Network Sitcom Bucket List: 7 Decades of Great Comedies to Stream Over the Holidays

There’s something uniquely satisfying about prime-time network comedies. Maybe it’s their self-contained nature, with most story lines introduced and resolved within a single episode. Maybe it’s their brevity, each half-hour studded with commercial breaks long enough to visit the kitchen or bathroom. Maybe it’s the comfort of entertainment conceived to elicit laughter from the broadest possible range of viewers. More likely, it’s all of the above.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Which is why, although they’ve dwindled in number and declined in quality since cable and streaming started to erode Big 5 broadcasters’ dominance over the market for original scripted programming, network sitcoms’ absence has been felt amid a fall TV season delayed by strikes. And while the WGA and SAG-AFTRA have both ratified new agreements with the AMPTP, it could still take months for Hollywood to start cranking out television at its usual pace.

With that in mind—and with holiday travel and downtime on the horizon—I’ve put together a sort of bucket list of network sitcoms, spanning from I Love Lucy through the present. Here are some caveats: I’m only including shows that are currently available to stream (sorry, WKRP in Cincinnati and Murphy Brown). There’s no animation (sorry, Simpsons and King of the Hill) because, in my opinion, that’s a different format entirely; the same goes for hour-long dramedies (sorry, Freaks and Geeks). Finally, this list is not a popularity contest. I only included titles that I enjoy enough to recommend. (Do you even need me to tell you The Office and Modern Family are streaming?)

I Love Lucy (CBS, 1951-1957)

Streaming on: Paramount+, Pluto TV (2 seasons, with ads)

The series that essentially invented the TV sitcom, I Love Lucy broke ground with its depiction of an interracial marriage and extinguished an absurd taboo around visibly pregnant women appearing on screen. But the show isn’t just an important artifact. Seven decades later, Lucille Ball’s daffy wannabe star and Desi Arnaz’s long-suffering band leader are as funny as ever.

The Honeymooners (CBS, 1955-1956)

Streaming on: Pluto TV (with ads)

Jackie Gleason starred as the bellowing Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden, who’s forever berating his poor wife Alice (Audrey Meadows), in this pioneering working-class sitcom. Watch because Gleason’s hilariously irritable performance set the bar for TV comedy—and because it set an archetype that’s been with us ever since, from The Flintstones to The King of Queens.

The Addams Family (ABC, 1964-1966)

Streaming on: Roku Channel (with ads), Pluto TV (with ads), Freevee (with ads)

Among the supernatural farces that dominated the ’60s sitcom scene, from I Dream of Jeannie to Bewitched to The Munsters, none has endured like this family comedy adapted from Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons. A pair of cult-classic movies revived Gomez, Morticia, and the whole monstrous clan in the ’90s. And now that Netflix’s Wednesday is one of the biggest shows in the world, there’s no better time to introduce its young fans to the original series.  

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS, 1970-1977)

Streaming on: Hulu

As second-wave feminists stormed the academy and took to the streets, Mary Tyler Moore—fresh off a career-making role as a young stay-at-home mom on The Dick Van Dyke Show—brought a gentler vision of women’s lib to prime time. A single career girl building a life for herself in Minneapolis in the aftermath of a broken engagement, Moore’s Mary Richards became an avatar for any woman whose aspirations transcended the domestic realm. The show boasted an ideal ensemble, as well, with Ed Asner’s gruff newsman Lou Grant and Valerie Harper’s street-smart city girl Rhoda Morgenstern balancing out Mary’s Midwestern sweetness. 

All in the Family (CBS, 1971-1979)

Streaming on: Freevee (with ads), Pluto TV (with ads)

The late, great Norman Lear used the sitcoms he created, from Maude to One Day at a Time, to get people talking—and none started more conversations than his masterpiece, All in the Family. The quintessential ’70s comedy pitted Carroll O’Connor’s bigoted and belligerent patriarch Archie Bunker against a hippie generation represented by his daughter Gloria and her husband Mike, a.k.a. Meathead, as well as his upwardly mobile Black neighbors, the Jeffersons. (More on them below.) Five decades later, the show is an artifact of a time of great social change, when it was still possible for Americans to hash out their differences and change each other’s minds.

The Bob Newhart Show (CBS, 1972-1978)

Streaming on: Amazon

“I didn’t have a lot of demands,” Bob Newhart recalled in The Hollywood Reporter’s oral history of his classic comedy. “I just didn’t want the show to be where dad’s a dolt that everyone loves, who gets himself into a pickle and then the wife and kids huddle together to get him out of it.” Instead, the sophisticated sitcom cast the stand-up as an unassuming psychologist driven to distraction by the eccentrics around him, both in and out of the office. His follow-up, Newhart, is also streaming and also worth your time.   

M*A*S*H (CBS, 1972-1983)

Streaming on: Hulu

As the U.S. fought an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam, Americans flocked to this sharp satire set at a Korean War field hospital where surgeons took on the Sisyphean task of healing troops who’d return directly to the front lines as cannon fodder. One of the most popular series of its time—famously, over 100 million people tuned in to the finale—it was also unusually dark for a sitcom. As M*A*S*H star Alan Alda, explained decades later, “the night before we started rehearsing the pilot, I wanted us all to agree that we wouldn’t just have high jinks at the front. That it would take seriously what these people were going through. The wounded, the dead.” 

Sanford and Son (NBC, 1972-1977)

Streaming on: Peacock, Pluto TV (2 seasons, with ads)

When Norman Lear and collaborator Bud Yorkin caught Redd Foxx’s stand-up set in Las Vegas, they knew they had to work with him—that is, if they could get him to tone down his notoriously profane comedy for TV. The opportunity to do so came in the form of Sanford and Son, an adaptation of a British comedy that played Foxx’s cranky shyster Fred Sanford off of his responsible, ingenuous son and junk-shop business partner, Lamont (Demond Wilson). A sitcom about a Black family created by two white men, the show’s legacy is complicated. But it changed the Caucasian face of early-’70s prime time. And, of course, Foxx was uproarious in it. 

Happy Days (ABC, 1974-1984)

Streaming on: Amazon (10 seasons), Paramount+ (1 season)

I’m not saying you have to watch all of this long-running teen comedy that capitalized on older boomers’ nostalgia for their ’50s childhoods. It is, after all, the show whose descent into inanity inspired the expression “jumping the shark.” But to fully comprehend such quintessentially American phenomena as the teenager, Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” music video, and national treasure Henry Winkler, you’ve got to at least acquaint yourself with Happy Days.

