'All the reasons why Die Hard is yippee-ki-not-okay'
The tree is up. The jumpers are out. There's even snow on the ground. It's CLEARLY time to re-watch Die Hard, the greatest Christmas movie of all time.
But when I settled down last night and saw Bruce Willis as hardbitten John McClane in the opening scenes, rolling his eyes over a beautiful girl who rushes into her boyfriend's arms at the airport, I realised it might have had its day. Because the only way that scene would work now is if it's a trans woman he's marvelling at.
Cut to his wife Holly in her office at Nakatomi Plaza, fretting about whether he got on the plane at all, and telling her home help "he probably didn't have time to call at the airport, make up the spare bedroom anyway". Never mind wives who know full well airports have always had payphones: to youngsters seeing it for the first time, in a world of constant connectivity, this is one cruddy dad.
The special effects are still seamless, the acting perfection, the storyline just as zippy. But time comes to us all, and now Die Hard is a lot like Santa: in the 21st century, it doesn't work quite the same.
It's all Amazon deliveries and Greggs festive bakes (Getty Images)Today, the female lead would have an eating disorder, not Bonnie Bedelia's bubble perm. And - aside from the fact that the touchscreen McClane uses to locate his wife's office is vastly superior to the one every ATM seems cursed with today - he would be neither surprised nor angry to find she's using her maiden name at work. It took us three decades, but wives are now autonomous humans. These days 20% keep their name.
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When a drunk man grabs McClane for a kiss and he shakes him off, disgusted, it looks homophobic. And it was at the time, too - that's why it was written. But in 1988 that butch-hero stuff was sort-of endearing, and today it's a criminal offence.
The German terrorists would be Arabic now, and would never have managed to fly into the US anyway because of facial recognition cameras and international intelligence-sharing. And as a career terrorist Hans would be subject to international sanctions, and unble to get his hands on one tailored Savile Row suit, never mind two.
But the most jarring moment comes when McClane crawls through an air conditioning vent. "Now I know what a TV dinner feels like," he says, and that's still accurate: today's average New York cop is a morbidly-obese meatbag of saturated fats, salt and sugar. In 2023 our hero would be wedged solid, and be at more risk of a cardiac arrest than a bullet.
If McClane escaped a party in 2023 to become a one-man counter-terrorism initiative, he wouldn't be operating alone. The hostages would have a festive hashtag for millions of TikTokers long before the first corpse drops out of the sky. When deputy chief Dwayne Robinson arrives to cock everything up, he would already know there's a New York policeman up there, thanks to #GruberTheRedFacedReindeer or #JohnMcClaneIsComingToTown.
Gruber would never accept a cigarette from McClane now, because he'd be a non-smoking vegan. He wouldn't plot his heist with a filofax, but on an encrypted network. More likely still, he wouldn't even need to be in the building, and could run the whole show from his mum's back room in Hamburg.
When you see McClane limp into the final scene, his last two bullets in a gun strapped to his back with some single-use plastic festive tape, you can't help but think: "That'd be recyclable brown paper tape now. And it wouldn't work."
Thanks to the cost of living crisis, no office worker is getting a Rolex from their boss as a thank you present. The chances are that today's Holly Gennero is wearing an Apple watch so she can self-monitor her stress levels, and when she's being pulled out of the window by a dangling Hans Gruber her husband wouldn't be able to undo it. McClane would be struggling with a clip-free nylon band, or even worse a buckle, and all three would end up as raspberry jam.
Other festive classics have similar problems. As Home Alone's mum, Catherine O'Hara looked frumpy and middle-aged, but she was only 36 - that's just how mums dressed in 1990. These days, the family would have had a Ring doorbell and could catch Joe Pesci in the act while still in France.
In Elf, Buddy harasses his biological dad James Caan and is neither arrested nor injuncted, which stretches disbelief too far. And Zooey Deschanel would have had Buddy cancelled for entering the women's bathroom without transitioning, which would mean by the time he's fixing Santa's sleigh in Central Park he'd be an alt-right hero and there'd be riots, not a sudden burst of Christmas spirit. And just nothing at all in Jingle All The Way would ever be allowed.
Some Christmas classics age like fine wines. It's A Wonderful Life, Bad Santa, Muppet Christmas Carol, Arthur Christmas have all lasted the political tests of an hyper-sensitive, socially-aware 21st century. But in the same way as cassette tapes and shiny wrapping paper, some festive films are the kind of thing that, when you introduce them to your children, you're going to have to put into their proper historical context.
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Luckily there are some things, even in the turkeys, that will never not be true. Fake Santas DO still smell of beef and cheese. Making fists with your toes DOES still work. And a house full of people for Christmas IS enough to make anyone sick. But if Santa has to partner with Amazon delivery drivers these days, then don't be surprised if some yuletide movies need to come with a health warning.
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