Go to Google and search for movies based on Halloween and spend all day browsing various motion pictures of the night full of sweets. Do the same for movies about Christmas and you could spend an entire year watching a variety of movies of all kinds about that holiday. But it’s Thanksgiving sandwiched between those two holidays. There are very few films about this holiday. Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Hannah and Her Sistersand free birds are a few that come to mind. The movies didn’t really deal with one of the tenets of the holiday season. Why? For decades, Hollywood has used the holidays as an easy way to make money and attract moviegoers. With so much focus on Halloween, why is Thanksgiving left out when it comes to movies?
Part of this is due to something simple: planning. Beginning in the 1990s, Christmas movies regularly released in early or mid-November. some titles like surviving christmas Even at the end of October they bowed. This early release gives yuletide-themed movies plenty of podiums to make money at the box office for as long as possible before they’re considered off-season. What is good for titles like ginstill leaves no room for Thanksgiving movies. There is nowhere in the calendar for them to open it. After all, October is dedicated to Halloween, it would be insane to leave a Thanksgiving movie there. These scheduling norms already make launching a Thanksgiving-themed feature difficult.
At another level of marketing, there isn’t much incentive in terms of merchandise for studios to make Thanksgiving movies compared to Halloween or Christmas dinners. Any toys, costumes, food or any other object associated with these last two holidays will surely be profitable. when you deliver Polar Express, you are not just making a movie, you are creating something that can produce commercial products for years to come. Meanwhile, most stores even skip the sale of basic Thanksgiving supplies like plates to get their Christmas stuff early. Also, some major international regions for American movies, such as the United Kingdom and other European regions, do not celebrate Thanksgiving, making it nearly impossible for potential Thanksgiving movies to be profitable overseas.
There’s also the fact that Hollywood often operates in a cyclical fashion as to what kind of movies it produces. If something successful manages to break out of Hollywood’s norms, you can be sure there will be plenty of imitators. However, Hollywood is far less inclined to produce film features in this pattern unless there is a history of success in making films on a particular subject. It’s the same with Thanksgiving movies. While there aren’t many examples of this subgenre, this scarcity to begin with is reason enough for Hollywood studios to largely avoid opportunities to make more films focused on this time of year. There aren’t any famous megahits based on Thanksgiving, so it never will. none Famous megahits based on Thanksgiving, typical Hollywood logic goes like this. Without these critical monetary incentives, major studios often cite when it comes to Thanksgiving movies. Inside Llewyn Davis “I don’t see a lot of money here,” he said.
More importantly, there isn’t enough variety of social scenarios for Thanksgiving to base movies on. The holiday is limited to a day when many family members gather to eat a lot of food. Thanksgiving parties among friends are not common, just as there are no huge holiday-related shopping traditions. There’s also a shortage of unique holiday-related traditions that can be twisted to make horror movies or R-rated comedies. How come a bad santa Equivalent to Thanksgiving?
In contrast, for Halloween, you can make an infinite number of movies from noisy High School/College parties. Also, the nightly festivities make it the perfect backdrop for horror movies. When it comes to Christmas or other end-of-December holidays, they are an endless source of possibilities for movies. These holidays have weeks of accumulation and countless traditions to inspire venues for movies. Meanwhile, the quaint, family-friendly nature of Christmas makes it perfect for turning into adult decoys. spikes or the previous night. It’s not just the marketing demands that keep Thanksgiving movies off the movie screens, but there are also more creative opportunities on other holidays.
And then there’s the elephant in the room when it comes to Thanksgiving, which makes movies a more difficult prospect based on the holiday. Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrating a feast held in 1621 between pilgrims from Plymouth and the Native American population of the Wampanoag people. Once upon a time, this reason for the season was seen as a cute ode to the possibility of everyone getting along. Of course, in reality, the relationship between these two populations was not so warm. The modern world has provided indigenous individuals like Tommy Orange with ways to make their voices heard and raise awareness that celebrating this holiday is what Orange calls “creepy” while ignoring the ongoing struggles for indigenous rights.
