The Christmas Shoes: The Fever Dream of Capitalism | Big Joel 

Hey hope you liked the video, it was a super fun one to make! What is your favorite christmas shoe? Also, here's the link to my Patreon, if you're interested lol www.patreon.com/bigjoel

I know this is like a year old but that ominous line about "hurry back" makes me think of one of the most radicalizing moments of my life. My great aunt was on her death bed and I had to go in for a shift at work. My mom told me she might not be there when I got back. I walked into work and broke down sobbing that I might miss her passing. They let me go home. When I returned to work, they asked how things went and I said that she passed peacefully around midnight that night surrounded by family. And they said "Oh, so you mean you could have stayed for your shift?" That was one of the most inhuman things I had ever heard.

oops we accidentally did an argument against capitalism in our conservative christian movie

the people around the kid being like “we’re supporting you in spirit!” but not actually giving him money was probably the most accurate part of this movie

The movie is accidentally about the contradicting moralities of capitalism.

That movie is the definition of "This isn't Wholesome, this is the Capitalism Dystopia"

Ooh, I know the message! It’s ‘Rich people should rest more, poor people should work more.’ What’s the difference between our two lads? Class. Bless us every one, the deserving poor who are deserving because they work, and the deserving rich who are deserving because, er, well, I guess they wouldn’t be rich if they weren’t?

"Are we poor?" Living in a house that was built for 7-person families.

How cool would it have been if the kid and Rob Lowe never interacted, and the big twist ending was that Rob was just the kid grown up? Holy, they missed a big opportunity to show they were *literally* the same person.

Perhaps the real Christmas Shoes was the friendly teachers who wouldn't give us ten dollars we met along the way

It's unsettling classist propaganda dressed up as a heartwarming Christmas story that's trying to get a win from all directions (except for the dying mum I suppose). If you're poor, work hard and keep working, but not to the point where you become rich, just work because your work is plucky and endearing and heartwarming to see you strugglin' by bless your little blue collar socks. But the rich, well they need to work less, learn to appreciate the little things, humble yourself a bit, because you wouldn't wanna be too rich and threaten the actually rich rich people, so loosen up. Everybody stay nice and complacent, pay no attention to the man behind the veil.

The "poor" family is what TV thinks a poor blue collar family looks like. It's pathetic the tropes they constantly use and get nothing right.

I wish the whole part with "Noodles" creating the can treasure hunt was just because the teacher thought this kid weirdly obsessed with cans. That would be amazing and honestly more heartwarming.

Movies that are very invested in women owning red shoes: 1. The Wizard of Oz 2. The Christmas Shoes 3. The Red Shoes The female owner of aforementioned red shoes dies in every one of these movies coincidence or conspiracy, you decide

That sure is a big house that "poor" family has.

"It's almost Christmas time" *Halloween wants to know your location* *Thanksgiving just doesn't care anymore*

"... This nice teacher... We'll call him Noodles, because he makes me smile" That made me a happ boi

The lack of a difference between Nathan and Robert could work if Nathan realizes their similarities in the end: "Oh, that boy has been working all month for something he presumes his dying mother wants instead of spending time with her? That's actually really sad. Maybe it could teach me something about my own relation towards my family and my work." Then instead of Robert trying to buy the shoes last minute before the store closes, have him be under time pressure because of another event (maybe to see his mom at home, before she's transported to the hospital? Someone could probably come up with a better idea...) and when he realizes that he doesn't have enough money, he is willing to collect more cans and miss said important event, just so he can buy the shoes. Then Nathan steps in, buys him the shoes and tells him to go home to his family. The message then could be about labour for people you love not being inherently bad, but time spent labouring FOR your loved ones not being automatically better than time spent WITH them and that you shouldn't get so caught up in doing what you assume is good for them that you overlook their own feelings.

Just think, if the US had universal health care it's quite possible Nathan's mum would have been fine as a result of being able and willing to seek treatment earlier. Then we wouldn't have this heart warming tale, proving that universal health care is bad or something.

I would also like to point out that on Christmas Eve, the recycling center would likely be closed anyway and he wouldn’t be able to exchange said cans for any money.

Movie:Money can't buy happiness. also movie: GOTTA GET THOSE SHOES!!!!

