I don’t know what they’re spiking the eggnog with over at Hallmark, but some of their new Christmas movies are breaking all the rules.

There are two ways to be subversive in storytelling. One way is to flat out lie to the audience. For example, there’s the trend of claiming that all white men are bad and have always been bad, or that all Christians are bad and have always been bad. These stories take us down the long established garden path, only to hit us over the head with a shovel to make a point. That’s not the reality we’ve ever known, but the story says it’s so.

It’s so tiresome.

The other way to be subversive is take a familiar formula and do something fresh and new with it. No one is attacked, or tricked, or talked down to. These stories remain true to the premise that the audience expects, but offers it in a unique way. No lies about reality required. Is there anything more formulaic than a Hallmark Christmas movie? Not really. Is there anything wrong with watching the same movie over and over again if it comforts and entertains us? Not at all.

But have you ever noticed how different the road looks on the way home, compared to the way there?

Our Holiday Story is like that. When Chris arrives at his new girlfriend’s house for Christmas before she does, he makes the mistake of asking her dad and step-mom, Dave and Nell, how they met. Their story is the primary focus, so it’s already established that they’ll get together. As if there would otherwise be any doubt (Hello, Hallmark Christmas movie!). Yet by drawing inspiration from the holiday classic The Shop Around the Corner we get to enjoy watching the characters squirm while they navigate the choppy waters of mid-life romance.

Bonus points for incorporating 2010’s technology in clever and organic ways.

Besides being formulaic, the other thing about these movies is that they’re wish-fulfillment fantasies for women. Santa Tell Me leans into that really, really hard, to the brink of self-parody. Olivia is the host of her own home reno show, and if that’s not the secret wish of many women, I don’t know what is. But her new Christmas special is turning out to be a big headache as she is forced to work with Chris, the director and producer of a rival program everyone hates (including Chris).

Naturally, they clash from the get-go

Just to raise the stakes, it’s decided that she’ll renovate her childhood home. Hidden in a heating vent is a letter to Santa she wrote as a little girl, which magically turns into a response promising her that she’ll meet Nick, the love of her life, by Christmas Eve. The next day she meets Nick A., Nick B., and Nick C. in alphabetical order (of course), and they’re all absurdly good looking and accomplished (of course). A is neurosurgeon who has saved lives all over the world. B. is a hunky carpenter. And C is a firefighter and calendar model. 

What’s a girl to do?

Well, despite three first dates that result in her sending all three suitors to the ER, she keeps going out with them after work. Santa sends the occasional update with cryptic clues and nudges, but we all know she’s going to end up with Chris (not just because both actors played lovers on When Calls the Heart). While it whimsically rides the line of too much, the movie never becomes insincere. We want Olivia to be happy and fulfilled. But we also have to admit that she’s kind of being a terrible person. When the three Nicks finally meet and start clobbering each other with squeaky candy canes on live TV, the ruse is up.

They call her out for leading them on. 

So there’s wish-fulfillment, but also consequences for bad actions. Everything absurd about this genre is dialed up to eleven, but we’re invited to be in on the joke and never laughed at for loving it. And the characters are endearing, warts and all. We already knew how it would end, but that’s okay. A story is like a dance, and when we know most of the steps we can move along with it and enjoy the variations. 

Want to tell subversive stories? Find creative ways to play with the form and leave the function (showing reality) alone. 

Anymore, it’s rare for me to get so pulled into a book that I forget to check social media. Just watching a movie is enough of a struggle, so for me to sit and read for hours is downright remarkable. But recently I was privileged to get my hands on an advance reading copy of Tenure by Blaine Pardoe and Mike Baron, and it turned out to be one of those rare experiences.

“Gripping” is an overused word on cover blurbs. This time, it’s appropriate.

This isn’t a book for everyone, as will become clearly apparent. It’s the story of Braxton Knox, an average guy who could be your neighbor. After an unremarkable stint in the military, he started a small family and found work as a philosophy professor at a school in Portland. He has an idea for a novel that he’ll probably never start, but only because he’s busy enjoying his simple, quiet, academic life.

Until he uses the wrong pronoun in the classroom.

A they/them student objects to being called “miss” so strongly that she torpedoes Knox’s academic career. Of course, she feels justified, seeing as he’s part of the patriarchy. When Knox refuses to apologize the university moves to fire him and the local ANTIFA mob targets his family with devastating results. What’s a man to do when he has nothing left to lose? He can curl up and die. He can try to work within the corrupt justice system.

Or he can extract pure justice.

Being the bigger bad guy comes at a cost, and Tenure doesn’t shy away from that. Knox doesn’t want to become a ruthless vigilante. Just, you know, an ethical vigilante with a personal vendetta. Pardoe and Baron make sure that he never loses his humanity or becomes psychotic, even as they allow him to justify some truly cold-blooded killings. Not that we’re inclined to quibble, as his targets are so brainwashed in their evil ideology that they’re beyond redemption and will only continue ruining and taking lives.

