Untitled Christmas Carol Piece
In which Andrew writes about A Christmas Carol, and then watches the Pro America Version and takes a shot every time something racist, sexist, or homophobic happens
PART I: The Essay
“Marley was dead, to begin with.”
In the canon of great novel openings, that one has to be up there in the top ten, if not the top five. Because I’m a genre freak, I’ll also include “The man in black fled west across the desert, and the gunslinger followed,” as well as the opening three sentences of The Haunting of Hill House:
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met nearly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
Woof! Shirly Jackson is lucky her typewriter didn’t light on fire. That’s how you open a friggin ghost story right there.
But back to Dickens.
The Muppet Christmas Carol is 30 years old this year. As most people in their mid-to-late thirties do, I have a lot of affection for it. My grandparents took me to see it in the theater. I was seven, and it might be the first thing I remember seeing on the big screen.
In my early life, I loved The Muppet Christmas Carol because I loved the Muppets. But Somewhere around 2010 or so, I bought a slim, unabridged paperback version of the original story in an airport bookshop and read it in one session while crammed into the middle seat of a cross-country Southwest flight. Since then, I’ve read it every year. Sometimes my wife and I read it aloud to each other (there’s a long tradition of that, going all the way back to Dickens himself). Last year I read it to my son in the womb.
And so, knowing the story of A Christmas Carol like the back of my hand (ahem), I’ve developed a theory that MMC stands as the truest adaptation, one that Dickens himself might have wholeheartedly approved. I’ve got a whole rant about it, one I’ll spare you here in full because it really is best at a holiday party after about three drinks.
But I’ll summarize it. It really comes down to two things.
Number one: Gonzo and Rizzo, our erstwhile narrators, have an appreciation of the opening line and spend an appropriate amount of time talking about how awesome it is.
Secondly (and relatedly), MCC is funny, and — this might shock you if you’ve never read it — so is the source material.
It all has to do with the voice Dickens uses to narrate his tale. It’s omniscient voice, but not above editorializing on the story and characters with a certain dry wit.
For instance, you probably know that “Old Marley was dead as a doornail,” closes out the first paragraph. It’s another famous line. But did you know that Dickens spends the next entire page talking about how the phrase doesn’t make much sense and how “dead as a coffin nail” is a much more appropriate metaphor?
The humor can get buried in Dickens’ loquacious style and the verbiage and syntax of the time. But it’s there, and it’s a kind of dry, weird humor that lends itself perfectly to the Muppet vibe. By tapping into that and by including a few characters whose function in the story is to maintain that narrator's voice, a MCC hews tightly to the original feeling of the source material even as it renders the bulk of the characters in felt and feathers.
Most adaptations of A Christmas Carol are just fine. They hit all the high notes, and the structure of the story is so unique — iconic even — that you don’t have to work too hard to make a version that delivers at least nominal feely feels.
But a long-running problem is that the structure is so iconic that it functions as a crutch, and allows for shallow readings of the source material that give a Christmas Carol vibe while mostly missing the point.
A Christmas Carol is about regret, and generosity, and second chances, and the act of looking back on one’s life, yes. But the core theme is cyclical poverty, an issue that was very much at the forefront of upper-middle-class Victorian consciousness at the time of the writing. To reduce A Christmas Carol to “Cranky old man learns to be less cranky because Christmas is awesome” is to almost completely miss the point.
At the end of the story, the Cratchets are well on their way to escaping the cycle of poverty that has doomed Tiny Tim, because 1) Scrooge is finally paying Bob what he should have been paying him all along and 2) Because Scrooge has realized that to hoard his wealth is to make him no better than a dragon, and he might as well give it away directly to those who need it more then he does. Cold, hard, cash baby. It’s about as effective as altruism can get, and it has the benefit of not allowing politicians or anyone else to make judgment calls about how worthy any given person might be to receive altruism. A Christmas Carol is all in on this concept: poor people are not poor because they deserve to be poor. It isn’t a condition of morality, it’s a solvable accident of fate, and to ignore it when you have the power to solve it is to doom yourself.
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” an increasingly distressed Scrooge pleads to the ghost of his former partner. Dickens doesn’t fuck around with the response.
“‘Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’
That’s pretty clear, don’t you think?
That’s why it’s distressing when filmmakers manage to not just slightly miss the point but sail by it altogether, essentially cannibalizing the iconic structure to tell an entirely different type of story.
Exhibit A: the monstrosity that is An American Carol, a thing I just watched so that you will not have to.
An American Carol is a film that bills itself as a sort of conservative Christmas Carol, a sentence I find almost cataclysmically depressing and distressing in equal measure.
To add to the depression, the film is the brainchild of one David Zucker, part of the team responsible for films like Airplane, Top Secret!, and The Naked Gun. Those films are masterful blends of satire and absurdist comedy, and they informed my sense of humor and, later, my writing style, more than perhaps anything other than the collective work of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.
