A Christmas Story: A Tale of Technological Nostalgia 

Apparently Home Alone airs every year on Christmas Eve in Poland and people have big letter-writing campaigns if the stations think about not doing it!

I've always seen the movie as intentionally self-aware in it's cynicism. It takes this time of year that is supposed to be all about happiness and good things, and shows how all of that goes wrong. The dogs eat the christmas meal, the radiator is busted, sitting on Santa's lap is a horrifying experience, you get caught swearing and have to be disciplined, and the radio show you enjoy turns out to be just a commercial.

It's becoming increasingly weird to me how much this specific bit has folded in on itself repeatedly. The film about nostalgia is now nostalgia for the nostalgia of the nostalgia. People my age (late 30s/early 40s) are attempting to create the nostalgia of watching the film on marathon with their children that they had with their parents plopping them in front of the TV so they could spike the eggnog and figure out how to put on the rental Santa suit, when the film itself was an attempt to cash in on the 1980s nostalgia for the post-war 1940s/1950s. It's like watching the third turn of a thirty year nostalgia cycle...

While you're not wrong on most points, and the age of the film is something I wasn't aware of until I was an adult, my nostalgia for it and the nostalgia for many doesn't rely so much on the material goods featured in it but much more on the relationship between Ralphie and his father at an age where dads never said I love you and sons sought approval through any desperate means they could. My own father was and in some ways still is like Ralphie's dad in the movie. The short temper, the weird points of pride around things like the lamp and his ability to fix the furnace or a flat tire, those don't map 1:1 but they're still highly relatable. The ending, which you really glossed over, isn't the racist Chinese restaurant scene, but the climax of the BB gun plot where threads come together between the family trying to earn the dad's approval and Ralphie wanting an air rifle for Christmas, which his father reveals to have bought in secret and hidden behind a desk to present to Ralphie "from Santa" even after he and Ralphie's mother (and every other adult in his life) had voiced disapproval. The story isn't about the year all the recognizable brands showed up, but is ultimately the year Ralphie, as a child, finally felt a personal, adult relationship with his dad. The material things he got ended up being disappointing or backfiring (the bb gun, the decoder ring, even the turkey dinner) but the personal moments Ralphie had with his parents or his triumph over the local bully were the moments the movie emphasizes as integral to the importance of that Christmas to adult Ralphie. Those of us with stoic fathers or stressed-out moms or who had a Bruce Banner moment where we learned to stand up for ourselves still feel some authentic feelings with this from our own personal history. It's not as empty as you give it credit for, even if your other points about why we remember it are still pretty valid. Just wanted to voice that.

For some reason the part that sticks most with me from "A Christmas Story" was when Ralphie's mom didn't tell his father about the fight with Scut Farkus, because she saw that it was a child fighting back against a bully as opposed to something petty or malicious. It was an incredibly sympathetic depiction of a bullied kid in an age when most adults would have just said "toughen up".

In your conclusion you say: "Childhood nostalgia is a tricky thing, and should always be handled with some skepticism. Children, by and large, lack the means to seek out and to curate... to filter. In the 80s you watched what you did, because that's what was on TV. Whether it was the decision of our parents, or the person doing the scheduling at the network, our childhoods were programmed for us." Which I find interesting, because I've always taken this to be the very message of this film.

I've always looked at A Christmas Story as somewhat of a snide commentary on the consumeristic nature of christmas, rather than as just another catalyst of said consumerism. I think the tagline "A tribute to the original, traditional, one hundred percent, red-blooded, two fisted, all-american christmas" is the perfect way to frame the overly verbose and dramatic retelling of christmas presented to us by adult Ralphie. Not only is the overly exaggerated narration a perfect way to convey how a child feels about exciting events like opening christmas presents, or watching a kid get his tongue stuck to a pole, but hearing a grown man exhaust half of english the dictionary just to tell us about how excited he was for a toy gun highlights just how ridiculous it is that we get so enraptured in consumerism during a holiday that's supposed to be about showing appreciation your loved ones. There is no moral to the movie because there is no moral to christmas, we spend the whole movie watching Ralphie hope for a bb gun and then at the end he gets it and that's all the happy ending we need, we spend all of december hoping for whatever the hell it is we want and hopefully we get it on christmas, and if so, it's a happy ending to the holiday season. The shallow, comedically over exaggerated, materialistic nature of the movie is the perfect reflection of what "the original, traditional, one hundred percent, red-blooded, two fisted all-american christmas" really is, a crummy commercial for ovaltine hidden in behind a fun event.

Thank God, a technological nostalgia yearning for a prelapsarian world - by definition: fictional - encapsulated in material objects as signifier of the age of innocence, a false memory of a time that never truly existed, implanted into collective video form by corporate repetition Christmas video!

The movie is ABOUT skewering materialism and Christmas traditions-this is clearly seen in the payoff to the BB gun plot where the object of his capitalistic fixation nearly kills him. Like all holiday traditions, it is intentionally manufactured through repetition (in this case by a media conglomerate). But the movie knows what it is.