The Jeffersons (CBS, 1975-1988)

Streaming on: Amazon (9 seasons), Pluto TV (2 seasons)

Created, in part, as a response to critics of Sanford and Sons and another Lear hit, Good Times, who complained that TV failed to depict prosperous African Americans, The Jeffersons followed Archie Bunker’s neighbors George and Weezy from working-class Queens to the Upper East Side. Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford’s performances as the eponymous couple are iconic, and the series’ perceptive portrait of a wealthy Black family paved the way for standout comedies from The Cosby Show (which is no longer streaming, for obvious reasons) to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Black-ish.

Taxi (ABC, 1978-1982; NBC, 1982-1983)

Streaming on: Paramount+, Pluto TV (with ads), Freevee (with ads) 

This Emmy-magnet sitcom set at a Manhattan taxi garage thrived on the energy of its excellent cast. Judd Hirsch, Tony Danza, Marilu Henner, Jeff Conaway, and Christopher Lloyd played cabbies with big dreams. Danny DeVito was their slimy dispatcher. Andy Kaufman filled the wildcard role as an eccentric car mechanic from a generic foreign land—and, in the show’s final years, Carol Kane joined the troupe as his countrywoman and eventual wife. Kaufman’s Latka hasn’t aged especially well as a depiction of New York’s immigrant population, but the comedian’s Chaplin-esque physical humor will still make you laugh.

Cheers (NBC, 1982-1993)

Streaming on: Paramount+, Hulu (4 seasons)

Quite possibly the greatest sitcom of all time, Cheers had everything: charismatic leads, spiky supporting actors, the best will-they-or-won’t-they in the history of TV, and an endlessly flexible setting in which anyone could—and often did—walk in and take any episode in an unexpected direction. The cast achieved perfect comedic chemistry. And even though it morphed into something new once Kirstie Alley replaced Shelley Long, the show remained solid for nearly its entire 11-season run. 

The Golden Girls (NBC, 1985-1992)

Streaming on: Hulu

A comfort-TV classic, this hangout comedy about four senior single ladies sharing a house in Miami revolutionized the way Americans viewed older women—and made its AARP-eligible cast into pop-cultural icons. Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty are all spectacular. And the show has aged remarkably well, with groundbreaking episodes that touched on then-controversial subjects like menopause, queerness, and HIV/AIDS.

Designing Women (CBS, 1986-1993)

Streaming on: Hulu, Amazon

Widely seen, in its day, as a sort of junior Golden Girls, this sitcom set at an Atlanta interior-design firm could just as easily have been titled Women Talking. For seven envelope-pushing seasons, the central quartet of women—and their ex-con delivery man turned partner (Meshach Taylor)—gathered at Sugarbaker & Associates’ tastefully appointed offices to sound off on the hot topics of the day. Jean Smart might be the cast’s biggest name in 2023, but Dixie Carter’s opinionated Julia Sugarbaker was a heroine for the ages, and Delta Burke, as Julia’s self-absorbed younger sister Suzanne, never failed to deliver scene-stealing comic relief. 

A Different World (NBC, 1987-1993)

Streaming on: Max

Regardless of how you feel about The Cosby Show’s disappearance from streaming, it’s an unequivocally good thing that this spin-off remains readily available. Originally the story of Denise Huxtable’s (Lisa Bonet) matriculation at her parents’ HBCU alma mater, the show shifted focus when a pregnant Bonet departed after Season 1, to spotlight Denise’s prim nemesis Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy) and, under the guidance of executive producer Debbie Allen, explore such timely issues as safe sex, intimate partner violence, and the L.A. riots.

Roseanne (ABC, 1988-1997)

Streaming on: Peacock

Roseanne Barr wasn’t always a right-wing gadfly with a penchant for racist tweets. Way back in the waning years of the 20th century, her classic sitcom about a rude but loving blue-collar family offered a rare depiction of working-class Americans pulling together to survive an economy stacked against them. As a bonus, it put John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf on our TVs every week. The abortive MAGA-era revival, though? That is a very different story.  

Seinfeld (NBC, 1989-1998)

Streaming on: Netflix

The “show about nothing,” as Jerry Seinfeld’s era-defining sitcom claimed to be, is really a show about everything—all the seemingly trivial conflicts and inconveniences that are the stuff of everyday life. Seinfeld played the dry, journeyman-comedian sounding board to a cast of narcissistic oddballs who have since become archetypes. Everyone knows a George Costanza or an Elaine Benes. And every New Yorker has, at least once, met a Cosmo Kramer.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (NBC, 1990-1996)

Streaming on: Hulu, Max, Paramount+ 

What began as a vehicle for a wholesome young rapper quickly became Will Smith’s ticket to the highest echelon of Hollywood stardom. And you can see why. Smith gives one of the era’s most charming performances as a street-wise Philly kid sent to live with his aunt and uncle’s straitlaced family in one of the toniest zip codes in the country. Also great: the late James Avery as Will’s fearsome but loving Uncle Phil.

Frasier (NBC, 1993-2004)

Streaming on: Hulu, Paramount+

Like so many iconic sitcoms of the ’90s, this wildly popular Cheers spinoff that situates effete psychiatrist and erstwhile barfly Frasier Crane as a Seattle radio host has returned to television. Unfortunately, this fall’s Paramount+ revival, which abandons most of the classic cast in favor of new characters who are pale imitations of their predecessors, is pretty awful. Best to revisit the original instead, which thrives on the chemistry and friction between such delightful personalities as Frasier’s splendidly snobby brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce); their no-nonsense ex-cop dad, Martin (the late John Mahoney); and Martin’s effervescent nurse, Daphne (Jane Leeves).

Living Single (Fox, 1993-1998)

Streaming on: Max

Before Friends, there was legendary producer Yvette Lee Bowser’s Living Single, a beloved hangout comedy that chronicled the lives of six young, Black professionals in a Brooklyn brownstone. Cool, smart, and blessed with an iconic cast including Queen Latifah, Kim Fields, and Erika Alexander, it was the rare show that cared as much about its female characters’ burgeoning careers (Latifah’s Khadijah runs her own magazine) as it did about their love lives.

The Nanny (CBS, 1993-1999)

Streaming on: Max

Yes, Fran Drescher was back in the spotlight this year as SAG-AFTRA’s firebrand president. But some of us have never forgotten her career-defining role as a chatty, gloriously nasal Flushing hairdresser who accidentally becomes the nanny to a trio of uptight uptown kids—and slowly wins the heart of their Broadway-producer dad. It’s class-conscious comedy delivered in the most lighthearted fashion, from the rarely represented perspective of a working-class Jewish bombshell.

