Which of These Perennial Late Autumn Pop Culture Arguments is More Exasperating?

the die hard thing is infinitely more annoying

the Die Hard thing is truly go fuck yourself

“Baby It’s Cold Outside,” because as far as i can tell the Die Hard one isn’t trying to shame anyone out of enjoying something innocuous.

I have blanked out both of them, it's like when people in the uk argue about whether it's a "skon" or a "skoun," conversation starters for people who have nothing better to share, fuck them.

I'm amused by people who care deeply that Die Hard should/should not be classified as a Christmas movie. "Baby It's Cold Outside" does lend itself to very creepy interpretations, but the people who get indignant about it have no idea of the rampant sexism/racism/etc etc of most media of its period.

The Die Hard thing is a played-out remark, but I remember having watched Die Hard as a youngster and after a few rewatches suddenly realized on my own that, yes, you could categorize this as an xmas movie.

The BICO thing bugs me to no end because it's a dumb misinterpretation that someone is trying to jam down my throat under the auspices of a political point whose side I would probably take if it were even REMOTELY FUCKING ACCURATE.

the die hard thing is only really annoying when ppl announce it as if they're being clever and daring, when really it's on the level of "scooby and shaggy were totally stoners, man"

the "baby it's cold outside" debate is worse because ppl take it so seriously, as if it's one of those things we should use to Start A Conversation instead of just an excuse for more dumb thinkpieces

the "baby it's cold outside" thing has devolved into camp at this point. i think it only has a few more years left in it.

Why anyone would watch Die Hard on Christmas when they could watch The Last Boy Scout or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or The Nice Guys or The Long Kiss Goodnight is beyond me.

the Die Hard one has been around longer afaik and only this year have I seen any significant push back on its fucking exhausted state

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Why anyone would watch Die Hard on Christmas when they could watch The Last Boy Scout or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or The Nice Guys or The Long Kiss Goodnight is beyond me.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Sunday, December 22, 2019 5:54 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

die hard is better than all of those movies tho (sorry, shane black)

tired: die hard is a christmas movie

wired: lethal weapon is a christmas movie

not said enough: the muppets christmas carol is the christmas movie

All y'all are way off base.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d9/d8/7e/d9d87e3e6dfa58d43ad1ac76c40596e1.jpg

not said enough: the muppets christmas carol is the christmas movie

― Banáná hÉireann (darraghmac), Monday, December 23, 2019 4:13 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

watched it last night, cracking

Bringing it: A Serbian Movie

Wringing it: Paddington

lol : A Serbian Film

tired: die hard is a christmas movie

wired: lethal weapon is a christmas movie

― xmas respecter (jim in vancouver), Monday, December 23, 2019 6:04 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Don Jr. tweeted the Die Hard is a Christmas movie thing this year

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Can’t believe the fun police broke up my orgy with Charlie Brown, Rudolph, dean martin and a Victoria’s Secret model pic.twitter.com/k273qAfc95

— pokey pup (@Whatapityonyou) December 25, 2019

the real thing that rankles me about BICO is that when i ran into an IRL debate with a couple I know arguing feverishly that it was a rapey song, the two people that spoke up in defense that actually admitted to having been sexually assaulted were treated dismissively.

not saying it was an "appeal to authority" where I expected someone to change their mind based solely on that, but to claim you're taking a stand against the song and then not be interested in listening to the thoughts of people who had actually been assaulted without talking over them or condescendingly telling them they were being irresponsible for not thinking BICO was a sexual assault anthem felt pretty gross.

(the two were me and another individual). there were also women who considered themselves feminists who were defending the song, only for the ringleader of the discussion to ignore all of the female comments and yell "WOW, LOOKS LIKE A LOT OF MEN ARE DEFENDING THIS SONG AND NOBODY ELSE"....

I remember you posting about that in the relevant ILM thread and it's one of the reasons why the whole 'Baby It's Cold Outside' debate wins this poll hands down. Its Die Hard counterpart is nowhere near as toxic or self-righteous. Nor does it celebrate the refusal to read quite to the same extent because it's pure hermeneutic camp.

yeah I mean I watched Die Hard today and my brother's girlfriend's dad made the Die Hard = christmas movie comment and it didn't raise my blood pressure. it's a meaningless debate and you can disengage at any point if you actually get worked up about it.

Exactly – it's a consequence-free controversy, harmless cavilling for the sake of cavilling, which is perfectly fine in my book. And while we're at it: its not a Xmas flick ffs.

Anyone who cares about any of this is a tedious freak

not said enough: the muppets christmas carol is the christmas movie

tired: die hard is a christmas movie

wired: lethal weapon is a christmas movie

I guess given the relative obscurity of ‘Fairytale of New York’ in the States, you haven’t had the joys of this ongoing debate.