“i hope you’ve been thinking...” bold of you to assume i can think, joel

I have a theory: this movie is made for middle to upper-middle class Christians. They like the idea of family, and they like to think that material things are not what Christmas is truly about. Rob's plot about a hard-working dad taking a break and spending time with his family speaks to them, because perhaps they are in similar family situations and can identify with it. Then, the kid's plot comes in. The kid is a hard worker. His story makes comfortable, logical sense: hard work=good things (in the form of material objects). The kid justifies the conditions of Rob's family, and by extension the class and conditions of the families who are watching. The kid is rewarded with the shoes because he worked (unnecessarily) hard. Perhaps this is because the universe is logical and balanced. The kid DESERVES the shoes, and his desire for the material shoes is not shallow, but it is deep and meaningful and justified. By extension, people who are well off are well off because life (essentially) is fair and their money is a direct reward of their hard, earnest work. And their desire for material objects is not shallow; instead it is HOLY. Jesus will like the Christmas shoes. They have to do with the mother's getting into heaven. Also, the kid gets into medical school and becomes a doctor. This will probably allow the kid to move up in class and wealth. The kid is already established to be a good person, and I think this could imply that people are middle class because they are good and hard working, and that good, hard-working people are not poor (or do not stay poor for long). In conclusion this movie is made to make people feel good about themselves. Which everyone already probably knew. Also there is a lot to be said about the role of the wives in the beginning. For example Rob's family is "bad", and he makes his wife have a career instead of her volunteering at church. And the kid's family is "good"; his mother doesn't work (and they can still afford a house somehow?)

The amount of time and effort Noodles put into creating that cache of cans was surely worth more than $5 to him. I guess teaching Little Nathan the Protestant Work Ethic is what made it worth his while.

I know what a lot of you are thinking right now: "Big Joel sure seems to love christmas a lot. Wouldn't it be great if he would make a christmas album?" Well, you're in luck. He already has made one, it's called "Breaking Up With Santa" and you should give it a listen!

I want her to look beautiful if Momma meets Joel tonight

What if the meaning of the movie is the protagonists actualizing manhood by negotiating love and labor. It's worth noting that both protagonists are funding this self-actualization by sacrificing their female relationships and hanging out with other men. Maybe in a sequel they'll both be openly gay and we'll realize that the pretty shoes, hanging out with Noodles, and "helping out the farmers" should be interpretted differently.

It makes sense to me as a form of capitalist recuperation. Like, the explicit idea the movie sets out to present is that labor and consumption are not ends in themself and that we should prioritize human connections over them. However, the scripts and norms set out for us by capitalism insist that those are, in fact, the central values around which we should organize our lives. Unable to recognize this because it would require that capitalism be cast in a negative light, the movie just straight reproduces consumerist values, contridcitng its own intent.

Joel’s so fuckin adorable and watching him be so genuinely passionate about what he does makes me so happy

The song always makes me lose my shit because of how balls to the wall depressing it is, I'm so happy to hear there's an entire movie based on it

"What I hear is a crushing nihilistic tale about a little boy with no guidance trying to make sense of this horrible tragedy that's about to befall him; and is under the delusion that a pair of shoes would matter at all" Lindsay Ellis (Christmas Shoes review)

As a devout Big Joel watcher and a devout Christian, The Christmas Shoes song is openly and mercilessly mocked by every Christian and non-Christian that I know

Every Christmas movie on the surface: CAPITALISM BAD Look at it for two seconds: GiVe Us MoNeY

I'm guessing the writers' intent here was to have the man start off working too much and not caring for his family and then the kid cares for his family but doesn't work enough, and the idea was that by the end of the movie the two would reach some kind of equilibrium, where they both care for their family enough but also work enough. But they just handled that idea clumsily and instead made a movie that negates itself. Like a sock that's been twisted inside out.

I get why a person, particularly a child, would choose to focus on something they think they can do rather than the dying family member. What's strange is that no one tells him 'what you can do, what woukd make your mum feel special, is being there with her'. His dad and teacher are right there.

brilliant dystopian film

"I understand that observation may sound silly to you" Everything you say sounds silly to me, Joel, that's why I'm subscribed

Whether intentional or not, it seems like this movie exposes Christmas for the contradictory holiday that it is. Like, there's this idea put forth about how important it is to spend time with family, but companies relentlessly urge people to buy all of this stuff for their loved ones. However, having the money to buy gifts for your loved ones requires time away from family, and well, time at work. As a whole, we could take The Christmas Shoes as a vapid product that is designed to tell you the contradictory stuff that you hear during the season. There's no "real" message, other than what you're told each year: Spend time with family, but also work lots and lots of hours.