It was only 10 minutes? I've been duped! Nah but really this was great. Thanks Dan, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I've always (back to when I was a kid) kinda seen this movie as satire of sorts. I mean it's not some great Swiftian achievement or anything, but I think the moral is more family oriented than you give it credit for. The scene that stands out to me is the one where Ralphie pummels the bully. His whole mission throughout the film is to get a bb gun, this sort of facsimile of violence; he has childhood fantasies of shooting the bad guys, being a hero. But, halfway or so through the movie he's confronted with real violence, in probably one of the most powerfully blunt scenes in a family movie, with the exception of Watership Down. And instead of triumph, he spends the rest of the day crying afraid of upsetting his dad, again painfully realistic. I think the movie is about the shifting from childhood expectations to adult realities. Parents are not vindictive monsters that only want to ruin your fun, they just want you to be safe and to be a good person ("you'll shoot your eye out"; saying fuck). Toys, games, and stories are not what the world revolves around, they're an aspect of life that can harm and disappoint you ("drink your ovaltine"; he almost does shoot his eye out). The moral at the end of the story is fairly existential; daily life, school, Christmas dinner, Santa, are kind of irrelevant, but not necessarily meaningless. That's just my take anyway.

Come to think of it, I don’t know if I’ve ever watched the whole movie...

Funny. I was born in 1969 and remember seeing bits and pieces of this movie for years, but never being particularly impressed and never seeing it in it's entirety. In my 40's, I've discovered it as the classic it is, without the nostalgia. This is one of my all time favorite Christmas movies because it is an expertly crafted piece of cinema. And I don't think it's as vapid as this video declares. Beyond the BB gun, beyond the turkey, beyond the electric sex gleaming in the window,. the movie is at it's very heart about the relationships in the house. The bond and trust with the mother, the empathy and gentleness of the father,. etc.. The movie has way more to do with fighting back, the death of childhood dillusions, the forgiveness and love of our families, and what it is to be safe, and loved. The material, branded, commercial landscape is just that, the landscape, not the journey or the journeyman. This film is most of all about childhood and family,..Christmas is really only part of the landscape as well.

I enjoyed this video but I think you're missing a lot of the irony going on in the movie. A lot of the elements that you dislike are what the film is mocking. The writer of the monologues, book, and movie has said that the story is meant to be "anti-nostalgic writing". It's a critique of the way we view our past through the lens of nostalgia. You're correct about the reason for it's latent popularity but I think the film itself is really good. Personally I was introduced to the film as a teen because my grandmother owned a copy, so I am pretty detached from the 24 hour marathon thing.

we all know he filmed the intro last

While I agree with that "A Christmas Story" is fondly remembered largely due to the way broadcast television enables nostalgia, I think you downplay how subversive the film's treatment of its own internal nostalgia is. While Ralphie and the plot are fixated on the commercialized Christmas experience--that getting that one shiny toy is the key to happiness--the humor of the film comes from it continually taking the piss out of the increasingly capitalistic American holiday tradition. One of the scenes that best illustrates this is one where Ralphie visits the mall Santa. It perfectly captures the experience: the long line of snot-nosed brats and weary parents, the half-assed costumes, the underpaid and equally weary actors. One can almost hear the faint echo of Holden Caufield in the background muttering: "I am surrounded by phonies." Indeed, Santa Claus as pop culture icon can interpreted as a metaphor for the idealized, broadcast-television version of Christmas that only children are stupid enough to believe in. And make no mistake, while Ralphie is a clever boy, he is also a stupid, stupid fucking kid. And throughout the course of the film he slowly learns that the Original, Traditional, One-Hundred-Percent, Red-Blooded, Two-Fisted, All-American Christmas is phony and super bullshit. And yet, I would not go so far as to call the film cynical. Even though it exposes a lot of Christmas' imperfections, the film has genuine moments of sincerity. The brief flashes of intimacy between the members of the family is sincere. The look of pride when Ralphie's father gives him a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle is sincere. And I think these moments are what are ultimately redeem the film.

Thank you for returning to using puppets!!!

That is funny I love the movie for the reason you dislike it. It is a Christmas movie about being a kid: lusting after toys, dealing with bullies, getting in trouble for swearing, bad presents, getting the present of your dreams even if it does knock your eye out, being scared of mall Santa. No learning that the true spirit of Christmas is giving. No freaking grinch.

the house it was filmed in is now a museum in cleveland. They do year round tours. The thing is they had filmed the outside in cleveland, the inside was done in a studio in canada. They remodeled the house on the inside and bought the property next store as a gift shop that is absolutely wild to go to in the summer.

It's really strange the things we attach nostalgia to, I've never seen this movie (being from the UK and all) so I lucked out in forming nostalgia for The Muppet's Christmas Carol instead.

Did the tube collective all get together and decide to pour various foodstuffs all over yourselves, going into 2019?

00:34 He did it, the madman!

Admittedly, it was also one of the first movies (along with Grinch) to show a more skeptical view of the consumerism surrounding Christmas, even if they might have done a worse job of it in Christmas Story (he does shoot his eye out for example, but in the end, he's still telling the story about the best gift he ever got, and accident or not, it's still the point of the film that this purchased gift is the positive focal point of this story.

A Christmas Story was a compilation of Jean Shepard short stories some of which were featured in Playboy magazine over many years. Jean Shepard was also the inspiration for the song "A boy named Sue." He was a Ham Radio operator and a gadget freak. I got to know his work because he wrote stories for ham radio magazines and was a broadcaster for WOR radio in the 1950's and 60's. He was a tech nerd before people were called that.

To me, this was what christmas was about: getting shit. I remember meeting with friends and writing a list of toys I wanted, most of which I had seen in advertisement. Most of the times I didn't get what I had "ordered", but I did get plenty of toys. And that's what I remember, not the actual toys but the expectation, waiting near the christmas tree for the toys to materialize. I never understood the rest of the christmas lore.

