If you’ve ever clicked on the Hallmark Channel in December, you’ve likely spotted a trend: a successful, usually white, career woman returns to a small town and falls for a local guy, leaving her hectic city life behind for love. Often lawyers and CEOs, these women have spent their entire lives working toward establishing their careers and lifestyles. However, in many Hallmark Christmas movies, this type of female ambition is portrayed as unnecessary.
The plot twists are predictable, and the romance is ridiculously over-the-top, but it makes these films fun to watch in a comforting way. Although, many of these storylines end up showing women with love as their ultimate life goal. While romance can be a source of fulfillment, these movies present it as a vital need for female characters, removing room for independence or personal ambition.
These narratives are displayed best in Hallmark films such as A Castle for Christmas (2021), Christmas at Graceland (2018), and Falling for Christmas (2022). In these movies, fate or work duties send the main character home to their small town. The woman initially dislikes the local love interest, who embodies “small-town values,” but soon falls for him. By the end, her career seems meaningless compared to the fulfilling and peaceful life she finds with him.
A number of non-hallmark movies also perfectly fit this pattern. In A Christmas Prince (Netflix, 2017), Amber, a New York journalist, heads to a castle to expose a prince, but is overcome by love and quits her job to be with him. Similarly, in The Princess Switch (Netflix, 2018), Stacy, a Chicago baker, switches places with a duchess and falls in love with a prince in three days, completely turning her life around.
The directors also tend to make the male lead the true hero. Leading more humble lives as teachers or public servants, they are a model of sacrifice and honor, devoted to his family and community. In A Christmas Detour (2015), for example, the male lead is a small-town pilot whose simple life is framed as admirable compared to the woman’s hectic, corporate lifestyle.
Cinema is such a unique and powerful art form that allows for the storytelling of values and cultures. Watching these films can be reassuring and make us feel good: the snow-filled streets, the warm cafes, and cozy happy ever afters relax us and provide some reassurance about our own lives. But the common storyline that women must put love ahead of ambition perpetuates outdated ideas about gender roles. Though these holiday movies are still fun to watch, they also prove that there is a place for narratives that allow women to discover happiness and meaning and the Christmas spirit, on their own, without romance as the primary reason.