The Christmas Shoes: A Study in Dialectic Materialism

"of course she's right. She is nice and old and dies a few minutes after saying it"

How do you even find films like this? This is a genuine question

The film is a tragedy about how capitalism forces people into cycles of toil and consumerism. Robert's sees Nathan labouring and concludes that he himself works too much and doesn't spend time with his loved ones, but is powerless to stop Nathan from following down the same road. I have no idea. I've never heard of this film before.

"Don't just make money, make memories" is basically the premise of Click, which I take no pleasure in saying

big joel are you aware its september

Big Joel can't wrap his head around the fact that fear is freedom and subjugation is liberation

Hahaha, that guy is literally blue collar, eating breakfast in his overalls.

This is like my favorite channel now

15 years pass in the movie and Rob Lowe looks exactly the same. Accurate.

The only clear message we can gather from this movie is that Big Joel is one of those maniacs who puts their Christmas Tree up in September

I like that you have a face, Big Joel.

Let's be real here, Big Joel made this video to have an excuse to put on a Christmas sweater. I can't blame him. He's rocking it.

Damn, those scenes with the kid collecting cans were heartbreaking ngl.

"It stars Rob Lowe, for some reason" had me rolling I don't even know why.

They could have easily told a more interesting albeit depressing version of this story where the lesson the child learns is that he spent so much time trying to get these stupid shoes for his mom that he missed out on the last days of her life.

Perfect example of commodity fetishism. Shoes represent the work of laborers and their use to consumers, but they're treated in society as another form of wealth.

0:40 I'm a Christian and that's the stupidest premise for a movie I've ever heard.

Sometimes, I ask myself "Why is BigJoel talking about this?" And then I think "Because he wants to." And that's good

The way they aged Rob Lowe for the scene that takes place years later was spot on with reality

Dialiectics. The film is about dialectics.

A Marxist take on The Christmas Shoes is just as fun as a feminist take on Love, Actually. I get to ruin Christmas again!

This film absolutely RUINED me as a 7 year old watching it right before Christmas, and for the last 19 years it has been this weight I've carried with me. Thank you for helping me to work through why this film was so distressing. The confusing, contradictory and dangerous American work ethic is so brilliantly captured in this film, and it is unbelievably distressing

[near the end of part 1] Me: -never saw the movie- "yeah that sounds like a good and simple set up for this kind of story" Joel: "but...that's not what we get" Me: what.....? but...what...?!

I watched this because it was largely shot in my home town. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in the downtown core. And I was able to walk around the set with that fake store at night when they stopped shooting but still had the set lightng on full blast.

Noodles is an alright dude. He makes me happy when I see him, I don’t know why. He’s just in the wrong movie.

Thank God these aren't hot takes otherwise we wouldn't have been able to stop Joel...

My conclusion: don't wear shoes, wear chanclas. They are cheaper.

There are a lot of aspects of "The Christmas Shoes" that fascinate me, but I think the biggest one for me personally is the idea of inspirational disadvantage. The same kind of thing that makes the general populous see disabled people as heroes for living their daily lives, or children who need breathing machines and won't live past 20 existing just to make you feel good about yourself. I've pointed out in several arguments about both of these things that it's a sort of benevolent removal of someone's humanity: their suffering is uncomfortable and so many of us feel powerless to change or help their situations, so by making them non-human vessels that cater to YOUR existential 3AM thoughts, they can be justified with good feelings and little to no effort on your part. The poor boy in the song is inspirationally disadvantaged. It's not a story about how say, the system might've fucked his mom over by healthcare being prohibitively expensive, or about the working poor needing more quality of life and social safety nets. It's a song about how people worse off then you make you feel good about yourself and the least of your efforts. (The guy in the song gives the kid a dollar or something?) And God apparently made these people worse off than you for the explicit purpose of showing them to you in order to make you feel grateful. The psychological manipulation inherent in that is just fabulously nihilistic. It suggests so many things, most notably that God is insane, and not above cruelty in order to force feelings of love and adoration. God intentionally makes the poor as nonhuman vessels whose purpose for existing is the penultimate five minutes of being too poor in a line for shoes. I identify as a spiritual nihilist, so this being a supposed "good" showcase of Christianity makes me laugh and laugh.

