They are back. Now a must for the fall season, TF1 has been broadcasting a new Christmas TV movie since Monday, October 24 every day at 1:55 p.m. until December 25. As for M6, the schedule will only include these films from December. But for decades, this cinematic genre has been the heyday of television networks as families pack the packages. With very codified scenarios, they are the refuge of many French men and women and evolve with their time.
After a film featuring a gay couple in the 2021 Christmas vintage, viewers will discover this year a Christmas television film in which the heroine is in a wheelchair in Christmas with the prince of my dreams or even a story centered on a lesbian couple in Christmas you and me.
On television as on streaming platforms, the genre is evolving and wants to carry representations in the image of recent developments in society. These new representations do not, however, initiate a revolution of the genre. 20 minutes explains why.
“Anchoring these films in today’s society”
They have been a television haven for several decades. As the cold gradually sets in, Christmas TV movies are also appearing on the small screen. Aware of this success, streaming platforms now also offer their versions of this cinematographic genre with a comforting and long-awaited scenario. “We find it interesting to see that platforms like Netflix follow us and draw on the richness offered by Christmas TV movies,” says Sophie Leveaux, artistic director of acquisitions at TF1. Each year, “these films structure the audiences from the afternoon until access” on the channel of the Bouygues group which “is very attached to this meeting”.
So each year, the front page teams work from the end of the previous Christmas to select the films that will make up the schedule for next year’s holiday season. “We work with the American television channel Hallmark, we select from its catalog the most original films, the best produced and those which are most in line with the line of TF1”, assures Agathe Guillemet, head of films and TV films at Christmas for the channel. This year, it paid particular attention to selecting productions integrating, in addition to Christmas, “other themes such as diversity or disability” to offer 35 new television films “anchored in today’s society”.
You can therefore already count on TF1 to immerse you in the holiday atmosphere, while the children have not even come knocking on your door, imposing on you the eternal dilemma of Halloween: “Candy or a spell? “. “We have just advanced the first broadcasts of Christmas TV movies by a week compared to usual, justifies Sophie Leveaux. And the fact of starting this programming at the end of October has never disturbed the Americans. For example, Hallmark launches its Christmas movies as early as October 21. »
“A kind that purrs”
In the cinema, they arrived a few years after the first screenings in dark rooms in 1898 before being imported into France in 1900. From its earliest beginnings, the genre directly imposed its decor, red and green atmosphere, snowflakes through the windows and log fire in the fireplace.
But beyond its aesthetic trappings, Christmas TV movies have now also been codified in their script. “It’s a genre that purrs both in formula and in structure,” confirms Maureen Lepers, a researcher who works on the political and sociocultural issues of media representations. “Someone who watches these movies a lot can predict the ending after 10 minutes because they are made up of generic conventions that never surprise you. »
The plot is generally set in the American countryside, where a character, often female and from a big city, is in search of something. He will then discover the values of sharing thanks to this distance from his work and from capitalist society and will end up finding love, which often materializes on Christmas Eve. “It’s an ode to the dream America”, adds Julie Escurignan, teacher-researcher in creative and cultural industry at EMLV.
Comfort, second degree and tradition
But why, when their scenarios are rarely surprising, do we continue to watch them, warm on a plaid? “The Christmas TV movie is really the guilty pleasure, the somewhat nostalgic thing. We can compare them to Saturday night chocolate, we know we shouldn’t eat it but we eat it anyway because it’s comforting, ”adds Julie Escurignan.
For her part, Maureen Lepers believes that there are two ways to watch and enjoy Christmas TV movies. “There are first of all those who delight in this highly anticipated genre and who look at them from above, to make fun of it,” she explains. And then there’s the audience historically targeted by these films, housewives in their mid-50s, who see these films as a form of escape because they feature female characters who stand up to adversity. »
She also believes that the simplicity of the scenarios allows the viewer a guaranteed disconnection with his daily life. “It’s the time you really take for yourself, where you don’t need to think anymore and you cut yourself off from everything else in a warm atmosphere since that’s all that the Christmas period invokes. »
Not meant to change the world
But in recent years, new elements have been added to the traditional arsenal of this type of production at the same time as streaming platforms have taken hold of the genre: a desire for inclusiveness. “It’s a fairly generalist desire that crosses all areas of the audiovisual sector”, observes Maureen Lepers.
The researcher believes, however, that putting on screen characters from racial diversity, in their orientation or even with disabilities is work “on the visible side of the iceberg”. “We work very little on the structure of the stories themselves, which remain the vehicle of ultra-conservative values,” she recalls. We always stay on a couple model, ultra-normative, exclusive, etc. We don’t really deconstruct, it’s showcase diversity. »
She welcomes the fact that the Christmas TV movie today offers other models for the viewer or viewer but believes that this does not advance mentalities. “At the same time, it’s not the vocation of these productions that are there for the status quo and that’s what makes them so easy to watch. Julie Escurignan confirms that these films owe their success to their ease of understanding. She talks about “Christmas films, Christmas music, Christmas decor”. “If you do something else while watching them, it doesn’t matter since they are easy to understand, if you miss a piece, it won’t hinder your understanding and that’s also why we watch them . »