This is my favorite Christmas film because I see it as a frank yet affectionate examination of childhood affairs and past memories. The things Ralphie holds as greatly important look different to an adult, but the film enjoys that rather than condemning it. There's comedy in the fact that nostalgia comes from a lot of things that could be considered crappy experiences, but the film doesn't become cynical either. It's always felt very emotionally real to me, feeling very fond in its tone without cloying uber-sweet BS. It finds fondness in the bad parts as well.

Okay, man, come on. You say that this movie's place in American Christmas tradition is new and a little arbitrary (from the nostalgic, celebratory perspective), but that's American Christmas to its core. The image of Santa, the strings of lights, the season starting on Black Friday, the family members booking flights to others states for a couple days, the songs, the movies, these are all very recent aspects and symbols of this holiday. It's all brand new, and yet it's all cherished as important by the culture. This movie isn't some young exception, it's a perfectly suited example and metaphor for how this country's culture works: a pile of arbitrary touchstones on a bed of vaguely celtic solstice totems. You can criticize and deconstruct all you want, but A Christmas Story shouldn't be your target any more than Bing Crosby singing Mele Kalikimaka, oversized manger scenes, or the Rankin & Bass Rudolph you mentioned. It's all tacky, it's all skin-deep, and it's all equally perfect for this holiday. And besides, the film itself has more of a message than you allow in this video. The traditional dinner the family so wanted is ruined by badly behaved dogs from the poor family next door, so our protagonist's family rolls with the punch and finds joy and togetherness in an unlikely place. For the kid, it's about some toy, but for the adult retelling the tale, it's about the family being a loving, powerful unit. You don't need to love the movie--I'm honestly with you on being just okay with it--but it's disingenuous to characterize it as empty, and for its place in our dumb holiday celebration as misplaced or flimsy. It's an awkwardly thoughtful mess. Which is pretty effing perfect, if you ask me.

"In the 80's- our childhoods were programmed for us" Holy shit......

Your commentary is 100% on the mark -- but it may be why as *I* have grown older I've found myself actually downright enjoying the film. A rather sardonic look at childhood nostalgia punctuated from and adapted from a larger, less-focused (inasmuch as it is not all set in the month or so preceding Christmas) memoir and focused on the way that marketing was a constant even in that time. Something of a consumerist parable, in a way, in that just as much as it is focused on things, it is also focused on how frequently those things fail to achieve their purpose: the furnace backs up constantly, the leg lamp blows a fuse and later breaks, the decoder ring provides no insight into Little Orphan Annie's plight but instead just serves as a marketing ploy, the car tire goes flat and then Ralphie loses the nuts holding it in place, the soap becomes a means of severe punishment and not simply a cleaning tool, the B.B. gun that punctuates nearly all of Ralphie's thoughts winds up knocking him back badly with recoil and causing him to break his glasses, and even the Christmas turkey becomes the victim of the Bumpus hounds. All we are left with in the end are our loved ones and the unfortunate sequence in the Chinese restaurant. In a way I feel like this is the movie that we would get (except with more updated gizmos and gadgets) if they attempted to adapt Calvin and Hobbes to the big screen, right down to the way the sequence is a series of mostly-disconnected vignettes rather than a longer coherent narrative (much as how the day-to-day stories in a syndicated comic strip might have little to no connectivity). In a way it also shows why such an idea would be very, very bad.

This is one of the rare times i think you are pretty off-base. or i should say i think you wanted to make a point and you are stretching things to fit. I have a very different experience with this movie. maybe it was a difference of exposure/timing of seeing it the 1st time. I discovered the movie while channel-surfing in late 1988 when i was in 11th grade and taking a break from homework. From the moment I saw it (switched it on right at the beginning of the flagpole scene), I loved it - funny, cute, interesting, a peek into someone's childhood memories. I tend to like 'slice of life' stories of the past like this. Back then I was only able to see it once a year and it became my favorite x-mas movie. It was a doorway into me learning about an amazing story-teller. Jean Shepard. I tracked down the book the movie was based off of and found it was more a collection of short stories from Jean's childhood - some of which were used to build the movie with. I learned that he used to have radio shows and such and was a major storyteller of 'americana' - probably exaggerated stories(he never said) but very funny and great to listen to/read. This movie was the most successful movie adaptation attempt of his work. There were about 5 or so movies made about his stories, but only one other was any good and it doesn't hold a candle to this movie. I can understand if its not your genera - I happen to like period pieces and slice of life stuff - this, wonder years (which this movie definitely gave inspiration to), mad men, etc. However i think your complaint is better directed towards the monitization of art/performance/entertainment than it is about this movie.

I don't think the film not having a particular message is necessarily a point against it. The film is just *A* Christmas Story, not *The* Christmas Story.

When I was eight, I fell in love with this film when I caught it randomly on television one Christmas Eve. It quickly became something I sought out every year. There was something enthralling about it that took me a while to put my finger on. I realized, years later, that it was the delightfully mean streak that runs through the movie. As a little kid, every time I watched and re-watched it, I was petrified by so many scenes -- the sneering mall elves, the bullying scenes, the tantrum-throwing father, etc. But unlike watching a horror movie, I found all these creepy threats incredibly relatable as a kid. I assumed it was a kid's movie that somehow 'got' what it was like to be me, unlike Saturday morning cartoons or Disney movies that were always just a bit too unrelentingly happy and optimistic .

That *the dad* bought him the BB Gun on his own was the emotional payoff of the movie.

A: You're wrong. This film is subtle genius. And B: that's really all I have to say about that.

