Why "Bad Santa" is my favorite Christmas movie

While there have been well-made examples of propaganda pieces, generally speaking, the most acclaimed war films fit within the "anti-war film" genre. Films like Apocalypse Now and Saving Private Ryan may occasionally make war look glorious, but they by and large don't make war look fun. Any honest assessment of war should cover the psychological toil of battle, and popular sentiment generally echoes this belief: it's why Platoon holds up and The Green Berets absolutely does not.

Christmas films tend, like Christmas music, to be driven by sentiment. People watch the same films at the same time every year and then put them on the shelf for eleven months. And while the ones that are actually worth discussing include some kind of conflict (whether serious, like George Bailey's suicidal behavior in It's a Wonderful Life, or superfluous, like Ralphie Parker's desire for a BB gun in A Christmas Story), they tend to deeply glorify Christmas. It's a magical time of year that can cure depression or get you a toy!

This isn't to knock It's a Wonderful Life nor A Christmas Story, both of which are movies I enjoy well enough, but I do think it's fair to label these design flaws. These are films which do not speak to the reality of Christmas, and so points should be deducted. It's the obvious flaw in the Christmas movie credibility of Die Hard, the favorite Christmas movie of Extremely Hilarious Online Dudes everywhere. Even if you concede that it is indeed a Christmas movie, the holiday is essentially a background character to an action movie that could've taken place at any time.

Bad Santa is probably the most aggressively unconventional Christmas movie there is, certainly at least among mainstream feature films (it made $76.5 million in theaters following its 2003 release). The title isn't subtle--it's a movie about a "bad Santa", Billy Bob Thornton's Willie Soke, who annually plays a department store Santa Claus and who in addition to generally rude and drunken behavior, robs the store at which he works.

One of the most stark things about Bad Santa, nearly as much as its dark tone, is its setting--Phoenix. So much of Christmas movie mythology is built around snowy small towns, but that is not the world in which this film's characters live. They live in the desert. This is what Christmas is if you live in Phoenix--much like any political notions of "real America", this contrasts with the wider perception of Christmas, but this was a metro area with four and a half million people. Why shouldn't they count?

Additionally, Bad Santa includes very little of actual families. This was supposedly what made Home Alone a unique Christmas movie, but the existence of a family, even if a temporarily splintered one, defined the entire story. With Bad Santa, you have one childless married couple, a barely existent relationship between a senile grandmother and her grandson, and that's about it.

But the lack of strict family ties is what makes the relationships in Bad Santa genuinely touching. Willie is an obviously flawed creep/criminal, and the young boy, Thurman Merman, with whom he takes on a de facto father-son relationship, isn't a cute and precocious little scamp, but an awkward, overweight child who you can frankly believe gets bullied by the older kids. Sue, played by Lauren Graham, is the responsible adult of the film, proving far more adept at parental lessons than Willie, and she only enters the picture because of a sexual fetish for Santa Claus. It's twisted, but it works.

Bad Santa demystifies Santa in a way that is considered wildly taboo--every year, we develop a collective insanity in which even the most serious of people treat Santa as an actual person. Mail services receive and process letters from Santa. Meteorologists reference the presence of Santa's sleigh in the night skies on Christmas Eve. Santa is a character that 100% of adults acknowledge is not real, but to publicly say so is strictly forbidden. Earlier this month, a teacher (ostensibly a person trusted to inform children of the truth) was fired for telling children that Santa isn't real.

It has always been a mystery to me why religious people would teach their children about Santa. How does a parent lie about an essentially omnipresent entity who rewards and punishes for good and bad behavior, pull the rug out from under them and fess up to the fact that they lied as a means to manipulate behavior ("Christmas magic" is an absurdity--kids just want presents, man), and then go around and tell them "the people telling you about God, an omnipresent entity who rewards and punishes good and bad behavior...now they're telling the truth?" But I totally understand why nonreligious people, such as my parents, would lie about Santa. They didn't care if I became religious as an adult. They just wanted me to shut up.

And Thurman is the exact kind of boy who is susceptible to Santa--both of his parents are absent and his guardian is present in body only. So when Thurman encounters a decidedly unjolly Willie as Santa at the mall, it is totally believable that this kid believes that this man is magic. And there's something sad about it. If Bad Santa had a stance here, it was that someone should tell this poor kid to stop depending on Santa.

