Kenneth Longden

Two years ago, *CST* kindly posted [my piece on Christmas television and
'BBC Christmas
Specials'](https://cstonline.net/self-exoticism-television-and-the-transnational-by-kenneth-longden/){target="_blank"}.
The blog focused particularly on those programmes here in Britain (but
also shown around the world) that had inveigled themselves into being
part of the Christmas ritual, and become 'event' television for the
festive period, and for the BBC in the process. These programmes were of
course *Doctor Who* and *Sherlock* (BBC).

In revisiting this contribution and subject matter (in time for
Christmas), my intention is to give a wider appraisal of Christmas on
television as an addendum to my first offerings on 'Christmas Specials'.
I will begin where I started last time; I wrote:

*The Christmas television schedules have, for many years, introduced a
sense of the Carnavalesque to the viewing experience. Broadcasters,
programmes, and family favourites collude in temporarily suspending the
'normal' laws and rules of the diegetic and television world, providing
one-off storylines, 'specials', and, in some cases, even subverting
perceptions of seriality in acknowledgement of a collective cultural
ritual. Christmas television has become so central to the Christmas
experience that recently, in the words of the Bishop of Leeds, it has
now become the modern-day "Midnight mass"; the focal point for family
worship and togetherness (The Telegraph, 2015). (Longden, 2015).*

Similar in observing a seasonal television ritual, but in a much more
secular vein, Paul Noble (not a Bishop), in *Television Quarterly*
(2007), observes that "Christmas and television were made for each
other. The best and worst elements of both become even more apparent and
yet even more appropriate as December twenty-fifth approaches." Noble's
observation forms part of a review of what is still, to date, the only
dedicated book form study of festive seasonal television -- Diane Werts'
study of a largely American *Christmas on Television* (2006). As stated
in my last contribution on this same subject, but with BBC Christmas
specials in mind, outside of Broadcaster websites, fan blogs and vlogs,
very little critical attention has been given to this particular format
and phenomenon. Further, I added, "This \[dearth\] seems strange when
you consider how over the last 10 years, the BBC's flagship programme
*Doctor Who* has turned the concept of the Christmas special into a
cultural meme or 'Media Event' in its own right, and the BBC's
*Sherlock* looks set to do the same".

Sadly, there is no new *Sherlock* to await, but the new Christmas
special *Doctor Who*, and the impending arrival of a new and female
doctor (Jodie Whittaker) to boot, still shows not only how Christmas
(and the BBC) creates expectations around the television viewing
experience and impacts upon certain television texts and forms, but
serves to herald the promise of a new (television) season. However, this
dearth of academic interest in Christmas television has since been
bolstered. Since I last wrote on this subject *The Journal of Popular
Television* has published a collection of essays for a special issue on
'Television Seasonality' (April 2017), exploring elements from Christmas
scheduling (Tucker, Wolfenden, Sercombe), to 'Festive Television in the
Socialist World' (Huxtable, Mihelj, Bardan, Szostak), to '*Mad Men* and
the Dangers of Seasonal Nostalgia' (Hoffman). This eclectic approach
mirrors the variety and heterogeneity of the modern Christmas experience
as presented through television. It is worth pointing out that although
Christmas television often unites audiences in a shared cultural ritual,
this ritual is expressed in many different ways and across many
different cultures. This has become particularly evident in more recent
years. With niche channels and programming replacing the mass network
audiences of the past, dominant ideologies have to work harder.
Christmas television can be *Made in Chelsea* (E4) or borne from *The
Walking Dead* (AMC). What this last example proves in particular,
however, is that no matter whether the (diegetic) world is undergoing
war, famine, or pestilence, these events are often suspended, for one
day and one episode only, in favour of spreading the Christmas message
-- peace, love, and good will. It is a canny move by producers and
broadcasters in showing that no matter what happens, your favourite TV
programme and broadcaster is still here, and that it's prepared to enter
into the Christmas spirit. These one-off episodes are interesting in
that they tacitly acknowledge events happening at that moment in the
real world, and therefore an audience too. They present, as Derek
Johnson (2015) states, "issues about... temporality", a dynamic that
chimes with seasonal tropes of the gothic and of nostalgia.