Friends (NBC, 1994-2004)

Streaming on: Max

Truth be told, I don’t love Friends with the same passion as so many of my millennial peers. Ross and Rachel were truly no Sam and Diane. But the show about a coed clique in Manhattan has become an essential text of the ’90s, and like everyone else who grew up in that decade, I do love the ’90s. And in syndication, it remains a beacon amid linear TV schedules larded with game shows and infomercials.

Just Shoot Me! (NBC, 1997-2003)

Streaming on: Hulu, Pluto TV (2 seasons, with ads)

The unsung hero of NBC’s powerhouse ’90s Must See TV lineup, Just Shoot Me! cast the wonderful George Segal as the womanizing, old-school publisher of a fashion magazine, who hires his crusading daughter (Laura San Giacomo) after she sabotages her nascent career as a serious journalist. The show is, for better or worse, a relic of its postfeminist moment. But its sophisticated sendup of women’s media and a cast featuring Wendie Malick, Enrico Colantoni, David Spade, and Brian Posehn more than make up for the occasional groan-worthy joke.

The Bernie Mac Show (Fox, 2001-2006)

Streaming on: Amazon, Hulu 

A collaboration between celebrated stand-up Bernie Mac and creator Larry Wilmore, this Peabody-winning family sitcom cast Mac and Kellita Smith as a childless married couple who suddenly acquire three kids when Bernie’s sister checks into rehab. While our hero’s approach to child-rearing could be harsh, his heart was ultimately in the right place. And scenes that had Bernie narrating each episode’s story directly into the camera gave Mac, who would die tragically young just two years after the show wrapped, a chance to repurpose his popular act. 

Arrested Development (Fox, 2003-2006)

Streaming on: Netflix

Wait, you might ask, didn’t Netflix revive Arrested Development for a couple seasons in the 2010s? To which I would respond: Shhhh. Let’s pretend there were only ever three perfect seasons of Mitchell Hurwitz’s deeply weird, pioneeringly single-camera sitcom about a wealthy family thrown into crisis when its real-estate developer patriarch (Jeffrey Tambor) is sent to prison for his misdeeds. Bringing together Hollywood veterans, alt-comedy upstarts, and young newcomers who went on to become marquee stars, namely Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat, the show’s cast was one of the very best ever assembled under one dysfunctional roof.

30 Rock (NBC, 2006-2013)

Streaming on: Hulu, Peacock

Tina Fey left SNL to make this brilliantly wacky sitcom set amid the behind-the-scenes mayhem of a weekly sketch show. Fueled by the wonderfully nonsexual tension between Fey’s harried, quasi-feminist showrunner Liz Lemon and Alex Baldwin’s alpha-conservative network exec Jack Donaghy—and the self-absorbed antics of actors played by Jane Krakowski and Tracy Morgan—30 Rock careened from one high-concept joke and perfectly placed guest star to the next. In doing so, it ushered in a new era of quirky, referential, single-camera comedies on NBC.

Community (NBC, 2009-2014; Yahoo!, 2015)

Streaming on: Netflix

Even weirder and more pop-culture obsessed than 30 Rock, Dan Harmon’s shapeshifting comedy about a community-college study group remains one of network TV’s wildest bets. What began with Joel McHale’s shady lawyer character Jeff Winger going back to school after his firm realizes he never got his bachelor’s degree, quickly evolved into a surreal, self-referential cult classic complete with fully animated episodes, extended movie tributes, and a huge rotation of recurring characters. Remembered variously as a launchpad for Donald Glover, the originator of the perennially useful ”darkest timeline” concept, and, unfortunately, a minefield of abusive behavior on Harmon’s part, Community left an outsize footprint on the cultural landscape.

Parks and Recreation (NBC, 2009-2015)

Streaming on: Peacock

Perhaps the defining sitcom of the Obama era, Greg Daniels and Mike Schur’s paean to government bureaucrats feels a bit naive today. Still, it’s nice in small doses. Come for Amy Poehler as the compulsively competent Leslie Knope; stay for Leslie’s nerdy romance with Adam Scott, her life-affirming friendship with Rashida Jones, and career-making turns from Aubrey Plaza, Aziz Ansari, and Retta. The first season, which felt a bit too much like a clone of Daniels’ The Office, is skippable. 

Happy Endings (ABC, 2011-2013)

Streaming on: Hulu, Roku Channel (with ads)

Released at a transitional moment for network TV, Happy Endings never really got the rollout it deserved. Thankfully, the three-season hangout comedy about six friends in Chicago has seen its reputation grow by word-of-mouth in the decade since it was prematurely canceled. Anchored by Damon Wayans Jr., Casey Wilson, and Adam Pally, it’s reminiscent of a more energetic Friends, or perhaps How I Met Your Mother without the tiresome central conceit.

New Girl (Fox, 2011-2018)

Streaming on: Hulu, Peacock

Zooey Deschanel threatened to kill us with cuteness in early episodes of this roommate comedy that paired her “adorkable” schoolteacher alter ego Jess Day with a loft full of male strangers. But the show soon evolved into a genuine ensemble sitcom, throwing Jess into a sparky, on-again-off-again romance with gruff bartender Nick (Jake Johnson) and fleshing out great characters like Max Greenfield’s toxic but secretly tender bro Schmidt and Lamorne Morris’ sweet, aimless Winston. Prince loved the show so much, he made a guest appearance.

Black-ish (ABC, 2014-2022)

Streaming on: Disney+, Hulu

An upper-middle-class Black family became the vehicle for weekly discussions of race and class in America in this long-running hit created by Kenya Barris. Episodes on the “N-word,” police violence against the Black community, and both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections doubled as fodder for crucial multigenerational conversations. (Jenifer Lewis gives a particularly memorable performance as the spiky mother of Anthony Anderson’s Dre.) But the show also knew how to have fun, lightening the mood with family-friendly humor and adorable children. 

The Last Man on Earth (Fox, 2015-2018)

Streaming on: Hulu

Community might’ve been the most offbeat network sitcom of the 2010s, but The Last Man on Earth certainly gave it a run for its money. Will Forte played an average Joe who survives an apocalyptic pandemic (in the year 2020, no less), believes he’s the only human left on Earth, and is consequently losing his mind. Slowly but surely, a cast of equally damaged oddballs assembles, featuring the likes of Kristen Schaal, January Jones, and several of Forte’s fellow SNL alums. If you like dark-edged, philosophical comedy, you’re in for a treat.

