COLUMN: Holiday season movie nostalgia is great, except when you force it on others


jeremyagostamug

The holiday season is always a great time for people to watch movies they grew up with. However, it’s not the time to force your friends to sit through them.

I always hear, “Oh my God, you haven’t seen (insert old Holiday movie here)? Well we HAVE to watch it,” countless times from October through December.

I can tell you exactly how many times it’s sounded appealing to watch those movies – none.

Why does the “best movie ever” just so happen to be a holiday movie you watched as a kid? Why should I feel bad when I haven’t seen that movie? Why do people act offended when you point out their crappy kid’s movie is, well, a crappy kid’s movie?

For starters, it’s never as good a movie as they’re telling me it is. I’m sorry, but “Halloween Town” is not more interesting to 19-year-old me than it was to them as a pre-teen.

It doesn’t matter how much you liked it then. There’s nothing about those movies to redeem the hour-and-a-half I’m going to waste watching them.

I don’t understand this phenomenon.

Sitting through a bad movie the other person has seen dozens of times is a terrible way to spend a few hours.

Although, I do feel bad sometimes as I attempt to validate my experience by pointing out how bad these movies are.

Making fun of bad acting and poor special effects, or pointing out silly plot holes in an attempt to have fun during a holiday movie always results in me looking like a “jerk”.

I’m tired of it.

There’s a simple solution to this problem of recycling classics in a chase for a nostalgia high: watch something new.

Please, put down “Ghostbusters,” change the channel when “Hocus Pocus” comes on and for the love of god, don’t make me watch “Miracle on 34th Street.”

I’m going to hate it and in the end, you are going to hate me for making fun of your movie.

There are literally thousands of new holiday movies people can watch for the first time and create new experiences. Why do people force themselves to watch everything again?

To me, this reveals a certain “film snobery” when people think they are better than someone else because they’ve seen a movie someone else hasn’t.

It’s ridiculous to put someone down for not having seen a movie.

Nostalgia and tradition are a great thing to experience throughout the holiday season but roping people in to try and force your nostolgia on others is a waste of time. It’s time we could spend forming new experiences we could genuinely look back on and enjoy.

So please, don’t watch the same movie for the hundredth time. Watch something new this holiday season.

Watch something fresh. Watch something different, weird or old, just as long as it’s a new experience.

It’ll probably be a good one.

At the very least it won’t be terrible for someone else.

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