What's to debate? Whether it's acceptable to play around the kids, or it should be held until later in the evening when all the adults are good and drunk?

About whether you can rhyme with "maggot"?

its a line of dialogue written for a vitriolic harpy in a song named for a short story from jp donleavy ffs

yeah I've always thought it was a stupid discussion really

Is the McColl character a harpy? Always felt she had more right/reason on her side as far as it goes

you can be more right than a shane mcgowan character and still be a harridan i feel

Oh yeah I'm not really taking a side

We've come up with the dumbest: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/trump-home-alone-2-cbc_ca_5e05015fe4b05b08babdc3dd?ncid=tweetlnkcahpmg00000002

I would much rather hear "Fairytale" than "Baby It's Cold Outside" btw but I do find it somewhat amusing that I feel like I hear the latter song more since it became a controversial thing a few years ago. I was barely conscious of it before then; "Santa Baby" was the crap 'sexy' Christmas song I remember always hearing. Could be Baader-Meinhof effect, though.

Amazing to me that there’s never been a similar Baby It’s Cold Outside-style backlash to Santa Baby, a horrible song where the singer offers to fuck Santa for money.

I could be wrong but isn’t the arg less “its ~problematic~ that this singer says something bad in character” and more “is it not a bit off to broadcast a slur uncensored on daytime radio when kids are listening”

Again I don’t actually know cause I have never encountered this argument but if it is the latter thing then i gotta say.. it definitely is, a bit off. Like we censor the “white nigger” bit from that Elvis Costello song and I can’t imagine a new song where someone calls someone a faggot in character getting a pass (I think a lot of ppl that are “PC GONE MAD” about the idea of bleeping out this word are moral panicky about rap, weirdly), but this song gets grandfathered in because... people like it

"money for nothing" is "in character" too

I like that this thread has become bogged down in a perennial pop culture argument.

Wins is right, I think.

Amazing to me that there’s never been a similar Baby It’s Cold Outside-style backlash to Santa Baby, a horrible song where the singer offers to fuck Santa for money.

― warn me about a lurking rake (One Eye Open),

Sex work is work, b!

50 Cent says faggot in “In Da Club,” and people still party like it’s your birthday

Anyway the whole baby it’s cold outside thing is basically

https://local.theonion.com/man-always-gets-little-rush-out-of-telling-people-john-1819578998/amp

since there’s no real push to actually cancel some old song. And if there was, you’re a psycho if you care

Oh man I can’t sing “don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me” how will I get by

Who
Gives
A

since there’s no real push to actually cancel some old song

Not exactly sure what "cancel" means but, at least in Canada, the CBC, Bell Media, and Rogers media networks pulled it from seasonal radio playlists last year. Both reinstated the song following protest, CBC after a few days, Bell this year, but obv someone was pushing to drop it in the first place. Rogers Media pulled it last year and didn't reintroduce it afaik. At least a couple of US stations have made a point of dropping the song but I think it's only been at the level of individual stations in the US, maybe?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/cbc-baby-its-cold-reinstate-1.4941087
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/baby-it-s-cold-outside-is-returning-to-canadian-airwaves-1.5352025

*Both CBC and Bell reinstated

The Pogues argument definitely reached some kind of tipping point this last few days in the UK

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/gavin-and-stacey-christmas-special-nessa-bryn-faggot-fairtytale-of-new-york-bbc-catchup-a9260281.html

Has to be said, Ruth Jones' argument that the characters in the show may not 'be aware of political correctness' puts me firmly in the 'anti' camp.

Videograms of a revolution is a Christmas movie because the scene where they take out the ceaucescus and execute them live on state television took place on Christmas Day.

I had always assumed "Die Hard is my favourite Christmas movie" was meant as a joke tbh. Is this an actual matter of debate like the problematic nature of "Baby It's Cold Outside"? NB I have not seen Die Hard.

The movie even anticipates the argument.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to24HpTmtho

I hope we can enjoy this one for years to come: https://www.salon.com/2019/12/25/hallmark-christmas-movies-fascist-propaganda/

Oh, "Christmas in Hollis" is in it? I should watch it.

Better song by the same name:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37viINMxk7k

"money for nothing" is "in character" too

50 Cent says faggot in “In Da Club,” and people still party like it’s your birthday

Can we have a new argument btw: Christmas is in winter, not late autumn wtf

What?? Who's saying late autumn? I mean it is in summer if you're Southern hemisphere but

Gavin + Stacey has always been utter gash but theatre kids in particular love it for some reason

Videograms of a revolution is a Christmas movie because the scene where they take out the ceaucescus and execute them live on state television took place on Christmas Day.

