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Violent Christmas Television

Christmas Violence

Viewers of the streaming film Mary (2024) starring Anthony Hopkins as Herod may be surprised to discover how sadistic Herod was, or that Mary was once a startlingly beautiful young woman who looks very much like Israeli model Noa Cohen, a fine young actor. But those familiar with the Biblical story of "Christmas" - the birth of Jesus - will know that, along with the myrrh, frankincense and gold, and the bright star, comes the most violent and cruel moment (arguably) of the entire Bible, when Herod orders the slaughter of hundreds, maybe thousands, of young children, to try and destroy the risk of a new king entering the world to topple his earthly dominion. The horrible irony, we know, is that Baby Jesus is not coming to take over in that way, and the murders are not only evil, but not even politically required. They simply typify Herod's monstrous wickedness.

The Virgin Mary depicted in Christmas Drama


It is therefore a curious thing to reflect on the number of demonstrably violent TV shows currently appearing this "Christmas season" - along with, it must be admitted - an endless supply of pleasant, peaceful, and romantic comedies centred on Christmas - king among them Hot Frosty (which even so has police in it). TV executives can point out no one need watch The Jackal, Black Doves, The Agency, Cross, The Madness - to only name five currently-running shows, whose themes all include tensions between love and killing - and feature, in order, a sociopathic hit man, the friendship between a spy and her hitman friend, a spy and his murderous mission, a cop hunting a sadistic serial killer, and a conspiracy theory show about Neo-Nazis trying to kill a Black American TV reporter whose first episode has one of the most grisly crime scenes possible. Ho ho ho? No.

This is not to include recently-released exceptionally dark films on TV like Don't Move - whose plot description is so triggering it's impossible to write it here without offending or harming someone maybe.

Violence is central to story-telling and drama - as, see above - in The Bible. The greatest patriarchal "gift" to mankind is the "ancient Greek" concept of Catharsis, which, to simplify, requires violent drama and conflict to occur, in order to create a work of literature - a play that "works". When TS Eliot and others claim Hamlet does not "work" they mean, precisely, where does the Catharsis occur, and how, and when and why... in other words, does its dramatic conflict make sense? If you don't kill your father or sleep with your mother, as in Oedipus Rex, you get Hamlet, which is obviously a gloss on Sophocles, wherein Shakespeare asks, what happens to tragic drama if you defer/delay the patricide/incest as much as possible, or keep it simply in mind, not action?

Prince or Rex?


Violence also now seems central to the drama and story-telling that is Christmastime. "Dark Christmas" is now even a theme on the BBC's The Archers - itself a weirdly violent world. Then again, the real world is so violent and volatile, art needs to keep up. Black Doves decides to reflect this literally - by setting the 6 ultra-violent episodes (in one scene 17 people are shot dead) in a world of endless Christmas trees and lights. It is beautiful and twisted. This is in the tradition of violent Christmas films like Die Hard and Home Alone - two of the biggest films of all time. Black Doves, with its two word title, is echoing those films, as well as its 5 other key precursors: The Krays, Red Sparrow, Love, Actually, Pulp Fiction, and John Wick. If you fed AI those 7 precursor films, Black Doves would spool out. Try it.

Dickens made Christmas a bit dark, of course, by discussing nightmares, ghosts, evil behaviour, horror, and terrible poverty. He perhaps can be said to have introduced the key structural idea of the dark Christmas story - that so long as it ends with a moment of gathering, feasting, and candle-lit celebration, with love and goodwill, then all the evil coming beforehand, all the terror, is justified, dramatically - in other words, Christmas Dramas are tragedies that turn into comedies - they start with terrible violence (Herod) and end with kneeling wise men in a loving manger scene. They are a genre that keeps on giving.

The Christmas Drama Structure Demands The Celebratory Ending


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Post Scriptum (So too is the Easter Drama a tragic-comedy - with shocking transgression ending in the happiest of conclusions - triumph over death. Indeed, no heroic journey is any good that doesn't include an escape from death.)





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