Holy crap, I legit did not realize it was made in the 80s... I thought it was late 60s or early 70s up until the moment you mentioned the year it was made. Though, as someone who isn't really a big Christmas person, and someone whose outlook on this film is mainly "oh, uh, yeah, it's a movie alright!", I suppose I've never had much inclination to look into it. I guess as a child I just assumed it was an old movie, and the rest of my life moved on with that as my reference point.

I dunno, I feel like you're taking the movie too much at face value. Like, I've always felt that that line about "electric joy" was kind of tongue in cheek. The narrator is acknowledging the consumerism through gentle sarcasm, but also expressing the feeling of buying into it as a kid. I've always been nostalgic about this movie. I'm 30, but I never had any trouble relating to it. For example, It always seemed to me that it wasn't really about the toy itself, it was about the anticipation and excitement of the toy. I don't remember a whole lot about the toys I got, but I definitely remember those excited feelings. I'm glad I got to experience that. I think, rather than a moral, it just gives a picture of what it's like to be a kid. Like, there's a lot of focus on events that would seem insignificant to an adult that are really monumental to Ralphie - the Scutt Farkus affair, Flick getting his tongue stuck to the flagpole... Because school and the other kids around you really are such a focus at that age. I also like how it portrays how little power you have as a kid. The world can be unpleasant and unfair, and it sucks, but there's not really much you can do about it. And yeah, there's also a lot about the experience of being part of a family, the good times, and also the dysfunction, how you can look back on both aspects fondly. I think what I like best about this movie is that it takes kids seriously, puts importance on their feelings and thoughts and experiences. The things kids are concerned about may seem silly to adults, but kids' interior lives are valid and shouldn't be discounted. Even if you what you care about changes, you still remember the things that were important to you back then. Who you were is a part of who you are. Now that I think about it... I feel like there's an implication here that a lot of things that are important to adults are kind of stupid, too, and that there's not as much difference between children and adults as most adults would perhaps like to believe. Case in point, all the drama over the leg lamp. I do agree that the movie supports consumerism in a way. On the other hand, yeah, I do think there's a certain kind of joy and nostalgia to be found there that's worth talking about. Of course, talking about it encourages it, and a lot of damage comes out of that consumerism. Does that mean we shouldn't acknowledge our positive emotional experience of it? Should we talk about the bad every time, at the expense of relating our naive enjoyment of it as children? ...I don't have answers, but I think they're good questions to ask. Maybe the best thing to do is enjoy the movie as it is, but be open to criticism.

Hmm, sounds similar to how It's a Wonderful Life became a "tradition"

I have much appreciation for Dan's analysis and takes on media, but I think it was a mistake for him to frame this video focused on a single film and not the wider context of manufactured nostalgia. So a movie that wasn't a hit in theatres became more popular when a wider audience was exposed to it. It's one thing to say you don't like a movie and its played to death on cable, but it's rather insulting to say it's objectively bad, is only okay if you don't really pay attention to it, and people really only like it because they're falling for a corporate nostalgia trap. While the reasons behind its current level of popularity can invite scrutiny, and media dependence on nostalgia is growing ever more shameless, this scrutiny can be applied to every "Classic" movie. It's hard to see any difference with the current popularity of any other "Classic" from before we were born or "Sleeper Hit" we may have missed out on in theatres. We watch those movies because we are told they are good, and then make our own decisions about their quality. Despite being born years after the original Star Wars films were released, I saw them on VHS in the early nineties because my parents had bought them. I know most other millennial Star Wars lovers have a similar experience. However, there are numerous quality films from the past that haven't gotten that same level of continued exposure since they weren't popular in their time. The filter of time can rob us of experiences not suited for their time but may be suited for ours. Increased exposure for bygone media is something I think we should all be for, as we can determine for ourselves what suits our tastes. Additionally, there are any number of reasons a movie isn't popular in theatres, particularly seasonal movies like A Christmas Story. Purely "Christmas" movies released today go straight to the Hallmark Channel, DVD, or Netflix, making them TV movies, which is essentially what "A Christmas Story" has become.There may have been popular "Christmas" movies in theatres, but they were movies with that happen to set around Christmas time. No one describes Home Alone or Love Actually as "Christmas" movies. Dan has covered a number of contentious issues, but this is the first video of his that I've seen that seems both pandering to the "I too cool to like this popular thing" crowd and insulting to the people who do.

Ya know, I do love this movie. And the context you gave about Turner's business stunts really do convince me of your interpretation, but I always saw it as something else. You mentioned how this movie is a reflection of the childhood we remember, not what actually happened. I see strong evidence of that in the film. Several scenes are overacted/dramatized to the point of being absurd (i.e. Schwartz' mom screaming and beating him, the mall Santa, the furnace, etc.) These scenes are presented this way I believe to make it clear that Ralphie's memory is far from perfect, and nothing was quite the way he presents it in the movie. The best example of this is the Mall Santa, who's dreaded "HO HO HO" is haunting, to say the least. Children are scared to death of him and go down the slide crying. That is, until after Ralphie has his turn. As he and his family walk away, his father exclaiming that Santa "always knows!" what Ralphie wants, you can clearly hear and see the very same Mall Santa suddenly seeming quite friendly with a genuinely jolly "HO HO HO" as he sends a laughing child down the slide. Another example is when Ralphie's parents tell him to hurry upstairs the night before Christmas, wait for him to close his bedroom door, then say something like "alright, let's go" in a way" that a child watching the movie wouldn't think twice about. This obviously reveals the taboo truth that Santa isn't real, something that a child Ralphie would never have picked up on, and thus would not be present in his memory of this Christmas.These events were a glimpse of the reality that Ralphie misremembers throughout the film. Thus, I see A Christmas Story as an adult's glossy memory of a childhood Christmas that he found particularly important, with some reality thrown in to make the contrast between what Ralphie remembers and what actually happened more clear. Totally agree with you about the ending! It was unsatisfying, random, and quite racist! But it's what he remembered! I guess the writers couldn't think of a better ending?