::: {#attachment_5135 .wp-caption .alignleft style="width: 310px"}
[![Image 1. Sherlock: the Abominable Bride. BBC giving both barrels of
Gothic Ghost Story and
Heritage](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image01-300x169.jpg){.wp-image-5135
.size-medium loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5135" width="300" height="169"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image01-300x169.jpg.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image01-450x253.jpg.webp 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image01-140x79.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image01.jpg 634w"
sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image01.jpg)

Image 1. *Sherlock: the Abominable Bride*. BBC giving both barrels of
Gothic Ghost Story and Heritage
:::

There are also some other interesting and often common narrative ways of
tapping into the audience's shared ritual. Charles Dickens' *A Christmas
Carol* (Scrooge) has not only been a feature of Christmas ever since its
publication in 1843, especially in the form of numerous television
adaptations, but its plot and themes have consistently been adopted by a
host of television dramas and sit-coms as a way of demonstrating a
connection with audiences. As Johnson observes in his chapter
'Seasonality, Nostalgia, Heritage, and History' (2015), Christmas
television is particularly effective in "denaturalising...the
relationship between past and present". It is a liminal form "and its
status as simultaneously a part of everyday life and removed from it,
'allow\[s\] for the presentation of and engagement with ritualized
narratives." Johnson's observations form part of an examination of
another Christmas tradition that has been taken up enthusiastically by
television; that of the Christmas ghost story. For Johnson, ghost
stories on Christmas television are "irruptions of the abnormal", where
magic works and science doesn't. It is a particularly gothic tradition
and element, and where British TV audiences are concerned the adoption
of a Victorian or Edwardian setting, "remain stock eras for British
'heritage' entertainment", a heritage that has since been exported
globally by the BBC.

::: {#attachment_5136 .wp-caption .alignleft style="width: 310px"}
[![Image 2. Happy post-apocalyptic Christmas from AMC's the Walking
Dead](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image02-300x161.jpg){.wp-image-5136
.size-medium loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5136" width="300" height="161"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image02-300x161.jpg.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image02-450x242.jpg.webp 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image02-140x75.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image02.jpg 606w"
sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image02.jpg)

Image 2. Happy post-apocalyptic Christmas from AMC's *The Walking Dead*
:::

If we are to view Christmas viewing as an especially unifying
experience, reinforcing collective identities, common belief-systems and
ideologies, it is important to understand just what that experience
describes. As I stated in my previous blog:

*Programmes such as Doctor Who and Sherlock function within this
Christmas experience in ways that highlight and negotiate change. They
introduce chaos and potential change in order to show order and
continuity being restored*. (Longden, 2015).

*Doctor Who* especially, is particularly effective in bringing time and
the temporal to the foreground, and at a time when most audiences are
reflecting on the passing of one year and the ushering in of the new.
Programmes such as *Doctor Who* and *Sherlock* have also become
metaphors for negotiating and making sense of wider and more
geopolitical concerns.

::: {#attachment_5137 .wp-caption .alignleft style="width: 260px"}
[![Image 3. Doctor Who - would-be inheritors of Dickens' Christmas
legacy?](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image03-300x300.jpg){.wp-image-5137
loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5137" width="250" height="250"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image03-300x300.jpg.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image03-450x450.jpg.webp 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image03-140x140.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image03-440x440.jpg.webp 440w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image03-150x150.jpg.webp 150w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image03.jpg 607w"
sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image03.jpg)

Image 3. *Doctor Who* -- would-be inheritors of Dickens' Christmas
legacy?
:::

And of course, the ways in which television often reflects and
constructs these changes serves to promote television as the definitive
cultural forum. Christmas allows television in general, and certain
broadcasters in particular, to be seen both as part of a tradition, and
as safe guides to the new. As both Matt Hills (2014; 159), and Amy
Holdsworth (2011; 113) point out with regard to *Doctor Who* in
particular, although the programme has been positioned as "a matter of
public value, providing the 'social glue' to unite a nation", it has
also been positioned to attract "a global array of fan-viewers...drawing
on BBC nostalgia". Nostalgia, as the BBC learned a long time ago, plays
a big part in Christmas television, and also a big part in exporting a
particularly BBC type of Christmas to the world. Christmas television,
therefore, makes more visible the role of television in shaping,
presenting, and prompting debates and concerns in contemporary life.

