The war on Christmas turned Santa Claus into an action star

It’s December 24th. Stockings have been hung. Gifts are wrapped. The fireplace crackles. It’s all familiar. You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why: If you do, Santa Claus will tear open a can of whoop-ass on you.

Old St. Nick wasn’t always the type who solves problems with his fists. On Christmas Eve once, the cheerful old elf pulled millions upon millions of B-and Es across the U.S. just to give out presents and be happy. That was yesterday’s Nick. According to the movies, today’s Nick is a changed man, reimagined as either a superhero or a straight-up action hero. He’s gotten swole over the last 20 years, and he’s ready to rumble. While his appearance has changed over the years, he still represents all of the qualities that he had always been. He’s just better prepared to fight for his values now, thanks in part to the ways America has recontextualized Christmas as a cultural battleground.

The idea that America was fomenting a war on Christmas came about in the early ’00s, when right-wing pundits warned the public about nefarious leftist schemes to secularize the holiday. Their credit is due to them. The technical aspect correct: Progressives had advocated for corporate and social adoption of “happy holidays” as a nondenominational season’s greeting, and pushed for communal celebration of culturally significant December holidays like Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. In progressive communities, menorah lightings conducted on town commons just 20 feet from a manger display didn’t strike a spiritual incongruity: They were Welcome.

Until conservative commentators like John Gibson and Bill O’Reilly declared that war was imminent, there wasn’t a war at all. They marshaled the media against neighborly accords between folks of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds, and they’ve kept skirmishing against participatory secularism ever since. Pop culture caught on to the fray: Jon Stewart mocked Christmas-plumping nonsense. The Daily ShowFunny or Die mixed up trailers Batman v Superman: Dawn of JusticeAnd Santa Clause; the YouTube sketch show wellRED Comedy used Ken Burns’ documentaries as a template for a chronicle of the history of the war on Christmas.

DreamWorks image

But while comics cracked jokes, Christmas’ most beloved symbolic figure went through a different transformation: Over the course of the last decade, Santa Claus slowly turned into a warrior. In 2012’s Rise of the Guardians, Santa is refashioned as Nicholas St. North, a strapping Russian charged with protecting children’s sense of wonder. In the 2018 and 2020 Christmas Chronicles movies, Santa is played with burly roguishness by Kurt Russell, a legend of Hollywood’s action-movie golden age, racing to prevent Christmas’ cancellation.

In 2020’s FatmanMel Gibson portrays Santa, who supplies parts to the U.S. Military for high-tech fighter planes. And in Tommy Wirkola’s 2022 action-comedy Violent NightSanta Claus (David Harbour), a drunken curmudgeon, lives in a Die Hard Situation as he fights against a team of cruel mercenaries to free an extremely wealthy family.

These movies show a marked progression from whimsical children’s fantasy to R-rated hyperviolence. It took the movies almost 20 years to arrive at the logical conclusion of the manufactured Christmas culture war: an action film where old St. Nick launches a savage offensive to defend his holiday from bad guys who don’t believe in him.

Violent Night’s main villain, codenamed Scrooge (and played by John Leguizamo), is motivated both by abject loathing for Christmas, and by apparent moral disgust over how the rich become rich — and Stay rich. Violent Night’s central family, the Lightstones, have a history of shady government dealings, including war profiteering. Scrooge excoriates Lightstone matriarch Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo) in front of her daughter Alva (Edi Patterson), her son Jason (Alex Hassell), and their families about that history. Scrooge is after their money. He claims that the Lightstones took it. Therefore, it is not a crime to steal it.

Universal Pictures

Violent Night’s ethical gymnastics are tangential to Santa’s existential gloom and crisis of faith. In the beginning of the film, he laments that modern society is based on greed. They only think about themselves and their desires. He’s less aggrieved that no one believes he’s real anymore, though he DoesHe has a chip on his side about it. He’s more disgruntled over hastily scribbled, shallow wish lists.

“Video games, video games, video games,” reads one note left on a mantle for Santa to eyeball as he makes his annual trip around the globe. He must be enjoying his break by drinking pints in Bristol bars. Making kids’ dreams come true, as much as he can, is his mission. He couldn’t, for instance, make Trudy (Leah Brady), the youngest and most winsome Lightstone, fly — but he couldShe was given a kite by her father, many Christmases back, which helped her to touch the air. That mission doesn’t tolerate any form of mindless commodification.

The reality is that Christmas has become a shopping holiday, but media versions of Santa have always resisted that message, going back to holiday TV specials like 1974’s The Year Without a Santa Claus. Even when there’s no Santa figure involved, Christmas specials have railed against the commercialization of the holiday, with 1965’s Charlie Brown ChristmasLeading the charge.