The reason my mom made me watch A Christmas Story (and any of the other related movies, but most especially Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss) is because Jean Shepherd himself was nostalgia for her (he had a show on WOR in New York in the 50s-late 70s) which was in turn nostalgia for my grandparents as it spoke about their later childhoods; which is how my mom got into listening those radio shows...because my grandfather did. So while my grandparents disliked the movie because it was not true to what they expected, it was true to my mother's perception of the times before she was born (she was 23 when A Christmas Story came out). Too. Much. Layered. Nostalgia. We just assumed everyone liked it and had that same associations because it was already marathoned around Christmas among people I knew thanks to taping it off TV, and that that's how it got popular...because there was a big Jean Shepherd resurgence in general in the 80s. Maybe that sidenote is just really specific to people who fit my demographics of being 40. After all, what you cling to in childhood is pretty specific and altered by as little as 2-3 years.

It’s satire. It’s practically beating you over the head with its winking irony. I have to wonder about any adult who still takes it at face value.

Just a note that the movie is based on a memoiresque novel "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" which I recommend looking into, because there is something different about watching the stories unfold on screen vs pure narration. Even though the movie is very faithful in parts, with some narration being straight from the book. The decoder ring story in particular reads as much more sarcastic and in my opinion, much funnier.

Christmas time is turning me into a communist.

Despite it's name, "A Christmas Story" is not actually about Christmas as a concept, it's not trying to sell us on the true meaning of Christmas or virtues of generosity, it's about our relationship to the holiday on a more individual level. While I do think the hyper-commercialism ARE BAD, it's also, you know... realistic. It doesn't have a neatly-wrapped message or theme it pushes because real life doesn't really work like that, you probably have many stories in your life that could be funny, interesting, heartwarming, heartbreaking, etc, but none of them really have any overarching point or lesson in them. Whether we see commercialism as good or not, if you grew up relatively middle class, the stuff that you got is what you remember about it more than anything. Whether it's "good" or not, Ralphie remembers this Christmas because of the present he got, not because the present ended up being all that fun (on the contrary, he got injured because of it), but because of the amount of work and all the extreme feelings he got in the quest to get it, as well as some of the less connected vignettes that he remembers because that was the year he got that stupid BB gun. If there is a message or overarching theme to be taken from that, it's that in our quest for things we think we want we get experiences and moments that we might actually need. After all, Ralphie is still clutching that BB gun that fucked him up just two scenes ago, not because of what it is, but because of the experiences attached to it. That being said, I generally find the movie unwatchable now due to so many scenes just feeling cringey or shmaltzy or just overplayed. But I don't think its legacy should be "its about commercialism and commercialism ARE BAD."

Are you not aware of the book "A Christmas Story" is based on? "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" is a satirical punch at commercialization. Everything in the movie is a little grotesque and absurd to parody the manipulation of nostalgia and childish excitement.

Watching the opening of this video, was like watching the opening dialogue of a french art house film dubbed over. Spiked Egg Nog / 10

Hey Dan, I just wanted to thank you for the awesome content you provided for this channel (and others!) this year. It seems that you don’t see it as a great year in some regards, but just know that many of us also think it was your best content-wise. Keep it up, and here’s to next year being even better for you. Cheers!

I saw this in the theater with my family when I was middle school age, and we all loved it, but I do recall the theater being almost empty too. I've always been a Jean Shepherd fan (even before the movie came out), so I/we were already in for an experience we would strongly desire and subsequently love; narrated by the author whom we knew from radio and television. I grew up in the Midwest and perhaps it also has a cultural resonance, such as the whole "fudge" business, even if it was the Midwest of the 1980s. The whole business of it being played on an endless loop kind of missed me (I rarely had cable tv, even when I moved to the pacific northwest in my 20s for work), and in fact I always felt like it is/was this unknown gem others known only by a few of us -- when in fact it has now become ubiquitous with the Christmas scene.

I never actually watched the movie. My dad is named Ralph, and my tia, who lived with my folks at the time, would always turn it on to make him upset. I remember his reaction more than the film.

I'd always thought A Christmas Story was weird and a bit overrated. Like most things analyzing why that is provides more catharsis* than I could have expected. So thanks for this Christmas gift, Dan. *Wait, is it catharsis? Maybe I should analyze the feelings I have towards thorough analysis...

That was a wonderfully heart-warming seasonal video. Thank you for another year of insightful pondering.

Thank you for this. I don't have much to say aside from that I appreciate & enjoy your videos far more than I ever enjoyed this film.

Even before the internet, I was never really one to be subjected to "traditions" via television. Holiday programming and such never got much traction from me because first I'm an introvert who has never had any problem retreating from family time to do my own thing and second I'd turn to video games or books (or toys, before high school) rather than be bored to tears by some not-so-great holiday movie. I might even just go outside, even if It's freezing, to escape some commercialized iteration of a holiday or the feeling of being caged into a situation. Even the relatively good movies I can only watch once every couple years. As for Christmas Story, I've only ever seen pieces of a few scenes and the feel of it always turned me off from it -- there's something just unpleasant about it and so I've never had an intention of fully watching the thing.