Does the Joel in Big Joel stand for J esus O this man E is L so freaking cute or is that just a coincidence haha

I think there was an intent there, to show that you should value memories over material goods, but then halfway through the script they realized "oh shit, that would mean we're implying capitalism isn't perfect" and backpedaled without revising anything because they refused to actually make any sort of political statement just my take

I went to a church once that played the music video for the song during it's Christmas Eve service (😬) Almost the entire congregation had a collective near-death experience while trying desperately not to burst out laughing. It's become like a meme within the church as the most capitalistic display of Christianity we've ever seen.

This video makes me want to Patton Oswalt’s roast of Christmas Shoes (again)!

How bad were things going for Rob Lowe that he thought, "Yeah, I think I have to take that part in 'Christmas Shoes?'"

Hot Take: Dirty Pennies is just Xmas Shoes for Anarchists.

I was wondering why my youtube subscriptions felt so attractive all of a sudden.

In conclusion, shoes are a clothing item of contrast.

I remember my mom singing this song nonstop around christmas (she still does) and telling us all how sad and amazing it was. very glad she never saw the movie or we wouldn't have heard the end of it!

Oh, damn, summer is not even over yet but Christmas is in 3 months! 😀😀😀

I feel like wer missing something: The fact that the kid didnt earn the shoes through labor. He got them because of the kindness of Rob Lowe. With this we can reframe the kids actions through the whole movie as real tragic. That, just like Rob Lowe, he was too focused on making money than making memories and it cost him time with the people that had little time AND didnt even get him what he wanted.

I have 5 months of collected cans (about 2,000) that I can no longer bring to my local recycling center, because all RePlanet locations in California closed due to a change of legislation.

I laughed at the full two minutes after you introduced the teacher as noodles because he makes you smile. JUST BUY THE SHOES, NOODLES. WHY ARE YOU DUMPING CANS IN AN ALLEY?

Whenever I see Rob Lowe, I just see Chris Traeger. So, this movie was *literally* one of the weirdest things I have ever experienced.

Unpopular opinion, Christmas is the most obnoxious holiday

19:44 "You can't be something and its negation at the same time!" Schrödinger's cat: "I beg your pardon!?" "You can't be inside a room AND outside of it." Elementary particles: "We beg your pardon!?"

One thing I'd like to say about column a is that the idea isn't really anticapitalist, but rather a core element of capitalist culture. Yes, you can read it as "don't just make money, make memories with your loved ones". But the flip side is "there is no need to envy the rich because you are rich at something more meaningful, good memories and time with your loved ones." This is where the synthesis shows how wicked celebrations like consumerist Christmas actually are comes in. For those good memories, you don't just need each other. It starts with the poor people in movies having big houses and full fridges and it extents to lavish Christmas decorations and expensive Christmas gifts. The Christmas shoe fits this mold perfectly: I'm sure the mother would rather spend her time with her child, but this child works to acquire those shoes as an act of love to her. Consumerist culture and late capitalism in general heavily relies on creating needs through cultural and emotional association. This movie is about middle class attitude. Middle class people generally don't live for their work. Working yourself to the bones to just to become more obscenely rich is a trait of the upper class. Middle class works for their children's college fund, for the new family car, for the craved home entertainment system, for their own house, for the family vacation. The message isn't contradictory. It's "keep in mind what you work for and keep on prioritizing work."

Excellent, the sweater is back - was worried after your Lion King video......

6:20 What a beautiful vocal harmony, brought a tear to my eye

This is one of the most interesting analysis I've seen in a long time. Even the title of this movie perfectly represents the contradiction within; the Christmas (family, values, caring) Shoes (Material, empty, meaningless )

Please tell me that isn't the original music in the section where the kid is talking about gathering cans. That music is insane for whats happening.

this reminds me a lot of a book i had to read in Sunday school as a kid called "socks for Christmas" and it's about the authors childhood when he got socks for Christmas one year and hated it because he wanted cool expensive toys like the other kids but he sees his poor neighbors couldn't afford socks so he starts being grateful he has socks as a kid i remember saying "oh why can't he just give some of his socks to the kids" and being told i missed the point of the story by my teacher

Rob Lowe's face throughout this entire movie just says "Why did I leave The West Wing?"

Unorthodox readings of middling christmas movies makes up a concerning amount of the content I consume.

