What to watch this week: Station Eleven: Yes, I am recommending a TV show about a pandemic. It is that good. (Now on HBO Max) The Lost Daughter: It's the awards season movie I can't stop thinking about. (Now in theaters) Finding Magic Mike: A sexy little treat while we wait for Omicron to get us all. (Now on HBO Max) Nightmare Alley: A great one to hurry up and see in theaters before they close and we all never leave our apartments again! (Now in theaters) What to skip this week: Emily in Paris: I'm not trying to be hyperbolic, but the popularity of this show heralds the death of culture and civilization as we know it. (Wednesday on Netflix)
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