And while I knew that Zucker’s later works suffered from a lack of imagination (he’s responsible for, I’m shamed to report, Scary Movie 3, 4, and 5), I was not aware of 2008’s An American Carol until last year when a chance conversation with my old college roommates brought it to my attention.
Here’s the synopsis courtesy of Le Wiki:
Using the framework of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, the film follows liberal filmmaker Michael Malone (a parody of Michael Moore) as he is visited by three spirits to teach him the importance of Independence Day. The film satirizes liberalism in the United States, with focus on Moore's documentaries. It stars Kevin Farley as Malone, alongside an ensemble supporting cast that includes Kelsey Grammer, Leslie Nielsen, Trace Adkins, Robert Davi, and Jon Voight.
God that’s grim, and also very, very much a product of 2008, don’t you think? Another sad note: An American Carol was the last onscreen appearance of the great Dennis Hopper. So depressing.
But not as depressing as the film itself, which I will now watch and talk to you about as I watch. And just for fun, we’ll take a shot of festive Krakken Rum every time this movie this movie does something racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise bigoty.
PART II: Film Rundown
00:00:38 - We’re starting with Sweet Home Alabama on the soundtrack, so already as a conservative watching this film, we are feeling comfortable (I assume). Kid Rock’s atrocious mashup “All Summer Long” came out a few months before AAC was released, so we can at least be thankful they didn’t use that instead. I’m not ruling out a Kid Rock cameo, though, anything is possible with these clowns.
00:01:42 - Leslie Neilson is telling his grandkids “the story of Scrooge, except he hated the Fourth of July,” Why does he hate the fourth of July? Leslie isn’t sure, and, I’m guessing, neither will we be by the end of this mess.
I feel the need to point out here that, already, the source material has been rendered down to “Scrooge was a cranky guy who hated Christmas,” instead of “Scrooge was such a greedy bastard that he almost lost his very soul.”
00:02:27 - Now we are in a very southern-California-looking Afghanistan for some reason. AAC cost 20 million dollars to make, the bulk of which probably went to Kelsey Grammer if this lazy-ass location scouting is any indication. But the film only made 7 million back in its initial theater run, so that feels like justice.
There are some ethnic/cultural stereotypes played for laughs, lazy even by 2008 standards. SHOT.
00:03:51 - ah, suicide bombers. Such an intrinsically funny concept!
00:04:49 - Zucker manages to work in some anti-Mexican racism despite this scene occurring in the Middle East. This must be what one Amazon reviewer meant when he said, “this film is hilarious, COULD NOT BE MADE TODAY.”
SHOT
00:05:52 - Still goofing on suicide bombers. One Amazon reviewer thought this scene was hilarious but took issue with the repeated use of the word “shit.”
00:06:46 - Okay folks, seven minutes into the film and we’ve finally met our hero, a cheap Micheal Moore parody. He’s fat! Hilarious.
The terrorists we’ve been watching have decided they need better propaganda material, and they have chosen “Michael Malone” as someone to work with because he “really, really hates America.”
This film is interesting because, in some ways, it’s such a product of 2008. On the other hand, the idea that anyone who advocates for a better country than we currently have “hates America” is old, old, old. James Baldwin addressed it in 1955, saying, “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
It’s depressing to note that 15 years after this film was made and 67 years after Baldwin wrote “Notes of a Native Son,” conservatives are still accusing anyone who wants decent healthcare or red flag laws on assault rifles or equal rights for LGTBQ+ folks of “hating America.”
00:09:09 - Michael Malone wants to abolish the 4th of July because “it’s America’s birthday party and he wasn’t invited.”
WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN.
If anything, this grueling exercise in masochism is reminding me that the Conservative argument has been essentially incomprehensible for a long time. My perception was that it has gotten worse in the Trump years, but in reality, I think it’s just gotten louder.
00:09:56 - The filmmakers believe our main character is a “fat, ignorant, American-hating, traitorous sack of shit.” Oh, for the ability to drop a Jan 6th participant into this film instead!
Time to start drinking for every fat joke as well, I fear. SHOT.
00:10:59 - homophobia! SHOT.
00:11:25 - Nephew Josh is here to invite Malone to a 4th of July BBQ. So far as I can tell, this is the first actual reference to the structure of a Christmas Carol. Trace Adkins is also heavily mentioned in this scene. Our filmmakers have Malone saying that country music has “stupid lyrics, awful music, and everybody dresses like the cowboy from the village people.” I believe this is supposed to make Zucker’s intended audience hate his main character but…Trace Adkins has a song called “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” so…
00:13:16 - Leslie Neilson was 82 when this came out, and this Alzheimer's joke at his expense feels particularly cruel, though no crueler than anything else I’ve seen in the last - Jesus jumped up on a cracker - 13 minutes. How many shots have I had already?
00:13:38 - John O’Hurley, no! You’re better than this!
00:14:08 - James Woods, you are definitely not better than this.