While I find it hard to disagree with the analysis of the film's rise as a phenomenon and a (frankly forced) Christmas tradition, I can't agree that it's a bad movie or lacking in appeal to a child. I first saw it when I was 9 (Ralphie's age in the movie) on cable in the mid-'80s and immediately recognized it as, for lack of a better word, "true." Not in the sense that it was a real story that happened or that it reflected a real time and place, as it clearly doesn't. It's totemic and undeniably self-aware, much the same way Back to the Future's 1955 is essentially a cartoon distillation of what an adult white man in his middle age pictured his childhood era as. A movie that doesn't know it's a heightened depiction of an effectively fictional time wouldn't mix eras as much as it does (leading to the endless arguments over which exact year it takes place in...spoiler: it doesn't, it's a collage of a diorama of an imagined time), nor would it play with the Yosemite Sam-style nonsense swearing as directly as it does. The gibberish profanity isn't just there to guarantee a PG rating, it's there to draw attention to the cartoonish depictions of events, right down to the masterful build to and delivery of the Old Man's "Natafinga!" parting shot after the breaking of the lamp. But most of that is stuff I've recognized from watching it yearly growing up and through adulthood. The things that made it click for me when I was 9 were maybe not things I was consciously aware of, but they're things that a mediocre or poorly crafted film could not accomplish, in my opinion. It's one of the few films, and arguably the ONLY Christmas film, that really captures the powerlessness of being a child in an adult-controlled world, at the time of year when one's imagined happiness (dictated, as you say in the video, by material things rather than spiritual or intellectual ideals) is entirely at the mercy of adults, and Ralphie's efforts to subvert that situation drives much of the plot whenever it can. I would also argue that this ties in with the most effective swerve in the narrative, which is that Ralphie spends the whole movie appealing to the authority figures he finds the most sympathetic, only to receive his most coveted gift from the Old Man, who is previously depicted as being almost completely uninvolved in Ralphie's day-to-day life and interests. When did Ralphie's father find out that's what Ralphie wanted? When did he get it and where did he hide it from his wife? Can you even picture this heretofore almost completely self-involved character doing that? And yet he does, and he even knows he's subverting his wife's wishes, as he stashes it away from the center of the gift pile to spring it as a surprise after his son thinks he's not getting what he wanted. It's a charming moment, Darren McGavin plays it flawlessly, and best of all the film immediately turns it around and has Ralphie fall victim to the exact "BB gun block" that's been thrown at him the whole movie, only to find a way to, for the first time in the film, successfully game the system he is otherwise powerless within and get away with it ("I had pulled it off!"). So yeah, I think you're selling the film a bit short, even though its rise to required Christmas marathon viewing in the late '90s made it ubiquitous enough for people who didn't establish a connection with it to find it more annoying than anything else. But for me, not only did I grow up watching it purely because I liked it, and without commercials due to it being on pay cable (to this day the commercial breaks are jarring to me), but I distinctly recall being in college in the mid-'90s and having trouble finding anyone who even knew what the movie was, let alone was a fan. It's a manufactured tradition, but so are many of the traditional Christmas movies. You point out Rudolph, but It's A Wonderful Life had a very similar journey to Christmas immortality, right down to being free to air. Frankly I'll watch A Christmas Story over that any day of the year. And on one particular day especially.

I have to admit that Home Alone is my ultimate Christmas movie, it doesn't feel like Christmas until I watch it and it's been that way for like 25 years.

It's amazing how much of this piece directly references my experiences with this movie growing up. An annual family party on Christmas eve where this movie was put on in the background, and never watched completely but in snippets in-between everything else. I don't think I watched it beginning to end until late high school and was pretty underwhelmed, but it's so ingrained into my childhood that the comment about it becoming it's own object of nostalgia really hit home and I can't help but smile when I think of the movie because of those memories.

Look, mate, you can diss A Christmas Story all you want, but you do NOT talk shit about the Rankin/Bass Rudolph that is my CHILDHOOD. In all seriousness, will I love that movie dearly, it's not good. The animation is outdated as hell and for all the positivity it tries to bring, ultimately the message boils down to "socially marginalized groups (notably disabled people are worth being accepted if they can prove themselves commercially valuable".

There's a secret arms race among left tube, to create the best gifs. Dan is excellent at this.

I really like how much more frequently you're posting these days. Keep it up man!

My dad was born in the sixties, and in college by 1980, and he's always loved this movie. Your musing on nostalgia really hit home here. My sister and I *hated* that he kept the 24 hour marathon on, and memorized the film basically at gunpoint. We're definitely less angry about it now that we're grown up, even buying him gag gifts based on it when we spot them while holiday shopping. (Last year I found A Christmas Story themed pink bunny pajamas at target). Knowing that he was in his twenties when this came out is crazy to me, honestly.

Well now I want to watch Movie Bob's Really That Good on this movie... And Merry Christmas Everyone!

Personally, If I had to attach any point to the movie at all, it would be that it's lack of direction and distinct moral are more genuine and true to our experience then events with those elements clearly defined. Life happens. Some of it's good, some of it's funny some of it is horrible or disappointing. Most of it is unexpected. Sometimes the most that can be said is that it happened. The nostalgia that is there is, as most passable nostalgia is, a bit tired and wrly knowing. It says things with great irony that appeals to people above 25 as they age and start to get the regrets and missed opportunities. The audience misses even the lousy parts of childhood, but doesn't forget that we we kind of idiotic little fucks. You laugh at yourself. You talked about the queer recursion in the nostalgia mostly being due to the quirk of this movie being free, but that's the point. It is utterly ridiculous that you miss this stuff from when you were a child. Most of it sucked, the parts that didn't were either something hard-won or sold at a premium, and none of it would probably hold up. But you still miss it. And you still try and drag that feeling forward because it feels wonderful. And maybe it can be passed on. And that is the story of Christmas.