But this leads to my single-favorite scene in a Christmas movie. It is, in a movie which often veers into silly and dark territory, a poignant one which gives this movie so much more heart than most in the genre.

About three-fourths of the way through the movie, Thurman shows Willie his report card. His grades are mediocre, but Willie notes that they were better than the ones he received. Thurman then, in a continuation of his optimism, asks if this means that he will get a present from him for Christmas, as Santa had not brought him any presents in the previous two years. After Thurman sadly refers to himself as "a dipshit loser", Willie goes on a mini-tirade, asserting that he is not Santa Claus, and that the mere existence of somebody as lowly as him should disprove the possibility of a Santa Claus. But Thurman surprises Willie by replying, "I know there's no Santa. I just thought maybe you'd want to give me a present because we're friends." He then walks away. 

And just like that, a movie marketed more on the shock value of Santa having sex in women's dressing rooms exhibited more heart than most other more "conventional" Christmas movies. By the next time we see Willie, a man who initially aspired only to exploit Thurman is trying to give Thurman the kind of Christmas you see in a typical Christmas movie. He doesn't exactly succeed, but he tries. And Bad Santa isn't a movie about being perfect--it's a movie about making the best of what you have.

Why do people care so much about defending "Baby, It's Cold Outside"?

There is a long-standing controversy surrounding "Baby, It's Cold Outside", the oft-covered 1944 song, which provokes many strong reactions, but there is one important point about the tune which ought not be lost in the midst of it--the song sucks.

Some "Christmas songs" are covered in a myriad of styles, but the many, many incarnations of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" follow an almost identical musical pattern--it fits squarely within the vocal jazz genre popularized by such performers as Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., both of whom recorded renditions of the song. It is a slow and, frankly, boring song musically, and its appeal is dependent entirely on the quality of the vocal performances, but each version's vocal performances are so tepid and unemotional that I've spent my entire life trying to understand the appeal of it. Until recently, I'd never met anybody who actively liked the song. But suddenly, there is a cadre of people who will defend "Baby, It's Cold Outside" seemingly to the death.

The controversy of the song centers around its lyrics. The controversy is so omnipresent by 2018 that I barely feel the need to explain it, but in case you've missed it to this point, the primary focus from its critics is on the line, "Say, what's in this drink?", sung by the (traditionally) female character in the call-and-response song, which the (traditionally) male character ignores, instead going upon his own rationalization for why the object of his affection mustn't leave his place. Critics say that the line alludes to date rape, with the implication that she has been drugged or, at the very least, that the male character is intentionally trying to intoxicate the woman so that she will be unable to leave (and presumably, later, have sex with him). Defenders of the song note that the female character appears to want to stay and is trying to coyly put on the appearance of putting up a fight, conforming to the social norms of 1944, an era where premarital sex was practiced but much more quietly than it is today.

I think the latter group is probably correct in that the vast majority of the lines imply that she is interested in the man. But enough of the lines don't just imply but outright state that her answer is "no"--most notably, the part where she says "the answer is no", that I absolutely cannot go along with any notion that this is a fun, innocent song that doesn't have a dark underbelly to it. If a woman says "the answer is no", that should be the end of the discussion. It doesn't matter if she doesn't mean it; men should not have unilateral jurisdiction to read intent. This line has always bothered me more than the infamous "what's in this drink" line, and it underscores the predatory nature of the male character (referred to as "wolf", while the woman is called "mouse", I kid you not). I don't believe Frank Loesser was trying to write a regressive song, but the notion that his intent is relevant seems absurd to me. We would never defend a song from 1944 which, say, advocated for Jim Crow laws, yet "Baby, It's Cold Outside" appears to be a sacred cow.

But what I find particularly confounding about the vociferousness of those lining up to defend this song isn't their opinion as much as the fact that this song is the battle they've chosen to pick. When people defend "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" against those who criticize its frequent use of the n-word, they're defending a novel widely accepted as a literary classic (and one which, despite its unfortunate use of an unfortunate racial slur, is generally considered pretty anti-racism). But this is a song in a long-obsolete musical genre which is basically confined to one month of listening a year.

