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Inside Out

The hallmark of a small town

Jeanne Sager
Posted 11/29/22

Hallmark Christmas movies. They're silly and syrupy and absolutely everywhere right now.  

They're predictable with the guarantee that there will certainly be a big city girl who heads back …

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Inside Out

The hallmark of a small town

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Hallmark Christmas movies. They're silly and syrupy and absolutely everywhere right now. 

They're predictable with the guarantee that there will certainly be a big city girl who heads back to her small town for the holidays only to meet a small town boy who starts out as her complete nemesis but will soon be revealed as her true love. The protagonists will almost certainly be white, almost all will be straight, and there will be a lot of sweaters. So. Many. Sweaters. 

They also present so many questions: Who goes home for a month during the holidays? Is her boss letting her work remotely? How does no one else seem to actually have to work? 

How can one small town possibly support so many gift shops that sell exactly 3 things each?

And finally, this year perhaps more than ever before, they present a lightning rod for small town hate to bubble up. 

We haven't even hit December 1 yet, and I've already seen memes insisting Hallmark movie heroines need to find out if that small town boy was at the Capitol riots — even though real rioters hailed from such urban locales as New York City, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles in addition to small towns —  and countless comments about the city woman surely being a workaholic in comparison to the (apparently) lazy country guy. 

There has also been a string of social media posts alluding to all the things the country folks in the Hallmark holiday movies just don't know about cities, as if we have grown up completely unaware of a world outside our own. 

News flash: I live in the country. I was in a big city on Saturday. 

We have cars here in the country, and we know how to use them. 

So go ahead, and call out Hallmark Christmas movies for all they are: Schlocky, corny, and lacking in diversity. But let's remember they don't represent the reality of small towns any more than they do the reality of the big cities. 

And those insurrectionists who tried to topple the government? They're hiding in the big cities too. 

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