And taking a life is something that should never be done lightly.

We love a good revenge story. From The Count of Monte Cristo, to The Terminal List, to John Wick, there’s something cathartic in watching the villains get their due. What sets Tenure apart is that it feels like something that could happen in our own backyards. I’ve heard this book pitched as The Punisher vs the Woke, but if anything it’s Death Wish in suburbs. I almost wish it was more like a comic book and not so grounded in uncomfortable reality.

Not that Tenure is perfectly plausible.

Should this continue as a series, I could see Pardoe and Baron leaning into the story’s pulp influences and going bigger. If you still haven’t read The Spider VS. The Empire State, I highly encourage you to do so. By modern standards it’s wildly implausible, building to an epic crescendo. But both novels feature heroes gathering allies to fight against the human embodiment of the threats of their day. Even if that means going around the law, or the law turning a blind eye to their activities. 

And the groundwork has been laid.

Without getting into major spoilers, by the end Knox has a major financial warchest and a mysterious benefactor. If they want to, the authors could slowly raise the stakes until, like The Spider, Knox is leading a major war on US soil. If not, should they hold closer to reality, that’s fine too. There’s enough variety in the action and themes in this story to prove that they have no shortage of ideas to explore with other victims of the woke mob in other cities. 

However…

Unlike Andrew Klavan’s A Woman Underground, which deals in similar themes but in a more literary manner, Tenure won’t be as timeless. Like The Spider, in a few years it will be a dated pulp adventure, though still wildly entertaining. It will never not be entertaining indulging in a revenge fantasy where the wronged man gets payback. So don’t hesitate to add this to your library. It’s something I’ll definitely want to read again. 

It’s November, or as I’m calling it this year, Noir-vember, since I’ll be watching as many noir films as possible. What makes a story noir are the tropes. Yes, traditionally it means a movie with dark shadows that reflect the darkness that dwells in the human heart. But it’s come to mean a sort of crime story with morality and immorality in stark contrast.

Be sure that your sin will find you out.

With our daily darkness increasing and the inevitable crimes that will surround our electoral process, November is the perfect time to indulge in these sorts of stories. This niche genre may be able to offer some perspective and sooth our nerves as we head into this chaotic season and ground us. As much as noir delves into the gray areas of life, more often than not it holds up true truths. With as many lies as we’re subjected to in an election season, truth is a breathe of fresh air.

Even if it reeks of bourbon and cigarettes.

The hero of a noir is usually a bad man with a moral code. He has to be bad to survive effectively in an evil world, yet there are lines which he will not cross. Think of Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, for example. He dallies with his partner’s wife and skirts the law. If he wanted to, he could hold the stuff the dreams are made of, and I don’t mean the Black Bird. But ultimately, he has to do what’s right and turn the killer over to the authorities, even though he’s come to love her. 

We may not like him, but we respect him.

Lying is wrong. Adultery is wrong. Stealing is wrong. But murder is untenable, an affront not just to a single person but to the entire community. A human life is gone, and the lives of everyone who knew the victim will never be the same for the lack of his or her unique presence. It’s why Spade can’t allow the murderer to go unpunished, and why Chinatown is so horrific. It why, in so many noirs, even though we want the killer to get away with it, he cannot.

But back to Sam Spade and detectives like him.

They get results because they know how to operate in their evil worlds without becoming evil themselves. Make no mistake, it doesn’t make them good. They’re corrupt, too, just with different standards. Anti-heroes like this remind me of Donald Trump, in a way. He lies. He’s committed adultery. He’s probably stolen things. He’s corrupt. Nevertheless, I believe there are lines he won’t cross, and I fear that he has to be a little bad to effectively operate in the evil world of Washington politics. 

I’m not voting for a pastor or head of my household. I’m voting for a president. 

It’s entirely possible that by the time the dust settles he’ll lose again. Maybe Kamala Harris, the femme fatale, will take the reins of government. The thing about femme fatales is that, while attractive at first, they’re poison and are usually being manipulated by someone even worse. In order to survive, we’ll have to decide to resist despair and maintain our moral clarity, lest we become like Edward G. Robinson’s character in Scarlet Street. 

Despair leads to desperation, and desperation leads to justification. 

And here’s where one of the misused phrases of the Right applies. “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” That idea tends to get used as a bludgeon to “own the libs,” when really it’s just a fact. The fact is that actions have consequences, the heart is deceitful above all things, but God determines the outcome. Whatever evil we or they justify, because our hearts tell us it’s right—just this once—reality will inevitably trounce fantasy. 

There will be consequences for evil actions. 

Maybe we won’t see it here and now, living in Chinatown, but in Eternity all wrongs will be made right. 

Sometimes we have to vote for the anti-hero, but that doesn’t mean that need to be one. At least, not all the time.