Diane Werts' chapter, 'Christmas with a Conscience: Time for Social
Statements' (2006), highlights in particular how the dynamic of
Christmas television is often used to suggest something altogether more
serious, whilst at the same time offering a comforting and reassuring
message that all will be well. Becoming a distinct trend in the early
1970s, with American network TV examples such as *MASH* and *All in the
Family*, Werts observes how special Christmas episodes became
increasingly a vehicle to explore more serious topical issues such as
race, war, and class. However, it is worth noting that even though these
issues were raised in Christmas episodes, by the end of the narrative,
the equilibrium and a sense of order was restored with the heart-warming
glue of Christmas used to patch up problems and the fractures in
society. This narrative and plot device became common to Christmas
television, evident still to this day.

But as Emily Hoffman points out in her study 'Do they Know it's
Christmastime \[sic\] at All?: *Mad Men* and the Dangers of Seasonal
Nostalgia' (2017), there are some programmes that have tried to subvert
the seasonal message of harmony. Hoffman's example of AMC's *Mad Men* is
interesting in these respects because she also suggests such subversion
as indicative of the changes undergone by the television industry in
recent years and usually described as the TVIV era. For Hoffman, *Mad
Men* ironically defied the tradition of nostalgia in the Christmas and
Thanksgiving episodes "aggressively subverting viewer expectations".
Hoffman observes how in these seasonal episodes, *Mad Men* often
presented "situations resembling those found in traditional seasonal
episodes only to lead characters to moments of distress and discord
rather than contentment and reconciliation." (2017). Whilst this is
in-keeping with what Butler observes as the "despair and alienation"
that lay just below the surface of that era (2013), and which the series
tries to portray, Hoffman's observations highlight an attempt by some
dramas to subvert the traditional Christmas message and form.

::: {#attachment_5138 .wp-caption .alignleft style="width: 170px"}
[![Image 4: AMC's Mad Men. An 'Old Fashioned' please. Where Xmas and
nostalgia can drive you to
drink](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image04-140x140.jpg){.wp-image-5138
loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5138" width="160" height="160"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image04-140x140.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image04-300x300.jpg.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image04-150x150.jpg.webp 150w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image04.jpg 405w"
sizes="(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image04.jpg)

Image 4: AMC's *Mad Men*. An 'Old Fashioned' please. Where Xmas and
nostalgia can drive you to drink
:::

The TVIV era may just show a new development and evolution where
Christmas television is concerned. My recent research into American
'Quality TV' led me to an episode of *The Sopranos* (HBO) where in a
scene that depicted mob family children visiting Santa, one little boy
was seen to say "Fuck you Santa". It seems that Christmas TV has finally
met with what Leverette & Ott (2009) describe as 'Cocksucker,
motherfucker, tits' brand of programming. As such, the idea of 'popping
a cap' in Santa's ass, should tell us something about HBO, 'Quality TV',
and what we as audiences expect from the same. This episode has led me
to wonder if there are any forms of television not fit for the Christmas
makeover.

Christmas television, and special Christmas television episodes,
therefore, occupy a dynamic position in the cultivation of viewer
expectations. But can we create a typology of Christmas television?

