Love Actually plays to many stereotypes about Britishness

This article was originally published in December 2020.

Red London buses, the bumbling Brit and the over-zealous American, and endless messages of goodwill and cheer: Christmas movies are often guilty of presenting a very one-note image of the festive period.

In fact, the genre is so rigidly defined, throngs of people light up social media each year to argue how Die Hard cannot possibly a Christmas film, even though it’s set at Christmas – presumably because it isn’t filled with festive clichés.

Perhaps audiences have Hollywood to blame for establishing a genre that feels like it relies so heavily on stereotypes.

“It’s funny rewatching a couple of Christmas films and reminding myself about them,” says Isibeal Ballance, the TV producer who worked with writer-director Mark Gatiss on subversive Christmas drama The Dead Room.

“The characters are always stereotypical. More so than any other time of year, these films lack nuance and get straight down to the point – the story of a character’s redemption.”

Hugh Grant played a fictitious prime minister in Love Actually

Whether Love Actually, Miracle On 34th Street, The Holiday or even Scrooge, characters in the most famous Christmas films appear to play into Isibeal’s argument

Over here in the UK, we’re often awkward, miserable or earnest, and over in the States, hugely vivacious, positive........

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