Christmas isn't about money and presents, Christmas is about being happy about sacrificing your childhood, your time and your innocence grinding for the money to buy the presents. Adam Smith bless us, everyone!

Speaking of which, a video on the thematic implications of Christmas itself would be cool. A holiday that insists it’s not about material objects, yet creates consumerism at its highest point, a holiday which, at least in media, is all about discovering what it actually represents. It’s so thematically messy that a standard experience is to attempt to unpack it (especially in seasonal morality plays)

The biggest, easiest solution for fixing The Christmas Shoes loophole would be to just increase the value of the shoes from $10, to $200, or something equally unobtainable. Since the protag and the kid are "the same" then the message would be >working hard won't always get you what you need< which is a lesson that converts to both characters. For this kind of story, the value of the McGuffin should be larger than what the kid can reasonably obtain with unreasonable amounts of effort, or charity from side characters. So large, in fact, that the protag cannot aid the kid without fundamentally shifting his worldview by giving up on his previous goals. Having seen how things change value IRL it would not be unreasonable for these unique shoes (maybe even the last of his mom's generation) to have such a high value. But there is >one< reason not to make the shoes this valuable. All characters would have to reject Capitalism as a working economic model for living a happy life... and we can't have that, can we?

The score of the film is so weird and intense it's almost frightening I kinda love it

Collecting cans to trade for cash was such an amazing idea. That we no longer have that in play is somewhat depressing and obviously does not help the trash on the streets situation.

I haven't watched the show, but going from this review, I would say the difference is sorta like well-written super villains. They'll find some way to describe what they do as justice or good, but though improper means for either noble intentions or the intentions are ever so slightly twisted. Buying a bigger house wouldn't help being safe from having your stuff ripped from you in a depression; if anything, getting a bigger house would be a liability (since it'd cost more money). Rather, it would seem the scene describing his grandpa establishes the mental tick for why he wants to do this, over a more pure intention. It's clear this guy isn't a bad guy. His work helps those farmers. He really is working for something nice, probably for his family but also because of this tick. But, somewhere along the way, he loses sight of his family's happiness. He makes the wife quit something that (presumably) made her happy for a long-term goal. Making sacrifices for a long-term goal isn't a bad thing, but the priorities appear to get mingled here. The child, on the other hand, is a child. He shouldn't be as complex as the adult. He's gonna do all this work, but his priorities seem to be in the right place. This isn't just a Christmas present that this boy is working hard for: it's like fulfilling a deathbed wish. One last hoorah. But he doesn't complicate things, but goes at it with the simplicity of a child, and not with complicated and confused motivations the adult may have. Ultimately, if we say the lesson is "make memories" (the easiest conclusion), then I think the movie makes more sense. Yes, they both work a lot, but the kid is working to make this grand big memory, a last moment before she dies, compared to a big house which doesn't immediately show itself to be noble or a great memory or super meaningful.

It's September. Why aren't you celebrating Halloween?

Damn this is actually a pretty interesting movie. Even just watching your video I got pretty frustrated not being able to hid in the comfort of the "Christmas Carol Binary" that so many other holiday movies push.

The real conflict of the movie seems to be Labor vs. Charity. Neither of the main characters seem to want to rely on charity to accomplish their goals. The adult doesn’t want his wife doing charity when she can be working, the kid doesn’t wanna ask his dad to buy the shoes because he wants to work himself. Yet the ending of the song is all about the beauty of giving to someone else and the value of that. Charity, in both of these scenarios, would enable human connection to take precedent over labor - enable people to interact with each other in meaningful ways more than have to worry about working for the sake of it. Perhaps the message of the movie is, had charity been called upon and offered earlier, the kid could have spent more time with his mom and the adult man‘s result of servicing his community could’ve been accomplished more than just as a byproduct of his work. But that’s not the spirit of the town. The kind man Noodles makes a mess of cans for the kid to collect, meaning we can intuit they live in a society that idolizes labor for labor’s sake. Perhaps, secretly, that’s the real tragedy. Human connection could’ve been achieved faster if helping hands were offered head-on instead of as a byproduct of the system working properly. Yet the system doesn’t work improperly enough to call that inefficiency into question. So no one questions the system, charity isn’t focused on, and things continue on as they are, with generation after generation viewing continuous labor as the only way to prevent things from getting worse for others. Nothing changes. “The system works well _enough_ so it’ll continue this way in perpetuity.”