Superstore (NBC, 2015-2021)

Streaming on: Hulu, Peacock

When it comes to sitcoms, the white-collar office has always been a more popular setting than lower-wage workplaces—which isn’t exactly representative of the real, contemporary labor market. Set at a big-box store in the Walmart mold, Justin Spitzer’s service-industry comedy provided a refreshing alternative to TV’s horde of pencil pushers. Framed by the relationship between America Ferrera’s hypercompetent single-mom character and a business-school dropout played by Ben Feldman, Superstore didn’t just spotlight workers from all walks of life; it rolled up its sleeves and tackled issues ranging from immigration to unions to COVID.

The Good Place (NBC, 2016-2020)

Streaming on: Netflix

OK, so it wasn’t the very last great sitcom on network TV. But it’s hard to imagine a Big 5 broadcaster greenlighting another show as imaginative and intelligent as this afterlife comedy from Mike Schur, which cast Kristen Bell as a recently deceased sinner who finds herself in what a supernatural being played by Ted Danson assures her is heaven. A combination quest narrative, rom-com, and disquisition into moral philosophy, The Good Place also made stars of a hilarious ensemble cast including William Jackson Harper, Manny Jacinto, and D’Arcy Carden.

Abbott Elementary (ABC, 2021-present)

Streaming on: Max, Hulu

Is there really only one still-airing title worthy of this list? Unfortunately, yes. Fortunately, Abbott Elementary embodies everything worth celebrating about the prototypical network sitcom. Quinta Brunson’s love letter to the overworked, underpaid teachers who populate an under-resourced Philadelphia public school is kindhearted, politically engaged, laugh-out-loud funny, packed with wonderful performances, and genuinely for everyone.

source https://time.com/6317734/best-network-sitcoms-ever/

Why I Still Believe in Santa Claus

Just prior to Christmas in 1823, a poem called “A Visit from St. Nicholas” appeared in the Troy Sentinel, sans attribution. The author, perhaps viewing this particular literary excursion as slumming it, was Clement Clarke Moore, who had hit upon the idea of a Christmas poem for the American masses the year prior when out riding in a sleigh.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

A respected academic, Moore regarded such verse below his intellectual station, and yet, he couldn’t help himself. The result: the one poem with which almost all Americans have some familiarity—and something rather better than that, too.

The poem is narrated by a man who gets out of bed and observes none other than Santa Claus himself coming down the chimney, putting out the presents, and even giving a signal before exiting back up the chimney with a touch of his nose. As I’m sure is the case for many, both the very idea of Christmas and the words of Moore’s poem—which is often erroneously billed as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”—seemed to enter my consciousness at the same time. What most struck me about the latter is also what impacts me the most about it all this time later.

We all reach a point when it’s made official to us that Santa is not real. But this makes me uneasy, and I refuse to vouchsafe that he isn’t.

What is Santa meant to be? Wish-granter? Present-bearer? If that’s what we think, Santa is a bit like Amazon, but with a sleigh and bells rather than one of those huge vans that make a swooshing sound when backing up.

Read more: The True History of St. Nicholas Is a Christmas Mystery

Clement Moore wasn’t the best guy. He was an anti-abolitionist for starters, which is well beyond “naughty.” But he made Santa real in a way that went beyond the physical, beyond gifts. What the narrator of the poem is rendered agog by is wonder. Mystery. Faith.

You know how people say, “That’s my president!” I say, “That’s my Santa.” He is a force of the imagination, of thinking of what we might do to make someone else happy, to show them that we care.

When I was a kid, I had this Pez dispenser that was purple with a skeleton head. I liked scary things. One day I lost it outside at a neighbor’s house. It started pouring. I came home and told my mom. She knew I was upset, so she got out the raincoats and we went back across the street and she helped me find it.

When I think about my mother and love, I think about that memory. I’m calling to mind a rainy September day, but that was a Santa-esque moment too. She cared, so she accepted that this silly object meant something to me and my imagination.

When we cease to believe in that which we cannot touch or see, we are not as human as we might be. We’re diminished. The Santa of Moore’s poem transcends the space of one’s chimney and one’s childhood.

I’ve repeatedly been told that this is likely the last year that my 10-year-old nephew will “believe.” We say it that way, right? As if the concept of belief itself has come to a close.

I didn’t believe for a while. Ironically, as life got harder and lonelier, I began to believe again, in a manner beyond the scope of making a list and putting it in the mailbox with extra postage for the North Pole.

Is a theme not real because it doesn’t have a first and last name? Is selflessness not real because it’s rare? Is the love you had for someone not real because they’re gone?

Read more: After My Parents Died, I Lost the Christmas Spirit. Now It’s Slowly Coming Back

Santa Claus is a spirit of hope. We’re often not very good to each other, are we? The narrator of Moore’s poem experienced, as if by a vision, a potent reminder that he could be good to people, and selfless.

The poem is less about what he sees than what he believes. And belief always starts with what we allow ourselves to be open to.

I will always be open to the realness of Santa Claus. Sometimes I read this poem to confirm what I already know, and other times I merely look within myself to find Santa Claus and all he represents.

He couldn’t be more real to me than if I looked up into the sky and there he was. May he be so for you, too.

source https://time.com/6550194/night-before-christmas-santa-claus-believe/

U.N. Criticized Over ‘Watered-Down’ Resolution That Fails to Call For Gaza Ceasefire

Global organizations trying to help people starving in Gaza have criticized the U.N. Security Council resolution that called for more humanitarian aid without demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war to facilitate its delivery.

The U.S. vetoed a Russian amendment that would have included ceasefire language, Al Jazeera U.N. reporter Rami Ayari reported. Instead, after delays and debates for days, the final version resolved that the parties must allow safe, unhindered and expanded humanitarian access to Gaza and “create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The measure passed Friday at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City with 13 votes in favor. The U.S. and Russia abstained from voting. Earlier this month, the U.S. cast the sole veto against a resolution calling for a ceasefire.

The U.N. and humanitarian groups serving more than two million people stuck in Gaza said the new resolution would do little to end suffering and death without an immediate and sustained ceasefire. In less than three months, 20,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed, “the vast majority women and children,” per the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.

“This resolution has been watered down to the point that its impact on the lives of civilians in Gaza will be nearly meaningless,” Avril Benoît, executive director of MSF (Doctors without Borders) USA said in a statement.

“More and more member states recognise that a ceasefire is indispensable to addressing the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, yet the Council has yet again failed to call for one.”

During a press briefing after the vote, Guterres told reporters that the only way to stop the “ongoing nightmare” in Gaza was a humanitarian ceasefire. Israel controls aid into the territory and Guterres said the current aid operation lacks the necessary security to succeed, saying “the real problem is that the way Israel is conducting this offensive is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Gaza.”

TIME reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for a response. 

The International Rescue Committee called the failure to call for a ceasefire “unjustifiable,” while other groups specifically criticized the U.S.

