Description
The Hallmark Channel is an American media company that offers its viewers a range of made-for-television mystery and romance movies. However, the channel’s most recognisable television output is the Hallmark Christmas movie, which has become a genre in and of itself. Typically set in small towns across New England, Hallmark’s America is always straight, mostly white, and until recently, almost entirely Christian. This paper explores the ways in which the everyday cinematic comforts of Christmas (think: hot chocolate, baking cookies, singing carols) animates affective attachments to an illusory “golden age”, particularly through the construction of a national fantasy that centres on the white, hetero-patriarchal family, traditional gender roles and heteronormative romance. Through an emphasis on the “authenticity” of small town life and a longing to return to traditional family values, these movies articulate shared affective resonances that shape Christmas as a site of restoration of the nation. Although mostly set in the United States, the Hallmark Channel is part of an international market of cable television, and distributes its media in over 30 different languages. As such, these movies constitute a global projection of American national identity that is increasingly informed by a Trumpian desire to preserve the heteropatriarchy of a white, Christian America.
