Unplugging Your Brain for the Sake of Mental Wellness
From a film enthusiast standpoint, Hallmark movies are objectively terrible, and yet they’re always wildly successful with large audiences. Every year, our streaming platforms get flooded with “new” unoriginal content, all of which is in this 60-minute, feel-good format where protagonists fall in love, overcome the odds, and have a happy ending just in time for Christmas. With such a predictable screenplay and plotless storytelling, you’d think that these movies would never see any screen time, but people are obsessed with these brain-rotting Hallmark-branded tales. People have enough uncertainty and drama here in the real world, so when they want to unplug their brains, they can happily self-lobotomize for an hour, watching, in this writer’s opinion, some of the worst acting known to mankind, to forget the woes and tribulations of reality.
We’re on overload constantly and it seems like the only way to properly turn our brains off and get a moment of peace is with mind-numbing content. As a reward for our hard work, we gobble up our comforts—no matter how silly or benign—because we’ve earned it. The world is overstimulating, scary, and intensely unpredictable, so there’s something about leaving the mayhem behind and moving on to a universe where things always “go right” that we can’t resist. Wouldn’t it be nice if everything was simple and worked out in the end? So, with a reality that has CEOs getting whacked, unidentified drones in the sky, and that nagging microplastic floating around in our bloodstream, it’s a relief to escape into the near-perfect construct that these Hallmark holiday films provide.
Bill Abbott, the former CEO of the Hallmark Channel, claimed that their focus is on, “creating an experience where you can turn the TV on; feel comfortable; and cook, decorate, or do something holiday related and that puts you in the spirit.” Hallmark movies are humanity’s Christmas-clad spirit guide into the brain-reset realm. As I see it, our minds may be melting at the pathetically undercalculated plotholes, the terrible line delivery, and formulaic endings, but it’s a much-needed reprise from reality.
Ignorance is Bliss
Cinema is no stranger to escapist content. During the 1930s and 1940s, amidst World Wars and economic collapse, Hollywood found a spot of humor where folks could escape their bleak reality. His Girl Friday, acclaimed as one of the first and most beloved screwball comedies of the 40s, trailblazed a new genre much like the classic RomCom. Daniel Allen, a film critic with Cinematic Sense, deems the transition in the 30s and 40s towards romantic comedies to be a critical moment in film history. And much like Hallmark movies nowadays, he says, “His Girl Friday is not an unpredictable film; the screwball comedy set-up means we know that we’ll get a series of increasingly absurd encounters… until the man and woman get together.”
Reality TV has a similar purpose on our streaming platforms. Some of us just turn the TV on to fill the house with voices instead of silence. On top of that, petty squabbles, spectator-worthy drama, and seemingly mindless matters dissociate viewers from their own lives. This disconnect allows audiences to temporarily placate themselves in a healthy way, tuning out the noise of the news and the stress of daily life.
Hallmark movies, especially during the holiday season, offer this same ignorant bliss, giving everyone a backdoor escape from real-life family dinner dramas, nagging in-laws, bank account-draining gift-giving, and holiday road rage. Because sometimes, turning the TV on allows us to finally turn the brain off, making Hallmark Channel movies so darn popular, particularly during the holidays. “The number of films produced each year has more than quadrupled since 2009, when Hallmark had nine Christmas movies [annually],” Amy Danise, a journalist for Forbes, says. “The total has risen every year since then, as audiences showed an insatiable appetite for the films.” The widespread popularity of Hallmark movies is unmatched and it seems that the channel’s output has no signs of slowing down.
Sarina Thomas, a blogger and avid fan of Hallmark movies herself states, “Happy endings are our weakness [and] Hallmark movies are popular because they guarantee you happiness and hope.” Like any other “trash TV” which allows audiences to dissociate from reality, these “feel-good” flicks help viewers experience happy endings that they may never see in real life. So although they’re supremely silly, a little cringe, and kind of kitschy, Hallmark movies hold their own as a genre, gracing our screens with the background noise of sleigh bells, freshly fallen slow, and the carefree love stories told around the fireplace.
Guilty Pleasure
Hallmark movies may be traditionally “bad” cinema in the film buff world, but for certain needed vibes, they’re the perfect movie for your holiday. We choose our daily entertainment to tickle whatever fancy suits us that day, so if you’re run down by the darkness of reality, it only makes sense to brighten the room with a little fantasy and a lot of serendipitous holiday magic. Besides, as the Science Survey reporter, Katrina Tablang, says, “Amid the chaos [of Christmas], it is often all too easy to lose sight of what makes the holidays a festive time… [That’s] why Hallmark movies, with their formulaic, feel-good plots, are in high demand during the holiday season.” Nobody turns on a Hallmark movie to experience the wonders of cinematic storytelling, they turn on a Hallmark movie to feel good—it’s as simple as that.
So when your personal life and work life are dangling out of balance, the only thing to do is kick back, unplug, and melt your mind to the placid tune of jingling sleighbells and generic, royalty-free soundtracks. And, honestly, I have a newfound respect for the Hallmark genre, because despite their elementary impression, those stories are the only ones with a guaranteed happy ending—and there’s something really magical about that, especially for Christmas.
