Yes, as a gay consumer - "the target group" - I felt quite alien(ated) watching this. When I saw the Christmas Setup last year, I was thinking of lethal dose for sugar and positivity, I had no clue that it could be overdone in orders of magnitude. And I do know what is kind-of-expected of Christmas product: It's like a punch - supposed to be sweet, fragrant, bright colored, hits you instantly, some headache next day to be counted on. Well, this one tasted too manufactured and artificial to be swallowed.
At first glance it looks professional - the visuals are appealing, neat, hollywood-ish. Although the craft of movies lays not only in cinematography, pleasing filters or direction, but stands on script and acting. Acting as in Meryl Streep, not acting as in straight-acting or being fake.
This movie feels like a true commercial product, pink dollar & co, the army of marketing designers working hard to hit the senses of the target group with a precisely calculated impact, every second of it. It's a perfect example of Netlfix - for what it is in its essence - a low-cost under-average spectator platform that evokes the "first class" illusion, superficially, but with no soul, sort of like a Chinese gadget. It pleases the eye, but has no soul. A copy of anything you vaguely recollect from somewhere, a concoction of superficial impressions. Enthusiast but sterile.
It creates an "illusory landscape" that we gays supposedly dream of, but it is lifeless, forcedly smiling, too good to be true, something-is-not-right, eerie wonderland - and this is ironically the most xmas-fairy-tale-ish aspect of it. With barely any perspective. A bit like a Matrix world - a cosy illusion plus some tactically placed winks of reality aimed to make it palatable. Alas not enough. Not even for "a film that I want to watch over Xmas". The marketing department correctly recognized (well, it's clear like a fist in the eye) that there is a "hole in the soul" of many a gay viewer... we have watched so many X-mas films, were even fond of many, but they were gay-less, we were carefully vivisected from those stories, they felt sterile to us. And we crave for something with "Christmas trees, snow, string lights, gingerbread, cosy warm kitchens, family reunions, nostalgia ... and some man-on-man mischief." But, as the corporate marketing departments usually do, they got it completely wrong. They mixed up superficial ingredients, but failing to warms us (believably) where needed.
From a political perspective - is this supposed to be that brave new world - where they "finally" accept us ... but only as a cotton candy made of artificial flavors and colors? Can someone call F. D. A.? This feels like a gay rendering of a "normal world". The boys have no other dreams just finding a great romantic love for life - and present it (the object) to the other great delusion of their "wonderful family". Muscular Santas - nude bodies and red hats - like from the kytchy softcore for women from 90s. Everyone grinning - the over-motivated mother, diva aunt, over-agitated nieces, template nephews, everything and everyone rounded and cute and nice. The most believable thing was probably the over-consumption of alcohol - gosh, now wonder with all that acting, forced smiles, forced enthusiasm, reciting expected replicas - regardless of feeling sad, anxious or disappointed - just out of cultural habit. It's a like a cult of "yeeeeeah". Musical entrees. Christmas theater. Elk horns. Perfect houses. Perfect cars. Perfect careers. Perfect lives. Perfect dresses. Gadgets in the pockets. Smiiiiiiiles. Consumerism - is already an insufficient word here.
If it was a movie making fun of kytch ... well yes, it tries, a tiny little bit, but from the large part it actually embodies it and exaggerates it. Sarcastically nailed by those plates with motivational slogans from the cheap kytch shops or self-help books. "Yeah, if you really want it, it will come true, you just have to work hard, follow your dream, believe in yourself, think positive, be nice to others ..." The question is, if this pseudo-world is not already a reality for certain caste of people. They take it dead serious - and the less it works, the more they are frustrated and more zealously they act in it. For themselves, for the other believers, to perpetuate the belief. A sort of a cult. From a Eastern European perspective, this movie (and this mindset) would make even a soviet propaganda bureau blush red.
Honestly, this is not how I imagined the bright queer future, or queer emancipation. In this unbelievable artificiality, it becomes dangerously fragile and can bounce back. If it makes a gay person wary and worried - how would it feel to straight folks? At the end, there is not so much difference between having to act straight in the past (to fit in), and today when we are accepted only if acting perfect normal people "like everyone else", consumerist robots, imitating traditional family aspirations and relationships, fitting in the corporate product, just with a carefully manufactured "distinct" pink flavor. Yuck.
Good intentions, bad rendering. Less radiant smiles, more life please ... I am already afraid to say "next time".
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