We can view these Christmas episodes and Christmas specials as
negotiating tradition and change, convention and re-inscription. Their
form is more often than not profoundly self-reflexive, especially when
approached through its paratexts, and its status, in some circumstances
(*Sherlock* Mini Episode 2013), as a one-off, allows its story-world to
often speak more directly to its fan-base and audiences, or to issues
and current events that might normally be out of bounds. Another feature
of the Christmas special is the migration of actors from outside of the
story-world into the special feature. They even play with time, either
as dream sequence, or as extended flash-back. And whilst tradition plays
a big part, more recent examples show a desire to accommodate the
veracities of global and transnational culture.

::: {#attachment_5139 .wp-caption .alignleft style="width: 310px"}
[![Image 5. A traditional \'Family Christmas\' vs. ultimate subversion?
"Fuck You Santa" on HBO's The
Sopranos.](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image05-300x209.jpg){.wp-image-5139
.size-medium loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5139" width="300" height="209"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image05-300x209.jpg.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image05-450x314.jpg.webp 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image05-140x98.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image05.jpg 500w"
sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image05.jpg)

Image 5. A traditional 'Family Christmas' vs. ultimate subversion? "Fuck
You Santa" on HBO's *The Sopranos*.
:::

Christmas television is seasonal television, and whilst I have
concentrated on the festive season, others have observed the change in
programming over other seasons, such as summer programming and autumn
(fall) programming. Christmas television, however, is more heightened in
its awareness of a particular time and even place, and whilst there are
many countries and cultures for which Christmas television is not a
factor of the seasonal TV experience, these same countries do still have
festivals and holidays which are marked by television and changes to
television programming. What Huxtable, et al refer to as 'media
holidays' (2017) highlights the role in which television has become
central to the celebration, commemoration, and observance of secular and
religious holidays.

Happy Christmas and happy television viewing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Kenneth A Longden** has lectured as part of the academic staff at
Liverpool John Moores University in Media, Critical, and Creative Arts,
and studied for a MPhil/PhD in Transnational Narratives at The
University of Winchester. He is a Fellow HEA, and a Peer-Reviewer for
various academic journals. He has been published by Intellect Books and
Palgrave MacMillan, and writes on Popular Narrative, Film, Television,
Fandom, and Popular Culture. He is currently lecturing at Salford
University.

 

 

#####  **Bibliography** {#bibliography}

- Butler, J.G., 2011. 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes': Historicizing Visual
  Style in Mad Men. *Mad Men: Dream Come True TV*, pp. 55-72.
- Hills, M. (2014) 'The Year of the Doctor: Celebrating the 50^th^,
  Regenerating Public Value?'. *Science Fiction, Film and Television*.
  7.2, 159-78. DOI: 10.3828/sfftv.2014.9
- Hoffman, E., 2017. Do they know it's Christmastime at all?: *Mad Men*
  and the dangers of seasonal nostalgia. *The Journal of Popular
  Television*, *5*(1), pp.69-81. DOI: 10.1386/jptv.5.1.69_1
- Derek Johnston, *Haunted Seasons: Television Ghost Stories for
  Christmas and Horror for Halloween* (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
  2015)
- Leverette, M., 2008. Cocksucker, motherfucker, tits. *It's Not TV:
  Watching HBO in the Post-television Era*, pp.123-151.
- Longden, K. (2015) 'Self-Exoticism, Television, and the
  Transnational". *Critical Studies in Television Blog*
- Noble, Paul. (2007) "Christmas on Television." \[Review\] *TV
  Quarterly: 65-68.* Online at:
  [http://www.tvquarterly.com/tvq_37_2/media/articles/37.2R&C.pdf](http://www.tvquarterly.com/tvq_37_2/media/articles/37.2R&C.pdf){target="_blank"}*  
  *
- Werts, D., 2006. *Christmas on television*. Greenwood Publishing
  Group.


Two years ago,
<em>
 CST
</em>
kindly posted my piece on Christmas television and ‘BBC Christmas Specials’. The blog focused particularly on those programmes here in Britain (but also shown around the world) that had inveigled themselves into being part of the Christmas ritual, and become ‘event’ television for the festive period, and for the BBC in the process.

Postagens de Rogue Scholar

“FUCK YOU SANTA”: CHRISTMAS TELEVISION – A RECKONING