It should be said that there isn't even really much of an argument that "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is even a Christmas song. The lyrics do not mention Christmas, nor religion of any kind, nor any widespread holiday traditions. Its tenuous tie-in to Christmas is that the song mentions the weather being cold. One could just as easily call this a Presidents' Day song, and it's as Christmas-y as "Snow" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. So what makes "Baby, It's Cold Outside" a Christmas song? Well, mostly the fact that it always gets played around Christmas. It is because it is, and there really isn't any more explanation needed for most people.

Christmas music is a curious "genre" in that it is more of a lyrical motif. "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra is essentially a progressive metal song, while Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" very much is not, yet the two are folded into the same category. Christmas music is heavily repetitive, with the same two dozen or so songs being covered ad nauseum. Original Christmas songs from the last thirty years or so have been rare, but the few that have become staples, such as "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey or "Underneath the Tree" by Kelly Clarkson, tend to be steeped in a "classic" sound.

But the most curious part of Christmas music, to me, is that is goes away. It comes around near Thanksgiving, it is everywhere, and then once Christmas happens, it is packed away like an artificial tree. It is not as though songs about summertime are reserved for those months. Is "Last Christmas" really a worse song in June than in December? It's not just that it gets played more in December--it's that it gets played exclusively in December.

Yet "Baby, It's Cold Outside", which makes just as much if not more sense as a January or February song, disappears as well. And that's because much more than liking the song, people like the idea of the song. It is a song synonymous with Christmas and tradition, and thus it must be protected.

Regardless of your stance on this particular song, it seems ridiculous to pretend that those who criticize it are acting in bad faith, or that this is an attack on holiday traditions. It is not as though there is a widespread campaign to ban "Jingle Bells" from radio stations (despite the obvious upside that people would no longer feel obliged to pretend that Michael Buble is a competent singer): there is just one particular song that people find particularly irksome. But that is the way this debate is framed: those who want to preserve the good and wholesome Christmas traditions (such as a song that is by its most innocent interpretation about sex) against those who oppose them.

I am arguably a terrible judge of what should and should not stand among Christmas traditions, because I hate Christmas. I hate everything about Christmas. I hate the idea of socially obligated family time and the implication that not associating with one's family, regardless of the context of what kind of people make up one's family, is a moral failing. I hate the concept of Santa Claus: I cannot imagine a worse lesson, particularly for those who hope to raise their children in a religious manner, than teaching kids that lying to people to get what you want (good behavior) is an okay thing (particularly when the lie of Santa is essentially a stand-in for God). I hate the decorations and the enforced whimsy of it all. In my ideal world, the celebration of the birth of Jesus would be celebrated as the significant event it is to those who follow Christianity, but the very much manmade components of the holiday which have absolutely nothing to do with it would go away.

Because I don't like Christmas, I don't understand the protectiveness of "Baby, It's Cold Outside". Curiously, those who typically have advocated for "keeping Christ in Christmas" and "remembering the reason for the season" now find themselves adamant in their protection of an entirely secular song. I think there is certainly some "owning the libs" element to it (the same faction that has long argued about the race, and more recently the gender, of Santa Claus, a fictional character, and which includes Tucker Carlson, who last night ran a segment on Fox News about how they're gingerbread MEN rather than gingerbread people). But while there is some political correlation to the controversy, it's hardly absolute. In many ways, this song has become a proxy for the very idea of tradition.

People who might not have a strong opinion on "Baby, It's Cold Outside" still want it to be there because that's how it has always been. There is a familiarity to it which tells people "Christmas is coming", not because the lyrics of the song allude to it but because of a Pavlovian response. If people only heard "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson during Christmas time, it would have the same effect as "Baby, It's Cold Outside", while having about as much to do with Christmas. The only difference would be that it is a good song.

It is impossible for me to listen to "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and hear a song that should generate such passionate support, but it becomes easier to understand when I consider that the song is but a metaphor for something else. I may not like Christmas, but I understand why most people do. I just wish people could separate the parts that make the holiday special for them from the background noise. Perhaps then, we as a society could develop better background noise.