Oxfam’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Sally Abi-Khalil, said in a statement that “the U.S.’ removal of calls to suspend hostilities shows just how out of touch its policies are with the urgency and terror that Palestinians are experiencing. Its actions in the Security Council demonstrate the U.S.’ increased isolation from the global consensus.”

Amnesty International accused the U.S. of using the threat of its veto power to stall and weaken the resolution, calling the move “disgraceful.” During the meeting, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. Vasily Nebenzya called out, what he views as, “shameful, cynical and irresponsible conduct by the United States.” He accused the U.S. of resorting to “gross pressure, blackmail, and twisting arms” to get a “rubber stamp” on its version of the resolution.

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said she wouldn’t respond to Russia’s “rant,” pointing out that Russia has created similar conditions in its war in Ukraine.

In explaining her vote, Thomas-Greenfield noted the resolution “does not support any steps that would leave Hamas in power which, in turn, would undermine the prospects for a two-state solution where Gaza and the West Bank are reunited under a single governance structure, under a revamped and revitalized Palestinian Authority.”

Thomas-Greenfield instead pushed for more humanitarian “pauses.” A temporary truce the last week of November allowed aid and the exchange of dozens of hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Negotiations on another truce have reportedly stalled, as Israel has vowed to not stop its war until Hamas is eliminated, while Hamas refuses to release hostages unless the war ends.

Thomas-Greenfield said she was “appalled” that “once again” the council did not include language to condemn Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, where militants killed 1,200 people and reportedly sexually assaulted women. She said the U.S. supports Israel’s right to protect itself, but noted both sides must follow international law and respect civilian facilities such as hospitals and places of worship.

There is growing concern that has not been done in Gaza: In the past two months, Israeli troops stormed a major hospital and the Catholic Church reported Israeli snipers shot dead two Christian women sheltering inside a church, an act Pope Francis condemned.

Benoît criticized that “the way Israel is prosecuting this war, with U.S. support, is causing massive death and suffering among Palestinian civilians and is inconsistent with international norms and laws.”  

TIME reached out to the IDF for response. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said accusations Israel was breaking international law were “hogwash” because the military wasn’t intentionally targeting civilians, saying civilian deaths were “collateral damage” or “unintended casualties.” The IDF previously told TIME it takes “all operationally feasible measures” to protect civilians.

Guterres said Friday there is no effective protection for civilians in Gaza. People who cannot leave the territory without Israel’s permission have fled to a designated “safe” area the size of an airport in a coastal desert. Many had earlier left Gaza’s north, following Israeli evacuation orders, to so-called safe cities in the south, only to have Israel bomb those cities.

Now, more than half a million people are starving, Guterres said. There is not enough clean water. Hospitals are barely functioning.

“Humanitarian veterans who have served in war zones and disasters around the world––people who have seen everything,” he said, “tell me they have seen nothing like what they see today in Gaza.”

source https://time.com/6550772/un-resolution-gaza-aid-vote-ceasefire-criticism/

Gypsy Rose Blanchard Is Set to Be Released From Prison. Revisit the High-Profile Case

Gypsy Rose Blanchard pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of her mother, Clauddine ‘Dee Dee’ Blanchard, in July 2016. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison, while her ex-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, was convicted of first degree murder for carrying out the slaying, and received a life sentence. Now, after serving 85% of her sentence according to Missouri state law, Gypsy Rose is set to be released from prison on Dec. 28.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Gypsy Rose was the victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Her mother Dee Dee had a mental health condition called Factitious disorder imposed on another, also known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which is when a caregiver repeatedly seeks medical attention for the false, exaggerated, or inflicted illness of another person.

The murder of Dee Dee, and her treatment of her daughter, captured interest around the world. The story inspired multiple documentaries, films, and a Hulu miniseries titled The Act, which saw Joey King portray Gypsy Rose and Patricia Arquette play Dee Dee. Gypsy Rose has done multiple interviews from prison. In one, she expressed dissatisfaction over the Hulu series about her life. Elsewhere, in an interview filmed for Dr. Phil in 2017, she said: “I firmly believe that no matter what, murder is not OK, but at the same time I don’t believe I deserve as many years as I got.”

Gypsy Rose married Ryan Scott Anderson in June 2022. She is yet to reveal how they met. However, she has had multiple pen pals throughout her time in prison.

Let’s revisit the high-profile case.

What happened to Gypsy Rose Blanchard?

Dee Dee convinced both Gypsy Rose and the public that Gypsy Rose was extremely ill. She told doctors that her daughter was suffering from cancer, epilepsy, vision impairment, hearing impairment, muscular dystrophy, quadriplegia, and more. As a result, Gypsy Rose was forced to exclusively use a wheelchair, receive meals from a feeding tube, and had her head shaved so that she looked bald.

When Gypsy Rose tried to go against her mother’s will by walking or insisting that she was not ill, her mother would punish her. In the meantime, donations the duo received out of sympathy for Gypsy Rose’s illnesses became a source of income for the family. When Gypsy Rose was believed to be seven years old, the duo received a house gifted to them by Habitat for Humanity.

Gypsy Rose’s age is widely discussed. It was a storyline in The Act because Dee Dee lied about Gypsy Rose’s age to multiple people, including Gypsy Rose herself, in order to further infantilize her. In truth, Gypsy Rose was born in 1991, but her mother falsified her birth certificate so that it said she was born in 1995.

Fast forward to 2012, when Gypsy Rose was around 21 years old, she first made contact with Nicholas Godejohn, then 23, on a Christian dating website. Over the next three years, the two would maintain contact. In June 2015, Godejohn visited Springfield, Missouri, with the intention of killing Dee Dee and running away with Gypsy Rose. Godejohn then went on to check into a motel until Gypsy Rose confirmed that Dee Dee was asleep. Then, Godejohn sneaked into her room and stabbed Dee Dee 17 times, killing her. Afterwards, Godejohn and Gypsy Rose had sex in Gypsy’s room. 

On June 14, Godejohn and Gypsy Rose left Springfield and took a bus to Big Bend, Wisconsin, to hide from law enforcement. Godejohn also posted disturbing content from Dee Dee’s facebook page, which alerted her friends and neighbors and led authorities to discover the body that same day.

source https://time.com/6550568/gypsy-rose-blanchard-prison-release-murder-charge/

Why Finance Will Be Key to the Climate Story in 2024

For decades, finance has been the (often unspoken) lynchpin of climate action. In the U.S., for example, innovative tax mechanisms helped finance wind and solar power, turning them into the powerhouses they are today. In global climate talks, the promise of funds for emerging economies has helped advance climate negotiations in thorny moments.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Next year, expect finance to take center stage in climate conversations. Even if central banks stop raising interest rates or even lower them, the cost of raising capital will remain high, making finance a key challenge for project developers to overcome. Meanwhile, emerging global economies will continue to demand that funds flow to finance their transition—industry watchers expect that negotiators at next year’s U.N. climate summit in Baku will hash out a new collective goal for finance to flow to the Global South.