Goes without saying tbh.

wins otm re gavin and stacey i reckon

also whenever people karaoke it they do enjoy the chance i reckon, ppl generally not great rly

sund4r- die hard is explicitly and obviously a christmas movie fwiw

Slur aside, I love that Britons regularly hear two elderly alcoholics abuse each other in song in the equivalents of dollar stores every holiday season. We still get "I Believe in Father Christmas" but that is another level.

sund4r- die hard is explicitly and obviously a christmas movie fwiw

Yeah, in addition to the constant reminders via the soundtrack and Santa hats and stuff, the whole plot really revolves around the fact that it's the holidays: It's the whole reason that the building and occupants are vulnerable in the way that they are, and the whole reason McClane is there in the first place.

I’m glad we’re finally having this argument.

That said, we need to define the bundle of qualia we call a ‘holiday movie’ first.

Thanks to this thread for making me realize I am probably annoying at least a few of my friends by telling them every year that I go home and sober up while watching Die Hard and wrapping gifts. I hate this world.

Silent Night Deadly Night is a Christmas movie

Next year I'll switch to binging season 1 of "Happy!" and see if that makes me less annoying to my friends.

At least we’re not arguing about whether the 2020s will officially begin next week or in 2021.

Die Hard is good not bad btw.

I watched Die Hard on Christmas.

Only upsetting thing was the scene where you see the gas prices

Other exhausting arguments:

Was there room for Jack on the door in Titanic?

Is it wrong to spoil movies?

Is Jesus a Cunt?

À British (& co.) cunt or a North American cunt?

xp All three foundational questions of Western civilization

Brit!

I have a pet theory that the burnout experienced by people who deal with the public for a living is being experienced on a mass scale by people who spend too much time on the internet - especially social media. I recognize some of the irrational annoyances and misanthropy that I see in friends of mine who do customer support in people who are very online.

Makes sense tbh.

Lol otm

in addition to the constant reminders via the soundtrack and Santa hats and stuff, the whole plot really revolves around the fact that it's the holidays: It's the whole reason that the building and occupants are vulnerable in the way that they are, and the whole reason McClane is there in the first place.

Yeah, the only thing that bothers me about the Die Hard debate is that I don't understand why it's supposedly edgy or provocative or something to argue that it's a Christmas movie. I don't generally watch Christmas movies at Christmas so I have no investment in this debate, but to me, if something explicitly takes place at a Christmas party, uses Christmas music, and revolves around someone visiting his estranged family for the holidays, it would be weird not to consider it a Christmas movie.

Went to a drink and draw at my friends apartment last night and literally the first conversation that took place after I sat down was a dude explaining at length how BICO is not rapey, this subject was introduced out of the blue by him

It felt just as tedious as the other way tbh

Noodle, Christmas is in winter but the arguments typically happen in late (Northern Hemisphere) autumn.

For many of us, life feels plenty wintry well before the "official" calendric "first day of winter," but y'all can decide for yourselves the appropriate level of pedantry. Personally I don't care.

We all know that what really matters is whether a hot dog is a sandwich.

xpost that's because it is a bit odd to just introduce the topic unprovoked. most defenses of the song at least occur organically.

seems a bit odd to just interrupt someone's discussion about the tastiness of their milkshake by screaming "WHAT'S THIS IN MY DRINK IS NOT REFERRING TO MICKEY FINNS!"

“Die Hard is a Christmas movie” is absolutely true but it’s this Christopher Columbus (or bacon) situation where it’s as if people were the first ones to discover it so they have to make a thing of it.

Thought you meant the producer for a bit there (who has made some actual Christmas films)

(Like home alone)

dont know who chris bacon is tbh

beard papa otm re internet being bad for ppl who mistake it for proper interacting with ppl

youve yo argue regularly with ppl irl to have corners knocked off imo

I feel like defending the Pogues song but not by invoking 'PC gone mad', because that's a dead end discourse if ever there was one. Not sure how to articulate this. The song is about destitute people at Christmas? The characters are meant to be alcoholic, unhappy people in a more or less abusive relationship with each other?

OTOH I don't feel like defending the TV show it was used in so

yeah i had no idea the die hard thing is in any way a 'debate', i always considered it a given, but still a thing that tedious ppl bring up at parties to sound smart, on the same order of 'did you know if you read the bible theres actually some fucked up shit in it' etc

Yeah and (I’ve never actually encountered these ppl but) I get the idea there’s also a particular annoying way of announcing it’s your FAVOURITE Xmas film and expecting monocles to pop