{"id":1092,"date":"2010-12-13T12:37:51","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T12:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardlittledale.wordpress.com\/?p=1092"},"modified":"2010-12-13T12:37:51","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T12:37:51","slug":"schmaltz-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/2010\/12\/13\/schmaltz-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Schmaltz attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

A hopeless case?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I could plead all kinds of things in my defence. I could plead Christmas busy-ness, Sunday fatigue or emotional burnout. When all’s said and done,though,\u00a0there\u00a0are very few excuses good enough to let me off the hook: yesterday afternoon I indulged my inner artistic\u00a0Philistine\u00a0and watched the\u00a0schmaltzy\u00a0 film\u00a0below\u00a0– Blizzard<\/em>. \u00a0It is an entirely improbable tale of friendship, perseverance, ice skating…oh, and invisible\u00a0reindeer\u00a0too. (Note\u00a0that\u00a0I have chosen the German version of the film poster because it seems to\u00a0exaggerate\u00a0all this even more- note the reindeer’s curly eyelashes). Like most ‘family’ Christmas films it all works out in the end, with just enough nastiness and chill along the way to make you snuggle into the sofa that little bit harder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Photo: http:\/\/www.new-video.de<\/p><\/div>\n

The film is, without a doubt, utter nonsense. \u00a0It promotes the stock-in-trade of every Christmas addict’s film – namely that there is a kind of magic called “Christmas” which rights wrongs, rewards good, and turns selfishness to generosity. You can find it in every Christmas film from Its a wonderful life <\/em>to Polar Express <\/em>via the Grinch.<\/em><\/p>\n

Given that we believe the real Christmas story has nothing to do with magic and\u00a0everything\u00a0to do with God, how do we cross the gap between here <\/em>and there<\/em>, so to speak? How do we confront the scmaltz with reality, without sounding like Ebenezer Scrooge’s grumpy Uncle or Aunt ? We can’t just jump up and down and insist that our story is better<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Surely there are two things we must do? The first is that if we believe our story is better, we must tell<\/em> it better. We must bring as much creativity and ingenuity to its telling as the filmmakers do. Secondly, we need to take a hard look at our beloved story and see\u00a0that\u00a0it is not so very far from the Christmas ‘magic’ as we might think. Does it not talk about righting age-old wrongs? Does it not turn the world upside down, making the poor rich and the broken healed? Mary certainly seemed to think it did in her song. (Luke 1 v. 52-53). It has been good to see some of these themes emerging in the earthy, witty, poignant script of the natwivity over the past two weeks. Here is a telling of the story\u00a0brimful\u00a0of emotion but lacking in sentimentality.<\/p>\n

So, don’t come out with all guns\u00a0blazing\u00a0when confronted with the\u00a0schmaltz. Listen to the sleigh bell sound of its themes and see where it links to our story.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, perhaps I should \u00a0see if there is some more\u00a0schmaltz\u00a0on offer for my vital preaching research..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A hopeless case? I could plead all kinds of things in my defence. I could plead Christmas busy-ness, Sunday fatigue or emotional burnout. When all’s said and done,though,\u00a0there\u00a0are very few excuses good enough to let me off the hook: yesterday … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[69],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}