I’m shocked Kevin Sorbo isn’t in this film somewhere. If this film were made now, he would be. So we’ve got that going for us.
00:15:26 - Oh yeah, I forgot 2008 was also a time when Paris Hilton was, like, everywhere.
00:16:10 - There’s an extended joke here about how Micheal Moore/Malone is a propagandist and how liberals are actually Nazi-loving fascists. The first point is not unwarranted - Moore does not possess what documentary filmmakers call “documentary ethics” - especially when it comes to editing.
But it’s a critique that has not aged well in the era of Trump-world films like 10,000 Mules. Also, let us never forget who the actual Nazis in our country repeatedly support. It, um, ain’t lefties.
00:17:08 - OH GOD KEVIN SORBO IS IN THIS. TAKING A SHOT AS PUNISHMENT FOR BELIEVING HE WOULDN’T BE SOMEHOW
00:17:08 - If Kid Rock shows up, I’m throwing my laptop in a dumpster.
00:17:40 - Sorbo making a speech about how brave it is for filmmakers to tackle subjects like “Nazism, even though it ended.” Oh, 2008, you were adorable!
00:18:37 - Watching Kevin Farely in this film is a second-by-second reminder of how talented Chris Farley was, and how that is absolutely not the case with his younger brother.
00:19:57 - “Women have breasts” is a major theme of this film so far.
SHOT.
00:20:49 - Another Seinfeld reference, 9 years after it went off the air.
00:22:40 - John F. Kennedy is the ghost of Jacob Marley analog. Why? Why not someone our main character worked with in his past, like, in, you know, the story this movie is ostensibly mimicking?
00:23:20 - God, this film is actually PRO WAR. Not any specific war, just war as a general concept. I actually don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone ever take that stance before.
00:24:22 - the film treats “ban military recruiters from college campuses” as a totally ridiculous liberal talking point worthy of mockery. Maybe this was a thing in 2008, I dunno. Speaking for my fellow lefties, these days, we’re just trying to protect our democratic process.
00:26:21 - Kelsey Grammar is General George S. Patton as the Ghost of Christmas Past analog. Why? Presumably, because Patton famously hated the Russians, and hatred of Russia is an important Conservative platform.
Wait, what’s that? Oh, I’m getting the word that’s no longer the case. Carry on.
00:28:17 - Okay, we are time-traveling now, so we’ve got some nominal Christmas Carol action.
Patton is forcing Malone to watch Neville Chamberlain appease Adolf Hitler (again with the Hitler!)
Zucker is using the only just war we’ve ever been a part of to make the case that peace talks, in general, are very stupid. It would be an annoyingly reductive argument even if the entire Republican party propaganda machine weren’t currently trying to talk its base into appeasing a fascist at the expense of a sovereign, legitimately elected government.
00:29:00 - And, I suppose I should say, this is a shit scene. Poorly staged, poorly acted, borderline incomprehensible. David Zucker is a man who once directed legitimately funny, well-constructed (or at least competently constructed) movies. What the heck happened to him?
00:31:05 - This film is now making the point, in the most cringe way possible, that if Lincoln hadn’t gone to war with the South, slavery might never have ended. This is a good point portrayed very hamfistedly (slavery, always good for a laugh!) and also not one that the conservative base actually believes. Trust me, I grew up in Georgia and the history you learn there is that the Civil War was about states' rights and economics.
TWO SHOTS FOR EXTENDED SLAVERY PLAYED FOR LAUGHS SCENE
00:33:49 - college education is liberal indoctrination, not necessarily in my shot criteria but such a tired conservative talking point that I’m taking a shot anyway.
SHOT
00:34:16 - College professors doing a musical number about how they indoctrinate students. “You get extra credit if you’re poor, black, or gay.” Technically I should take three shots here but it’s getting hard to type, so I’ll limit it to one.
SHOT
00:34:26 - goddamn main character trying to grope breasts again because he is technically invisible to these people
SHOT
00:36:03 - music number still happening. This is the man who brought us not one but two genius musical numbers in Top Secret! But this ain’t Skeet Surfin. Poor Zucker got Fox News brain worms and now we’ve got…this. Jesus, I’m depressed.
Oh yeah, some more sexism. SHOT.
Lord help me, the last four minutes have been brutal.
00:36:03 - An actual flashback to our hero’s past. Kelsey Grammer finally pulling his weight.
00:40:42 - Anti-Arab racism, SHOT.
00:41:32 - Blerg, Bill O’Reilly cameo. Hey remember when this guy was like catnip to your parents an d grandparents? Remember when he was credibly accused of multiple accounts of sexual assault during the #metoo movement and lost his job and we all thought the world would be a better place until Tucker Carleson turned out to be somehow worse?
Now going to start taking a shot whenever some conservative icon I didn’t expect to see shows up. Starting now.
SHOT.
I have to take a vomit break / and or possibly die . There are 39 minutes left in this accursed film