Santa is now more violent and physically aggressive in the new Santa interpretations. This is In FatmanChris Kringle has misgivings that are similar to those Santa experiences. Violent Night: He’s annoyed at the ways kids fetishize violence. He feels they’ve grown too callous. Given the rise of violent entertainment as diversion — Kringle particularly hates video games, much like Harbour’s Santa — it makes perfect sense that Uncle Sam makes Kringle an offer he genuinely can’t refuse. In Fatman, the U.S. government has subsidized Kringle’s gift-giving operation for decades. These precious subsidies will be lost if Kringle refuses to sign the military contract. Kringle agrees. Kringle has no other choice.

Also available in Violent Night, Fatman’s Kringle works out his malaise by reluctantly fighting. A spoiled, rich child finds coal among his presents. He dispatches Jonathan Miller (Walton Goggins), his personal hatchetman, to retaliate. Jonathan has a grudge against Santa Claus and Christmas that goes back to childhood. Violent Night. Killing Santa would be therapeutic for both men.

Image: Saban Films

The “war on Christmas” rabble-rousers should be tickled by Violent Night. As a villain, Scrooge is effectively an avatar for conservative panic over the left’s war on Christmas via secularization. The hero is Santa, the avatar of Christmas, who takes out the villain’s henchmen and massacres scores of anonymous cannon fodder while tossing out holiday one-liners: “Season’s beatings,” “Santa Claus is comin’ to town,” and admonishments of “That’s naughty!” barked at Scrooge’s sociopathic goons. Harbour’s Santa even weaponizes traditional holiday accouterments, like candy canes and tree decorations, as well as varied winter accessories, like ice skates and snowblowers. Tucker Carlson is a good example of a blood-thirsty child.

Wirkola was long before Wirkola. Fatman directors Eshom and Ian Nelms took their respective swings at Christmas genre films, though, pop culture repurposed Santa first as a Slavic swashbuckler in Peter Ramsey’s Rise of the GuardiansThen, as a gritty cowboy rascal. Christmas Chronicles. Entertainment is the primary goal in all three films. Ramsey’s treatment of Santa as a superhero, much like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Avengers, is hilarious. And while the Christmas Chronicles movies don’t add up to much more than treacly sentimentalism, Russell’s magnetism and brawny charm make his Santa memorable.

Russell’s performance and Rise of the Guardians’ warm, noble take on Santa push back on the propaganda of the Christmas forever war: They’re broadly appealing films that reject the innate cynicism of the claim that Christmas is under attack because some people believe no one should feel barred from celebrating their own beliefs publicly in December. A glance at the film: Fatman Violent Night in particular look like they’re affirming the war — they’re functionally low-key war movies that center on conflicts between Christmas-hating contract killers and Santa Claus. What could be a clearer allegory for “war on Christmas” than a small-scale literal war that takes place on Christmas?

For what it’s worth, neither Violent Nightnor FatmanThey actually support the belief in the Christmas war. They aren’t political, either, directly or indirectly. They’re simply a byproduct of that idea still echoing through American culture. They’re focused on the same arguments as Christmas movies dating back to 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life: Inhumanity and greed have taken the place of compassion and charity in this holiday season.

Still, Violent Night feels like a right-wing fantasy the way most action movies do — they’re fundamentally movies built around hawkish scenarios that can OnlyIt is not possible to resolve the problem with violence. There’s nothing wrong with cheering for good guys mowing down bad guys, but it’s a contradictory approach to these movies’ nostalgic call for Christmas warmth, cheer, and goodwill toward humanity.

Violent Night, Fatman, Christmas Chronicles 1. 2Please see the following: Rise of the Guardians all reinforce themes from Christmas classics about avarice as the holiday’s truest opposition. What’s different about these films is that they’ve been made in a world where people honestly seem to believe that traditional holiday values are battling against the spirit of inclusion and joyous community celebration, and that those values need to be defended with guns and sledgehammers.

Like so many other “dark Christmas” stories, from horror movies like Silent Night, Deadly NightTo watch savage comedies such as Bad SantaAction-Santa movies play around with traditional iconography and add some adult humor to appeal to viewers who may find the holiday treat a bit too sweet. But it feels dubious to see Santa defend vigilantism and slaughter in the same breath that he’s using to defend anti-commercialist messages and the wonder and magic of childhood. It’s worth being aware of the other, more troublesome messages these superhero Santas are defending at the same time.