Financing new technologies—especially in emerging economies—can prove difficult even in less-complicated economic times. But recent developments in the world of global finance also present an opportunity for firms willing to think creatively.

The core reason that finance is so important to clean-energy deployment is the primacy of up-front costs for infrastructure in the industry. Those construction costs usually need to be financed. Fossil-fuel projects also have upfront costs, of course, but they tend to be lower, as the cost of producing energy from fossil fuels is largely attached to purchasing gas, oil, or coal when it’s needed—which typically does not rely on financing.

A few factors are now bringing these realities to a head. First, higher interest rates have shaken up the numbers for projects that penciled out well even just a year ago. And, second, emerging economies have come under increased pressure to stem emissions—but can’t actually afford the cost of borrowing that would enable them to do so.

Indeed, at COP28 in Dubai, developing countries argued that they could not pledge to bigger decarbonization without adequate finance. At COP30 in 2025, all countries are supposed to come with new national commitments to cut emissions. COP29, held next year in Baku, will test whether the money is there to give countries the confidence to commit. “The bridge is finance,” says Cassie Flynn, the Global Director of Climate Change at the United Nations Development Program.

What sort of numbers might get tossed around in Baku? The most recent financial commitment, made at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, called on wealthy countries to send $100 billion in annual climate finance to the Global South beginning in 2020. Whether that promise was eventually met depends on who you ask—but no one thinks $100 billion will be adequate going forward.

Much of finance conversations to come in 2024 will likely center on funds from governments of wealthy countries like the U.S. and institutions like the World Bank, but the real goal will be mobilizing private capital using a blended finance structure. In short, that approach combines capital from the private sector with concessional money—from, say, governments or philanthropy—that accepts lower returns or takes the first loss on a project that goes belly up.

Firms that get these structures right will position themselves as leaders in a market poised to grow rapidly. BlackRock, for example, launched a fund in 2021 that combined money from governments and philanthropies along with capital from institutional investors to demonstrate how such a project can be structured successfully. The firm says that the fund received “huge interest” both from investors looking to earn a market-rate return and impact investors looking to take on additional risk to catalyze the market. Now governments and private institutions alike just need to create the product offerings to match.

source https://time.com/6549989/climate-finance-cop29/

A Closer Look at All of Us Strangers With Director Andrew Haigh

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the movie All of Us Strangers.

All of Us Strangers is a ghost story, a meditation on the creative process, and a minor-key romance all rolled into one staggering package. Its many layers defy easy explanation. “For me, it’s just about the difficulty of being in the world and the complications of having relationships and carrying all those things that you pick up along the way in your life,” writer and director Andrew Haigh says. 

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The film, which comes to theaters Dec. 22 after a successful run on the fall festival circuit, is an adaptation of Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers. The book follows a solitary middle-aged screenwriter who reencounters his long-dead parents and begins paying them regular visits while developing a relationship with a woman in his apartment building. Haigh, best known for HBO’s Looking and the swoony gay drama Weekend, made both protagonists men. Fleabag breakout Andrew Scott plays Adam, the writer drawn to his past as he attempts to start a new script. His suitor is Harry (Paul Mescal), an alluring neighbor who surfaces right as Adam discovers a sort of portal that allows him to commune with his parents (played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell).

Depending on your interpretation, All of Us Strangers can be both heartbreaking and hopeful. In order to move forward, Adam must shed the anguish of what he hasn’t been able to share with his kin—all that was left unsaid when they died in a tragic accident 30 years earlier. Haigh, 50, shot part of the movie in his own childhood home near London. He talked to TIME about how it came together and why he resisted an unequivocally happy ending.

Read more: The 10 Best Movies of 2023

TIME: Was there something that felt especially vulnerable once you made the decision to shoot in your childhood home? Or was that just kismet?

Haigh: It was crazy, but I do think it was sort of kismet. I knew I wanted to try and put myself into this story in a way that I felt would unlock something more universal. If you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you hope that that vulnerability comes across onscreen and speaks to other people’s vulnerability. If I’m trying to transmit a feeling, then I need to be open about allowing myself to be up there on the screen. 

When you started pursuing the project, was it immediately clear that the only way for you to make this was to change the leads to two men?

Absolutely. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. It was definitely wanting to explore and express how I feel about a certain generation of gay men, basically my generation. I’ve wanted to do that for a while, but I could never quite find the right story to do it. And then telling it in the form of this strange ghost story about, essentially, what haunts us felt like the perfect way to explore a certain generation of people and what happened to us in the ’80s and ’90s. Connecting that with a story about grief and about a need to reconnect with parents felt like this perfect osmosis.

Andrew Scott was cast first. Once you had Andrew on board, what was the essence of what you were looking for in Harry?

I always go about casting not even thinking about anybody else until I know who that central protagonist is. My films have a single protagonist, even though the other roles are very fundamentally important. I had to get that role of Adam right. I knew that with Andrew, he had that vulnerability. We talked a lot about this idea of someone keeping all of this pain inside and then it finding ways to just leak to the surface. I think he’s so brilliant at showing those moments when his fear or his pain or anxiety—or his love or his joy—break to the surface. With Harry, it is about finding someone that can open Adam up. He’s ready to listen to Adam, which is the same thing Adam is trying to get from his parents. And then at the same time, he has his own secret story that needs to be softened by Adam by the end. When I met Paul, he just understood all of that. I think they’re great together. They feel like they’re meant to be with each other. 

Was Harry’s scraggly look your idea, or did something about Paul conjure that? 

I mean, I love a bit of facial hair. It also just made sense for this character. He hasn’t looked after himself, or he’s decided not to bother. It doesn’t take much to go out on the queer scene and see people that have a certain look. But you make all these choices. For example, there was a choice for him and the Jamie Bell character to both have mustaches. People always say they’re never surprised that a straight man goes for someone that’s like their mom, and it’s the same with gay people. We probably go for elements of our dad. When you’re talking about a story that’s about this interaction between parental love and romantic love, it also feeds into that idea.

In the scene where Adam submits to Harry’s advances, they’re on the couch. The camera pans up and down and emphasizes the way they are caressing each other’s thighs. What kind of direction did you give the two of them for that? 

