Terrifying Implications Of The Netflix Christmas Multiverse
Welcome to Belgravia. Or Aldovia. Or Monetenaro. Or…where are we? We’re in a vaguely Eastern European country based loosely off of pre-Balkanized Yugoslavia. We continue to be ruled by a hereditary monarch despite being well into the 21st century. The towns are populated by J. Crew catalog models who sing carols and dance around us, infecting us with a false warmth not unlike the final stages of hypothermia. We might be confused or scared in a moment like this, but a playful, meandering flute soundtrack assures us that this is good.
We are entering Netflix Christmas Multiverse.
The Netflix Christmas Movie
Christmas romcoms have existed forever, but Netflix has injected the genre with new life. Following the viral success of A Christmas Prince in 2017, Netflix did what any sensible business would do and immediately signed contracts to make six hundred more. That’s an exaggeration, but barely. These movies are produced constantly because they know people will watch them. It doesn’t matter how kitschy and derivative they are because they make us feel good, and when the temperature dips and days get shorter that’s what many people need. The NCM is cinematic comfort food.
Part of the appeal is their simple, universal stories that neatly follow the conventions of romantic comedy: boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again. The cast is attractive, but intimidatingly so. You can count on one fairly good performance by an actor whose spirit has not yet been ground to dust by the Hollywood studio system. The movies are hyper-chaste so they can be enjoyed by all ages. When a joke is made it’s usually explained immediately afterward so, even if the punchline is ruined, at least no one feels left out. After all, it’s Christmas!
I say “Christmas Multiverse” and not “Cinematic Universe” because, well, something happened in the The Princess Switch. Something which I am still mentally and emotionally processing. There is a moment in which one of Vanessa Hudgens’s characters, the Duchess of Montenaro, sits down and watches A Christmas Prince. Perhaps they were aiming for a coy bit of cross-promotion, or giving existing fans a virtual high-five through the screen. It certainly worked on me. Vanessa Hudgens loves A Christmas Prince, I thought. I love A Christmas Prince. By the transitive property, I am Vanessa Hudgens. Neat!
Did we just tear a hole in the fabric of the universe?
Besides fundamentally linking the Netflix Christmas movies across space and time, this sort of nudge-nudge-wink-wink self-referentiality has a secondary effect of making me question the truth and reconsider the facts of the other NCM movies. If movies and stories obscure harsh truths about the world, what are these movies obscuring?
Something’s Rotten in the State of Aldovia
Consider the world of A Christmas Prince, which takes place in the fictional land of Aldovia. Although the main plot is the romance between plucky reporter Amber and the soon-to-be-king Prince Richard, there is a political plot that runs in parallel. Following the death of Richard’s father, his incestuous, Hapsburg-chinned cousins are vying to steal his seat on the throne. This would be a relatively fruitless pursuit in a modern country where constitutions exist and monarchs are purely ceremonial figures, but as we are to learn, Aldovia is not a modern country.
I could kill you right now, if I wanted to.
The royal family may be aesthetically modelled after the Windsors, but it is politically modelled after a Chechen warlord. The previous King unilaterally amended the constitution on his deathbed to allow Richard, who is revealed to be adopted, to take his place as King. The scheming cousins are promptly banished from the realm, Richard proposes to Amber, and we are supposed to believe that all in the world is exactly as it should be. But no amount of sparkly Christmas lights and violin crescendos can make me forget that in the Palace basement there is probably a cartoonist being waterboarded to death because he drew a picture of Prince Richard shitting into a diaper.
A Christmas Prince: Royal Wedding builds out the political context of Aldovia and as the image gets clearer it grows even more frightening. Aldovia is revealed to be a poor, provincial country with massive unemployment and infrastructure in desperate need of renovation. The reforms which King Richard implemented are failing dramatically. Economic discontent provokes a nationwide general strike after the crown fails to pay the labor for its public works projects. The looming strike is a central element to the plot, and also the impetus of one of the most accidentally hilarious lines in recent streaming history.
Tough break, kiddo.
Is this really the lighthearted escapist fare we’ve learned to love? Or is this subtle propaganda meant to make authoritarianism more palatable by associating trade unions with sick, crying children?
Time and Tiaras Are Both Flat Circles
The powers that be in The Princess Switch are more abstract, but the implications are just as fatalistic. Yes, there is a royal family ruling over a fictional state ending in “-via”. Yes, the Prince looks like you digitally averaged the faces of every leading man from 2002-2009. Yes, there is a female protagonist with between one and three personality traits. But the dark traits of the multiverse don’t manifest themselves in the royal family, but in a single, inexplicably magical being.
The plot itself is straightforward and shows echoes of the other Prince movies. Stacy DeNovo travels with her friend and business partner Kevin to take part in an international baking competition in Belgravia. Judging the competition will be Prince Edward, who is engaged to be married to Duchess Margaret of Montenaro. Stacy looks identical to Margaret, who after meeting her at the baking competition persuades her to switch places for a few days so she can experience what it’s like to be “normal” before relinquishing herself to a life of royal duties. Stacy falls in love with Edward, Margaret falls in love with Kevin, and standard romcom hijinks ensue.
However, the machinations of the plot are driven entirely by a single old man who appears repeatedly without any explanation. He is there at the beginning as a beggar on the street, urging Stacy to enter the Belgravian baking competition and setting the story in motion. When they arrive, he appears again as a merchant, advising Stacy to visit the Palace where she meets and soon switches places with Duchess Margaret. Finally, he appears towards the end as a gardener who convinces the Queen that perhaps Stacy, though not of royal blood, would make a good Princess after all.
I’ve seen whole planets die, you know.
He is given no name, but I know him: He is Atropos, Clotho, Lachesis. He is Fate itself, except with a cute little newsboy hat and busy eyebrows. The magic man represents the small illuminati-like cabal of people controlling our fates. Their motivations cannot be understood, and their power is beyond comprehension. If they stop in your bakery and decide they like your strudel, they might make you the leader of a banana republic.
The final scene, naturally, is Stacy and Edward’s wedding. People cheer as the bouquet leaves Stacy’s hands, flies through the air, and into the lap of a smiling Duchess Margaret. All the while the magic man stands hidden in the background. He has ensured the cycle will continue for another film.
In Conclusion: Mind-Numbing Fun For The Whole Family
I wonder why we watch these movies. Is it because, on some level, we are powerlessness in the world so we would rather think of our lives being in the hands of handsome princes and kindly old men than faceless bureaucrats and heartless corporations? I cannot answer this with certainty.
But I can tell you this:
Next year, Netflix will release The Tinsel Rift, a love story set in the war-torn country of Petruvia. There is a temporary truce in the civil war when the generalissimo of the crown loyalists falls in love with a volunteering nurse from Philadelphia. They marry, and then celebrate by killing every fox on the Island. Strong hints are made about a sequel. The war resumes shortly after.
They will release The Duchess’ Gift, then The Baker’s Kiss, then The Sleigh Bell Myth. Each one of these movies will be almost exactly the same, but I will watch every last one and drink eggnog while my brain melts. Because Winter is tiresome, gosh darn it. And Christmas I just want to sit on the couch, ignore the subtext, and feel good.
What are your thoughts on the Netflix Christmas original movies?
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