30 Feminist Christmas Movies, Ranked
By Emily Scott
The Family Stone, Image via 20th Century Fox
The Family Stone
When Meredith decides to spend the Christmas holiday with the family of her boyfriend Everett, she soon discovers that she and its members have a stark contrast in personality. Meredith is a powerful executive who is rather straight-laced, whereas Everett’s family has a liberal, bohemian vibe. The seemingly standard plot becomes complicated when Meredith asks her sister Julie to come, in order to have a touchstone. From there, secrets come out, romantic feelings shift, and the members of the family spend Christmas discovering what they truly want.
The Good
- The women that are represented in this movie are very different in terms of personality, which is nice. Meredith, Julie, Amy, and Sybil all have different places on the spectrums of bohemia, necessity of control, anxiety, stubbornness, and compassion. It’s cool to see such a varied swath of women’s personalities represented in the same movie, and not just to contrast one against the other (though that happens sometimes, too).
The Bad
- Everett has been dating Meredith for long enough that she has reason to believe he’s going to propose to her. But despite that, it takes a couple of days of knowing Meredith’s sister Julie for Everett to decide he’s rather be with her. But it’s portrayed as all being okay, because Meredith ends up with Ben, Everett’s brother. Sure, let’s just trade around these women like their Pokémon cards. Cool.
The Ugly
- Hey, look at that! Everyone is paired up as straight, white, traditional couples at the end! Isn’t that…heteronormative.
- (Okay, there’s one gay couple, and one of the men is black. But they really have nothing to do with the plot. The extraneous nature of their characters makes it feel like they are only there to fill a quota.)