Sex scenes are so difficult to shoot. What you have to do is make sure that each actor knows what the intention of that scene is. What does Harry need to do to make Adam feel comfortable? Because it’s clear that Adam is holding something back. So what can he do to soften that in order for them to connect? It’s very written-out in the script, like when Adam laughs that he’s forgotten how to breathe because he hasn’t kissed for a while. You’re getting to know him there. You understand his reticence and his nervousness. It’s not that he’s a prude. He just hasn’t made out with a guy for a while. I knew I wanted it to feel very sensual in terms of touch and feel and sound. We highlighted the sound of skin touching skin so you can feel this sort of tender electricity. It has to feel sexy and intimate and a bit dirty in a good way.

Read more: The 10 Best Movie Performances of 2023

There’s a misdirect when Adam first stumbles upon his father in the thicket. Because we don’t yet know who he is, it feels like they’re cruising each other in that moment, which also has appropriate generational implications. How did the dots come together for that scene? 

In a messy way, in my head, I knew that I wanted it to feel almost erotic or spine-tingling or strange somehow. There is a sense that he’s drifting off into the past. When your sexuality plays such a big part in your self and your past, it just made sense to bring that into that scene. I tried not to listen too much to the arguments in my head about how it should feel, so when the dad appears, looking like he does at roughly the same age Andrew is now, you can’t help but feel a certain tingle of sexuality to it. You know later on that his parents don’t actually know that he’s gay, so it’s also foreshadowing that thing that’s going to have to be revealed later on down the line. 

The sequences where he returns to the home do have the feel of a magical portal. How did you facilitate that? 

We didn’t want it to feel surreal. We didn’t want it to feel anything like a flashback, but somehow you are being drawn into an idea of the past without it being too nostalgic. It is about colors being a bit richer, and using dissolves and zooms. The sound design changes. I always gave the analogy of when you’re bored at school and drifting off to sleep. You sort of felt like everything was shifting around you, but you’re not fully asleep. They were also in ’80s costumes, but it’s not so far removed from what Adam or Harry wears. Time has sort of vanished. The idea of “what is past or present?” has lost all meaning. It’s all mushed up together, like how memory works. Memories can suddenly appear to you in the present even if they’re from 20, 30, or 40 years back.

What’s happened to Adam when we meet him is a confluence of things: He’s revisiting his parents, who are the same age he is in the present day, while this relationship is beginning. Are Adam’s encounters with Harry what allows him to reconnect with his past, or is reconnecting with his past what allows him to accept Harry into his life?

That’s interesting. I think it’s a bit of both. To start with, when he doesn’t let Harry into the apartment, the desperate longing that Adam has to connect with someone brings his parents back into existence. There’s a subconscious longing that needs help in order to move forward. They feed on each other. Seeing his parents again, and feeling that warmth and comfort, allows him to then want to connect with Harry. But having sex with Harry feeds into what becomes the next scene with the parents, which is when he comes out to his mom. At first, there’s no talk about his sexuality. And then, in pushing forward with Harry, it makes him realize this has to be uncovered with his parents. I spent quite a lot of time trying to see them as informing and helping each other, rather than one thing leading to another thing. It was all of it twisting up together and getting more complicated and messy. 

One way to interpret the film is through the screenplay Adam is writing. He has writer’s block and tries to draw out memories through old photos and music videos he’s watching. How much of that element is important to you?

You could definitely read it as that, but as a person, he’s wanting to write to understand himself. That’s what so many writers are doing. He’s delving into his past, and then the past comes alive. For me, writing this script was a similar thing. There’s another level going on in the story about the art of creativity and how it can work as a way to express your interior self, and if you want to see the whole film as an expression of that, I’m fine with that.

You could look at the end of the movie as cynical or downbeat, like an affirmation that, yes, queer life is alienating and isolating. That’s not my takeaway, but what do you think of that potential interpretation? 

I understand that that can be an interpretation. Personally, I don’t feel that. There is hope in the fact that he has understood that, basically, he is capable of being in love and being loved and being there for someone else that might need him in that moment. By the end of the film, to me, it is basically saying that what is important in life is love in whatever way you manage to find that, whether it’s in a relationship, whether it’s with your parents, whether it’s with a friend. You go through life finding love, losing love, and finding it again. Now, look, there’s a version of this story where it ends in a much happier place, for sure. I needed to bring it to a level beyond that. Just a nice, simplistic, happy ending doesn’t quite work for me with this. I like a happy ending, don’t get me wrong.

I would say you’re not exactly known for happy endings.

No, I’m not. That’s very true. I actually don’t like a happy ending in my films. I like a complicated ending. Listen, life is very complicated, and it usually ends in a complicated place for all of us. Most of us lose our parents, and half of us might end up losing our partner before we’re gone. Life is about dealing with loss. But the love that comes from that is the essential, important thing.  

One of the most emotional scenes is when Adam’s father says, “I’m sorry I didn’t come into your room when you were crying.” But what got me was Adam’s response: “It’s okay. It’s been so long.” There’s a lot in the way he repeats those words: “It’s been so long.” What was it like to write that scene? 

I think a lot of queer people find that scene very emotional. A lot of us feel that our parents probably knew that we were different at a very young age, and why couldn’t they help us? But at the same time, we didn’t want them to help us because we were terrified of what would happen if we announced who we were. That uncomfortableness and that pain is always there, and we’re always told, “Well, it was a long time ago. We should move on from that.” Everyone else can move on, but it doesn’t mean we’re able to forget how we felt growing up. I wanted lots of things to be happening within that scene that are compassionate to both of those characters. It’s about realizing why the dad wasn’t able to help him. There are no simple answers from that, but at the end of that scene, there is some emotional resolution that he gets. 

How did you land on Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “The Power of Love” for the final scene?

That song was always in the script. In fact, most of the songs are in the script. But as an 11-year-old kid, I bought the Frankie Goes to Hollywood album. I used to sing that song in my bedroom, not really even knowing why I loved it so much. It’s actually quite a subversive love song because it’s written by a bunch of gay dudes in the ’80s in a really tough time as AIDS was devastating communities. I always knew I wanted to get it into a film, and it made perfect sense for it being at the end of this. 

source https://time.com/6449265/all-of-us-strangers-andrew-haigh-interview/

The Classic Christmas Movie That Offers a Lesson About Antisemitism in America

Marching through somber streets, men in uniform confiscate items, entering houses for further looting, all legalized by a leader waving his fist and spewing anger. Germany in the 1930s? No, the classic Christmas movie Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, which aired originally in 1970.

