Reflection and Analysis

The Santa Clause: Not Sexist (2/9/2021)

As I'm working on one of my ONC projects I came across an article called "15 Years Later, 'The Santa Clause 2' Is Still A Sexist Nightmare." byTaia Handlin over on BTRtoday. I found the article because one of my projects is in fact a Santa Clause fanfic, but are they right?

Says Handlin, "SPOILER: they get together because the ultimate moral of this movie is that every man received a hot blonde woman in his man gift basket." Except, that's not at all why the two get together. In fact, I'd argue that Scott Calvin's interest in Carol Newman has nothing to do with her being a hot blonde as the writer of the article put it, but because Carol has taken an actual interest in his son Charlie; specifically, she also cares that Charlie's not behaving and is trying to do something about it.

Of course, isn't the logic the writer of the article using that any time a man gets together with a hot blonde woman it is because she's some kind of trophy? I'd love to give the writer of this article the benefit of the doubt, but this person actually sums Carol up to being – well, a trophy wife, when in canon she's recognized as a smart, intelligent woman. Yes, she does end up leaving her job at the end, but it's as someone who is an equal partner to Santa who shares in the job, along with a certain Head Elf, in making the workshop run smoothly.

Moving along, is Scott wrong for calling out "the dearth of Christmas decorations in the school?" I think not, given the fact this is a Christmas movie and it's a sign of having lost faith in Christmas, but there's also the issue of how Christmas decorations are being policed out of places like schools and businesses even if they have nothing to do with the nativity simply because the word Christmas is involved. Scott indeed does have a very valid point that one of the points of Christmas is to brighten people's lives, but this shouldn't matter if a person is Christian or not.

The writer of the article moves along and complains about how "Principle Newman, meanwhile, is the stoney bitch who cares more about funding algebra and marching band than twinkle lights," which completely misses the fact Scott actually regrets what he said to her, because that is something he can agree with. We're not talking a Santa lore where everything goes smoothly at the North Pole every year but one where Santa is having to make sure his Head Elf doesn't have a panic attack over something similar to budget issues.

Of course, when the writer of the article says, "Let's take Christmas out of the equation: a grown man yells at a woman, in her place of work, that she should not do her job because it inconveniences him and his delinquent son, before throwing crumpled dollar bills at her like an alcoholic in a strip club," we know the writer either didn't pay attention to the movie or they're willingly taking things out of context drastically to make their point which also makes me wish and hope this is a satire piece.

Seriously, I don't remember Scott yelling at that point in time, so that's one strike for the writer of this article. Second strike comes from the fact he actually agrees with Newman regarding the fact Charlie shouldn't be babied, not to mention he's not pleased with Charlie's behavior, though he's also the father who remembers his own mischievous past and has to curb his tongue a bit and remind Charlie that while it was "cool" that it wasn't okay. I mean, Charlie got on the naughty list! As for tossing money at her like it was a strip club, he simply wanted to buy the kids at school some Christmas decorations which is a very different thing than what the writer describes.

But of course, it is completely okay to take a scene completely out of context and assign to it some kind of meaning based on symbolism, right?

There are other issues, such as claiming that Carol isn't ever called Principal Newman after that particular point despite the fact Charlie, the person who should be calling her that in fact does refer to her as such, but apparently a principle at a school isn't allowed to have a social life and the title is to be treated in the same vein as how we speak of doctors, yet if this were a male principle we'd actually hear adults around him refer to him by his first name, so isn't the person being sexist here the writer of the article?

After all, Carol's not allowed to fall in love with a man because she's supposed to retain her powerful position at all costs. Having seen a lot of Christmas movies, her moving from a powerful position to what is in fact an even more powerful position that she sees as being in similar vein to her previous job is a far cry from actual Christmas movies where I've seen women give up their dream job and settle just to have a man. I mean, can we really argue that Carol is settling?

Well, according to the writer, we should be taking offence because, "Carol is a young, attractive woman whose brand-new husband just aged several decades and grew to an enormous size." Why? "It's fundamentally offensive that they don't address her right to be in a relationship with a man that she's sexually attracted to..." which completely ignores the fact their relationship isn't actually based on sexual attraction, but the fact the two have a romantic attraction which both find more important than sexual attraction.

No, according to the writer of the article Carol should be shagging a certain Head Elf because he's hot instead.

Yeah, I'm already aware of the fact a good chunk of this fandom has the hots for Bernard, but it sounds more like the writer is projecting onto Carol rather than actually identifying true sexism within the film. We're talking a writer for whom this was the second to last post on BTWtoday for while the last one which was posted the same day happens to be about how "woke" a show is as if being "woke" is a good thing.

Actually, being truly "woke" is a good thing, but someone who is truly "woke" also doesn't have to point this out let alone use this word. We're talking a word that – to quote Wikipedia, "In The New York Times Magazine, Amanda Hess raised concerns that the word has been culturally appropriated, writing, "The conundrum is built in. When white people aspire to get points for consciousness, they walk right into the crosshairs between allyship and appropriation."

The real point though is you've really got to stretch the narrative, taking it out of context to see a sexist message. It ignores the message about family, and caring for one another, but then, this writer was way to focused on the concept of a trophy wife that I think blonde's aren't allowed to marry anymore unless they're getting a trophy husband in return because – that's what sexism is, right?

Sexism, however, according to the Oxford Languages dictionary, "prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex."

Was anybody prejudiced against Carol because she was a woman? No, in fact, Scott emphasized that Charlie should respect her which is the exact opposite of prejudice. Was she stereotyped? While the author of the article would like you to think so, that she was a blonde trophy wife, she was nothing of the sort. Was she discriminated against because she was a woman? Nope. However, one can argue that the writer of the article was ticking off at least some of those boxes in their article.