BLACKPOOL AND THE FYLDE COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP REVIEW 2021
Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie? A brief investigation into the application of genre Ashley Lister
Abstract Die Hard (1988) is the first in a series of American action films starring Bruce Willis. The story shows armed gunman taking control of the Nakatomi Towers whilst occupants of the building are engaged in Christmas festivities. Online discussion over the past few years has argued as to whether or not the film should be described as a Christmas movie. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that such genre labels are descriptive rather than prescriptive and to illustrate that the purpose of genre classification is often more important than the limits imposed by an arbitrary label.
Introduction Die Hard (1988) is the first film in an American action series that was adapted from Roderick Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever (1979). The film stars Bruce Willis, as off-duty police officer John McClane, trying to rescue his wife and other hostages held in the Nakatomi Plaza, a high-rise office building, after they have been caught there on Christmas Eve. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) is the resourceful master criminal pitting his wits against McClane. The genre of the film has come under a substantial amount of discussion as some argue that it is a Christmas movie, including the film’s writer, Steven E de Souza (Ainsworth, 2018), and the film’s Director, John McTiernan, who took some of his inspiration from the classic 1946 Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life (Cooper, 2020). Others say it is an action movie with events that merely take place at Christmas, and this is supported by an online survey that claims 62% of respondents say it is not a Christmas movie (Ainsworth, 2018). Perhaps the most telling aspect of this feature is, when ‘don‘t know’ votes are taken into account, only 25% of adult respondents described Die Hard as a Christmas Movie. Famously, during his Comedy Central roast (2018), Willis himself announced: “Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. It’s a god damn Bruce Willis movie!” The complexity of this issue of classification arises from two areas: the notion that genre is monolithic and the purpose of genre. To discuss the first of these areas, it seems somewhat reductive to ascribe any piece of fiction to a single genre. If we build on Todorov’s (1990:18) notion that genre consists of both the semantic and the syntactic, then we can immediately see there is a potential for two genre labels. For example, a typical heteronormative romance will have the syntactic structure of a heteronormative romance (boy meets girl and they fall in love; they’re parted; they get back together). However, if an author puts that story (with its syntactic structure of a romance)
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