Written and directed by the men who brought Americans Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and the Little Drummer Boy, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town was a classic story of good versus evil. It used Nazi imagery and symbolism to craft an origin story for Santa Claus—the story’s hero and the pinnacle figure of capitalist, secular Christmas. Needing an antihero for Santa to thwart, the film capitalized on a decade in which news stories, early Holocaust scholarship, and representations in popular culture made Americans far more aware of the Nazis and their heinous crimes. Many Americans have watched it almost every year since.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Yet, while the story is beloved, it points to a cultural problem that has helped perpetuate antisemitism. The movie reminds Christian Americans of the Nazi crimes and uses them to convey villainy, without engaging antisemitism or Jewish people at all. Christmas presents, not Jewish people, are the victims of the vaguely German antihero. This is a common practice in movies, television, and novels, and it has left Americans understanding the evil of the Nazis without fully grasping who they targeted, why, and how the antisemitism at the root of the Holocaust continues to reverberate for Jewish communities around the world.

Despite early efforts after World War II to punish the Nazis, such as the Nuremberg Trials, as well as the creation of the state of Israel, collective memory of the era failed to grasp fully the horrors of the genocide perpetrated against Jewish people. One problem was that some audiences Christianized the victims to be able to empathize and identify with the tragedy.

In the 1950s, the reaction to the best-selling The Diary of a Young Girl epitomized how popular memory of the Holocaust was incomplete, with the public not reckoning with the full scope of the Nazi atrocities — especially who the victims were and why they were targeted. Readers tended to ignore Anne Frank’s Jewishness, viewing her as Anglicized and as forgiving them: “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart,” Frank wrote before having seen a death camp.

Read More: Inside the Biden Administration’s Response to the Spike in Antisemitic Attacks

A turning point arrived in 1960, when Israel captured Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in Argentina, and flew him to Jerusalem to stand trial. Survivors provided eyewitness testimony, including photographs, and the world rediscovered the tragedy. Planes air-shipped video-tapes of the proceedings to New York every day to ensure that the American media covered the trial.

That year also marked the translation of Night by Eli Wiesel from Yiddish into English. The book offered a depiction of a ghetto, a deportation, a death camp, and a death march, from the perspective of a Jewish survivor with an instinct for literary framing. Night became a mainstay of literature and history curricula. Historical memory of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust were on the rise. 

Even so, Wiesel’s book revealed how Holocaust memory was often tailored to the interests of Christian audiences. He emphasized his struggles with faith, which helped to connect with Christian audiences for whom belief in God is a central theological question.

In 1965, the award-winning film The Sound of Music also reflected how, even as the Nazis’ crimes had become more visible, Holocaust memory often excluded the tie between antisemitism and the Nazi regime. Sometimes, Jewish victims themselves were missing entirely, as was the case in The Sound of Music, which featured Nazi villains without ever depicting or even mentioning Jewish people.

The rise in consciousness meant that when the filmmakers behind Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town needed an antagonist and a backdrop to convey evil, the Nazi trope was well known among Americans. They knew it would work to feature an evil bad guy with a German-sounding name — Burgermeister Meisterburger — and a German-accented voice. 

The inciting incident in the movie occurs when Meisterburger, the Mayor of “Sombertown,” trips on a toy and breaks his “funny bone.” “I hate toys,” he declares, “and toys hate me. Either they are going, or I am going, and I am certainly not going.” He growls to his right-hand man, Grimsley, “Take this down.” 

He breaks into song, proclaiming, “Let it be known throughout the land from sea to sea / there will be no more toymakers.” He delivers the melody with an air of authority, with Meisterburger’s grimacing voice carrying a catchy tune while proclaiming violence against all toys: “Outlaw the dolls and sink the boats / they bring me only woes.” Grimsley transcribes Meisterburger’s whims and issues a formal decree: “Toys are hereby declared illegal, immoral, unlawful, and anyone found with a toy in his possession will be placed under arrest and thrown in the dungeon.” 

To make Meisterburger and his regime sufficiently sinister, the filmmakers had them resort to tactics that mimic some of what the Nazis did. The anti-toy decree functions in Sombertown like the 1935 Nuremberg Laws did in Germany. Empowered by the law, men in uniform patrol the streets, confiscating possessions and instilling fear among townspeople. At one point they even publicly burn toys. 

Crucially, the film replaced Jews with toys. Rather than depriving Jewish people of the rights, privileges, and physical safety of citizenship as happened in Germany, Burgermeister banned the people of Sombertown from having toys. “If you find so much as a marble or half a jack, the whole house is under arrest,” he ordered, searching each home before dawn with armed men in tow.

Read More: Ken Burns on His New Documentary ‘The U.S. and the Holocaust’

That’s the backdrop against which Santa Claus a.k.a. Kris Kringle sneaks into houses by night to hide toys and circumvent the authoritarian, oppressive regime. Kringle’s team — a penguin, a winter warlock, and the future Mrs. Claus — and the townspeople brave and spirited enough to challenge authority join him in hiding toys. Just as people in Nazi Germany hid Jews, to protect lives, Kringle and his allies hide toys, to protect, presumably, Christmas.

Yet, once again, as with the Sound of Music, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town uses the Nazis as villains while decoupling them from their primary victims: Jewish people. In this case, the goal was to elevate Christmas and advance the secular, cultural aspects of the holiday. After all, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town was not a Holocaust movie and never claimed to be.

But the choice reflected the way in which Nazis had come to play a key role as a villain in American collective consciousness without widespread understanding of the antisemitism at the root of their crimes. Fighting Nazi-reminiscent monsters has become a common plot element in all sorts of movies, books, and more.

Nothing’s wrong with using a historically horrific regime and their evil as inspiration for fictional bad guys. In fact, it makes sense, because it conveys to the audience how uniquely evil the antagonist is. But the tradition of doing so with the Nazis has left viewers unaware of the history of antisemitism, how the Holocaust looks from a Jewish perspective, and how that understanding shapes Jewish fears in 2023. When Jewish people sound the alarm about the rise of antisemitism, many downplay it. They don’t grasp the historical memory shaping Jewish perceptions. 

Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town is a classic: the plot is catchy, the music is memorable, and the characters are iconic. It also premiered at a formative moment for Holocaust memory in the U.S. When retreating to the nostalgia of a mid-20th century classic, viewers should enjoy it while also considering who’s included, who’s erased, and how those choices shape the present.

Rebecca Brenner Graham is a history teacher at the Madeira School, an adjunct professorial lecturer at American University, and a Cokie Roberts fellow at the National Archives. Her forthcoming book, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany, will be published by Kensington in 2025. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here.

source https://time.com/6548383/christmas-movie-holocaust-memory-antisemitism/