After having bravely
made America safe for Christians, Kirk Cameron’s newest movie, Saving Christmas, similarly promises to rescue the Christian holiday for Christians, delivering it from the continued terrorist assault by euphemisms. “Do you ever feel like Christmas has been hijacked by all the commercialism, and those who want to replace ‘Merry Christmas’ with ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Seasons Greetings’-whatever that means?” Cameron says. He remains baffled by these crazy atheist codes for wishing you happy holy days and seasonal hellos without specifically invoking Jesus-all while decrying commercialism, in the opening line of a trailer advertising a Christmas movie he wants you to pay to see.
“Some want to pull down every manger scene and tell us why all of our favorite traditions are wrong. Isn’t it time somebody spoke up?” Cameron continues of these roving bands of Christmas naysayers, wielding their hammers and facts. And verily, that time is now, as at last, someone finally has the guts to tell us about the true meaning of Christmas.
[video at source]
As Cameron explains to
Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, Saving Christmas is a scripted story concerning a “typical Christian white male” that Cameron has named “Christian White”-because, again, he hates euphemisms. The film finds Christian experiencing “a bad case of religious bah humbugs,” to reference one work of Christmas commercialism that has all but ruined it, and in turn he is “deflating his wife’s entire Christmas party, because he has come to believe that everything we’re doing at Christmas to celebrate is wrong.” Is there anyone out there who can convince this typical Christian white male to have confidence in his beliefs?
More than up to the challenge is Kirk Cameron, who sits in for God as co-pilot while Christian sits in his car complaining, and helps steer Christian back toward the faith-party by using historical reenactments and the sort of eloquent, tautological rhetoric he’s known for. “I know you love Christmas, and you want this to be all about what it’s all about,” says Cameron, in the same preview where he just mocked the meaninglessness of the phrase “happy holidays.”
Absolutely spoiling whether Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas does, in fact, find Kirk Cameron saving Christmas, the trailer shows Christian running back to the house party with a renewed appreciation for its deeply religious meaning, just in time for an epic dance-off for Baby Jesus. Even Cameron pops-and-locks-an ’80s fad that’s all about stiffly adhering to one rigorously fixed course of action, seen here performing a dance move.
Still, as Cameron explains to The Blaze, the real dance-off here is the one between Christians and atheists, who have for too long totally “diminished” the holiday by suggesting that maybe Christians shouldn’t put nativity scenes everywhere. “[It is] offensive to 90 percent of people in our country who want to see nativity scenes and who know the birth of the Christ child is the fundamental root of Christianity, which is the ideology that built this country,” Cameron says, boldly speaking up for this oppressed majority.
And what’s more, they’re threatening all the Christmas fruit! “It’s obvious that there is a deliberate attempt to snuff out the holy root that has produced all this wonderful Christmas-time fruit,”
fruit pastor Kirk Cameron says of the atheists’ mission to kill Jesus and all the delicious figs that grow out of him.
But not anymore. Cameron is now on the attack-as summed up in the movie’s poster, which finds Kirk Cameron wielding a giant candy cane against a tornado of Christmas trees, credit cards, and $100 bills, as he ferries a nativity scene snowglobe to safety. Indeed, what better visual representation of this ongoing war to restore meaning to the holiday?
A.V. Club