I didn't have cable for most of my childhood so I didn't get to watch it on tv. We had it on DVD and it's still my favorite holiday movie. Ralph's perspective is probably the most accurate depiction of how it felt to be a kid I've seen on film

I have a strange relationship to this movie, because I missed it on release and only saw the entire thing all the way through quite recently, but most of the material in it was familiar to me anyway--it's assembled out of various Jean Shepherd stories, and the main one that the movie is based on ("you'll shoot your eye out, kid!") had been read to us by my seventh-grade English teacher, and some other bits (the Nehi lamp) I'd already seen dramatized in earlier adaptations on PBS's "American Playhouse". All this before the movie actually came out. So it was this movie that I hadn't actually seen (at least aside from bits and pieces), but I felt like I'd seen it anyway. I always found those stories funny if not particularly profound. Didn't particularly think of them as nostalgic, though--what I brought to them was a rueful appreciation of how much childhood can suck, and kind of figured they were about that. Maybe it's framing them as a kind of nostalgic reminiscence that makes them worse.

Nobody tell Dan that now Die Hard is considered a Xmas classic. I mean if you're talking about nostalgic ridiculousness.

Man, I love your channel, dude

2018 has sucked pretty fucking hard but your videos are definitely a bright spot and I’m really grateful for them. I really recognize and appreciate how much you put into them so thank you thank you and thank you Dan, I hope you have a great Christmas :) and I hope 2019 will suck less

I appreciate the video but find it entirely focused on a modern perspective on the material. Doing a little research you can discover that the movie was based on the writings of Jean Shepard who was a satirist that wrote during the sixties and seventies. His stories used nostalgia to make dark commentary on the brutal and bleak nature of life in the fifties and childhood in general. If you approach A Christmas Story from the perspective of the subversive authorial intent of the writer you may find that your outrage over the commercialization of the era was actually shared by the author as well. Also, the point of the movie was about the conflict of personal expectation versus public opinion, something all generations struggle with.

Oh this gonna be good

This is the one film my whole family could enjoy, together. We didn't see it together until it ended up on cable or VHS. When we did, we all found stuff to laugh at and relate to. Having Turner do the 24 hours thing was a big bonus to us. And of course, coincided with some developing nostalgia for my brother and I. The older I got, and the more cynical about Christmas I became, I realized the film centered on the nostalgia for Christmas and how much the modern to me at the time Christmas was about recreating that kind of Christmas for my parents. Especially my dad. The sort of new consumerism that was growing and starting to swallow our culture in time of the film really found a huge weapon in Christmas. Its made me less fond of the film but I can't escape the way our family really enjoyed it, together. I still find a lot of it quite funny. I also think in its time it was unique in its portrayal of childhood being full of fears and the mundane. This would later become a very commonly mined story base. Its not good enough for me to keep enjoying it but it had a strong place in my life. It also provided me a lens with which to look back on Christmas in our culture and how it became this whole monster of spending and expectations. I largely hide from all of that now.

Wow, what timing! Literally just finished watching this movie with my family, opened RU-vid, and here this video was! Merry Christmas, everyone

I think this is a really lackluster video for you, Dan. You don't really say much about A Christmas Story or why it's bad. I don't particularly like A Christmas Story either ,but I still think it should get more analysis than that. Your premises seems to be: A. The movie has brands in it and is nostalgic. B. People only like it because it's presented as a holiday classic and over exposed. Those are explanations of why people would like the film if it really is bad, but those things, in and of themselves, don't make the movie bad. It’s on you to prove that. You don’t really bring up any examples of bad storytelling in the film, or explain why you found it obnoxious. I have hard time understanding what you even want from it as a period piece. There are brands and material things, but that’s not all there is. There are also practices and attitudes separate from tangible things that existed at the time and timeless incidents as well. Taking on a stupid dare from your friends, Watching your mom get your little sibling to eat, getting in trouble for swearing, going to visit Santa at the mall, et. These are experiences that don’t revolve around material things, and that people from many generations can relate to. I don’t think A Christmas Story ever presented itself as either a kids movie or as an objective truth of the past. It’s just supposed to be this guy recounting his, possibly a little bit exaggerated and incorrectly remembered, childhood memories.

THANK. YOU. Always thought this movie was overrated.

Love the depth of your research. I've never seen this film but, like Fifty Shades Freed, I now feel informed about it and yet equally have no desire to subject myself to it. Merry Christmas :)

I thought that rose-colored lens was the point. Even as a kid, I took it to mean that the narrator was reflecting on his childhood based on the emotions he felt as a kid at the time. As for the structure, I figured that was just because the film was supposed to be a little slice of life story. And the ending isn't just the kids clutching their toys in their sleep, it's the parents watching the snow falling and remarking on its beauty. I think that's what it's meant to be about- appreciating the little moments in life, because even though they're fleeting and may not seem significant in the long term, they make for sweet moments of togetherness that strengthen bonds and play quiet roles in shaping who we were, who we are now, and who we might become. But of course, it's fine that your interpretation is different from mine, and I still greatly enjoy your work :)

Im kind of left a big perplexed here. I love the Christmas season and I still genuinely find a Christmas story funny in its vignette moments. I understand that things aren’t love or that things aren’t important but holidays are associated with good memories and good feelings. I respect the videos message I just don’t relate

Finally a perfect argument for why I dislike this movie! My family is one of those that plays the 24 hour marathon all day, listening to it as background noise for brunch and present opening. Eventually we all sit down and consciously watch the movie all the way through. I also have to hear wayyy too much laughter during the Chinese restaurant scene...