Greater awareness of these challenges makes it harder to make pointless Thanksgiving movies. This problem is further complicated by the absence of fantastic mythological figures who can distract from these eerie occult currents associated with the holiday. For example, Santa Claus and the various inhabitants of the North Pole can make Christmas movies remind people of holy joy, not real-world pain. On Easter is the Easter Bunny, a cute creature known for bringing chocolates that can appeal to anyone regardless of their religious affiliation. Meanwhile, Halloween has even managed to turn Chucky and Freddy Krueger into cute icons on Funko Pops, heralding the imminent arrival of Halloween.
Thanksgiving has no such individuals. There was never really an attempt to make the equivalent of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny for this holiday, and it’s hard to imagine it possible (a turkey mascot would certainly be weird, since they were advocating a holiday that focused on swallowing animals). The absence of a major fantasy character who could root a holiday in the fantasy world makes it difficult for Thanksgiving movies to distract from the suffering of the locals on which the holiday is built.
Plus, Thanksgiving traditions have no particular religious affiliation that can help provide potential films with an established audience that provides a certain level of financial success. For example, releasing a movie aimed at Christian moviegoers on Easter is often a guaranteed path to varying degrees of box office success. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, lacks that kind of fan base, reassuring studio executives and financiers that there’s an established audience for such features. Without that demographic to help, Thanksgiving movies feel like an extra big risk for those responsible for mainstream cinema production.
Given all these qualities that outshine Thanksgiving cinema, it’s interesting to note that television shows don’t have the same problem. By contrast, TV shows always do Thanksgiving episodes. programs ranging from Seinfeld with west wing with Friends they all have iconic installments featuring familiar characters smashing a turkey or gnashing their teeth and dealing with extended families on this food-hungry holiday. How is it that the small screen can make Thanksgiving stories and the big screen abusers find it harder to crack this madman?
TV shows, especially those that air on broadcast networks, tend to work like you’re hanging out with friends or even family. You know their routine, their motto, how they would react to certain scenarios. In other words, they are just like the people you invite into your house on Thanksgiving. The familiar nature of the television characters may provide a better approach to the Thanksgiving experience. It can also be fun to see your favorite fictional people go through frustrations like having to return to a local deli over and over to get a new turkey.
It’s harder for movies to capture this feeling, especially movies that introduce new people to their audience. Just like TV shows don’t usually start with a very special Thanksgiving episode, so on a busy Thanksgiving day it can be hard to get viewers to get to know people. It’s not impossible to succeed, especially if you’re a small-scale independent film that can afford to be distracted by long conversations that bring us into the lives of individual characters. something like Stephen Karam‘s PeopleFor example, on one of the first Thanksgivings after 9/11, it goes a long way by introducing people to a broken family that has been torn at the seams.
But this is the exception that proves the rule, because Tthose people He adopts a harsh tone and morally complex nature to his characters to justify why we meet these people at Thanksgiving. It’s the same qualities that make this movie a Thanksgiving story, but also the same things that push mainstream moviegoers. More mainstream movies are settling for more mundane and silly forms of confrontation that don’t feel as fun or exciting as watching beloved sitcom characters navigate the trials and tribulations of making Thanksgiving. Unless you’re willing to go brutally dark in a way that an NBC sitcom can’t, traditional mainstream cinema can’t handle Thanksgiving properly like established sitcoms with equally recognizable characters.
If you’re looking for Thanksgiving pop culture this year, you’ll likely be watching it for the tenth time. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Or maybe you just enjoy our favorite Thanksgiving episode. Office. One thing is for sure, you won’t be I’m opening a Thanksgiving movie. These titles are not absent, but there are countless reasons why Hollywood continues to miss this holiday for cinematic adventures. Given the weight of some of these reasons, this is perhaps for the best. However, if anyone wanted to make an off-the-wall feature film for Turkey Day, it’s doubtful anyone would object to it. Grinder the team finally flips the parody trailer Thanksgiving to a full-length slasher movie!
