Yuletide Die Hard debate is evergreen

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This article was published 11/12/2020 (2117 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s December, which means it’s time to mark a hallowed holiday tradition: arguing about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie. 

The Die Hard Decembrists seem to be gaining ground this year. Crave lists the 1988 John McTiernan flick in its Holiday Collection, for example, which seems like official recognition for those whose annual customs bypass White Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street for movies and TV shows that are Noel-adjacent but not conventionally jolly.

Die Hard is the best-known example of the Xmas actioner, but viewers also like Lethal Weapon, the political thriller Three Days of the Condor, the comedy-horror movie Gremlins and even the slasher film Black Christmas. There is a Walking Dead Christmas special this year on AMC. 

Many alt-Christmas-movie fans see Die Hard as counter-programming to the standard yuletide fare, which they view as sappy. (If they really looked into it, they might realize that before the happy endings kick in, classic Christmas flicks like It’s Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol or even Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer deal with a lot of profound existential despair.)

The argument usually goes this way: Despite its bone-crunchy violence and high body count, Die Hard is Christmassy because its protagonist, NYPD officer John McClane, heads to Los Angeles to try to connect with his estranged wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), on Christmas Eve. 

She’s attending her office Christmas party in the Nakatomi Plaza high-rise tower — it’s only in movies that office Christmas parties are held on Christmas Eve — when the festivities are crashed by a suave Eurotrash criminal Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his terrorist gang. 

And then it’s just one bullet-headed, blue-collar cop with a talent for sardonic one-liners against a whole lot of bad guys.

The disputes — often thrashed out on social media — over whether to include Die Hard in the annual Christmas canon can get pretty involved. Take this approach: “Christmas is an integral part to Die Hard’s plot. Hans needed the reduced security + hostages from the party for his plot to work.” (Even if you happen to agree with this guy’s conclusion, this feels like a poor argument. “Lax security and readily available hostages” aren’t really intrinsic aspects of Christmas.) 

Some hardcore Die Hard-ologists make the case for Die Hard 2 being even more festive, dealing as it does with snow, stressed-out Christmas air travel, and mercenaries who muster for their mission carrying sinister gift-wrapped presents. 

The debate has lured in several famous people. Barack Obama weighed in this year during an interview with Jimmy Fallon: “It’s A Wonderful Life is a Christmas movie. A Charlie Brown Christmas is a Christmas movie,” he suggested in his slow, careful way. “Die Hard is an action flick that happens to involve, tangentially, Christmas.” 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau replied on Twitter, saying that while he agrees with Obama on many things, “on this, we disagree because he’s clearly wrong. I’ll put it on the record again here: ‘Die Hard’ is a Christmas movie.”

Die Hard’s co-scripter Steven E. de Souza confirms it’s a Christmas movie — though he jokes that’s “only because the studio rejected the Purim script.” Star Bruce Willis, much to the dismay of his diehard fans (see what I did there), has said that it’s not. So has cinematographer Jan de Bont. 

But here’s the thing. It’s not what the critics or the filmmakers or the stars or even the Die Hard obsessives say. 

It’s not even what’s actually in the movie, though fans will insist on going through their weird Christmas checklist: John McLane’s wife’s name is Holly! There’s a corpse with a Santa hat! John whistles Jingle Bells! Hans keeps talking about miracles!

In the end, what matters is the way folks watch it. 

If Hallmark holiday movies have taught us anything, it’s that Christmas is something you feel in your heart. 

So it’s not about whether John McClane and his anti-terrorist hijinks are sufficiently festive. It’s about how people feel when they watch said hijinks. If your Die Hard experience is a happy annual tradition, maybe involving friends and family — crammed on the couch or taking part in a tech-assisted watching party — drinking nog and shouting “yippee ki yay,” then, yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. 

This year of all years, let’s not argue. Let’s just say, happy holidays to all, whatever kind of cinematic celebration that might involve.