Being here early makes me so excited! Love you Dan!

This video is making me feel so validated. I never liked A Christmas Story or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer but everyone else seemed to so I assumed I just didn't "get" them because they were made for a different generation than mine. Hearing a legit film critic (who happens to be older than me) talk about why they don't work is giving me so many thing to bring up and make my family hate me even more the next time I'm home for Christmas.

As a European it's almost refreshing to hear about an American movie that's apparently such a big deal in NA, but that I've never heard of, just as a reminder that even in a culture increasingly homogenized by American cultural imperialism, there's at least some garbage that doesn't get pushed down our throats. Happy holidays and thanks for an interesting video!

It cool learning how the phenomena of A Christmas Story started. And all this being said I'm still anxiously waiting for the 24 hour marathon to being in a couple hours. I may be in my 20s but dammit it's a family tradition

Never really thought about it, but you're absolutely right. This movie is so ingrained in my nostalgia, because i saw it so freakin much as a kid. And it's kind of funny how much it's been milked for what it's worth within the last few years with all of the merchandise as well as the musical tie in. Heck - I even got my parents the leg lamp for their Christmas gift. But I think a big nostalgia pull for me is that some of the exterior shots along with the real place it's fictional setting is based on is down the street from where I grew up.

Thank you for making this

You know it's satire right? Like the author was the most satirical satirist to have ever satired. The fact that it's depicting an over-saturated nostalgia bomb version of the 30s that never was is part of the joke. Also the fact that it bombed in theaters and gradually obtained cult status kind of cuts into the assertion that it only became popular when the original audience of children grew up to find it nostalgic. Not enough people saw it in theaters the first time for it to be nostalgically popular 10ish years after it came out.

First thirty seconds and I want to steal your thesaurus and burn it.

Thank you for not sinking into the unaware irony of putting advertising on this video.

My dad enjoys the nostalgia this movie brings: a school where everyone is quiet, pays attention, and writes in cursive. You can beat up your bully and not get suspended. A kid can own a toy gun that looks like a gun. Not to mention the cars.

"It's just a cruddy commercial." Lex Luthor voice: WRONG!! "A Christmas Story" is humorist Jean Shepherd's attempt to deal with his shitty teenage years - HE is Ralphie and his "Old Man" in real life ran off with his secretary and abandoned the Shepherd family in the early 1940s. He is trying to make his childhood look better by constructing a Great Christmas, a thing he really didn't do a lot on his WOR-AM midnight radio show in the 1950s-1970s - he mostly told it like it was, like mentioning the Depression-Era uncle who was perpetually unemployed and driving around in a paintless old car, or his first ill-fated writing gig doing squibs for a local department store one summer before he was drafted, etc. Shepherd's on-air persona was world-weary but fascinated by machines and electronics (he had been a ham radio operator since the late 1930s)....so what you get here is Jean with a little sugar to make him more palatable, though he had a huge cult audience from his WOR days. And no, I am not a fan of the film.

Bit of a weird fact regarding this movie it in itself created a yearly biffing war here in Cleveland just to stay in the house where it was filmed. I believe it goes up to 4,000 dollars usd. Just a strange fact

this is the best Christmas gift anyone has ever given me

Dan gives us the gifts of gifs... great video as always!

As ever, you have such incisive insight into things I hadn't even noticed, yet explain it such a clear, relaxed, straightforward way that I can definitely understand [and personally, subjectively, agree] without talking down to us, your audience, nor sinking into any of the [now standard ] YT cop-outs like lashing out at particular groups or "types" of people, getting irrationally emotional, etc. I really love every video you've done [ehh, I'm new, but easily a dozen], and even the "boring topic" ones and those on topics that I don't know about at all. [Totally called it in the film editing video. I felt like a damn genius when I said "dissolve" with you. Is there anything "Spaceballs" *can't* teach us? I wish you'd done one here, just to say, "Nice dissolve."] * This comment best viewed like a Star Wars opening crawl.

Oh my god thank you for validating my feelings because literally everyone around me thinks this movie is perfect

An absolutely fantastic video

Speaking of technological nostalgia, I wasn’t expecting to get the warm and fuzzies by seeing you use puppets again for this.

Aww yiss!

Funny. I too was chugging a whole carton of 'nog earlier today as well.

I keep seeing (and hearing) you in other peoples' stuff (not a complaint). Super cool to see a new release.

I love this movie so much. It reminds me of what it’s like to be a kid even though I grew up in the 80’s and in the ghetto. Some people get it and some people don’t.

“Movie didn’t reflect real life for anyone.” “I wasn’t even born yet in the time the movie is placed.” ........? I always felt the story aptly reflected quite a lot of childhood goings ons around Christmas. The problem with your assessment is that you’re giving nostalgia way too much credit. Watching Thundercats today doesn’t fill me with anything. Despite having loved Thundercats growing up. I watch A Christmas Story once per year, and I enjoy it *as the film*. I also enjoy it *because* my parents have always gotten a kick out of it because *they* (not you or me) actually lives through a time where the comedy and goings ons were very reminiscent of the life they lived. Again, maybe it’s the Canadian vs American thing? But my parents actually *do* see this film as being representative of their childhoods. And I do see some similarity to Ralphy in being a kid and hoping for a specific toy. Merry Christmas