Hey hope you liked the video, it was a super fun one to make! What is your favorite christmas shoe? Also, here's the link to my Patreon, if you're interested lol www.patreon.com/bigjoel
Great video, Joel! My favorite Christmas shoes are those foamy flip-flops with the floral Hawaiian shirt design on them. I sure love wearing those Christmas shoes around the holiday season.
Hi Joel! Thank you for the video! My favourite Christmas shoe is when I stuff my feet inside dual Christmas turkeys I bought by avoiding my family. I use then to slide away from my loved ones in order to earn more money for more turkeys. Next year, I am hoping to be able to but 4 turkeys for hands also
I know this is like a year old but that ominous line about "hurry back" makes me think of one of the most radicalizing moments of my life. My great aunt was on her death bed and I had to go in for a shift at work. My mom told me she might not be there when I got back. I walked into work and broke down sobbing that I might miss her passing. They let me go home. When I returned to work, they asked how things went and I said that she passed peacefully around midnight that night surrounded by family. And they said "Oh, so you mean you could have stayed for your shift?" That was one of the most inhuman things I had ever heard.
Taylor I think Weber didn’t go to any of the extremes, if I recall correctly capitalism did not create the Protestant work ethic nor did the Protestant work ethic created capitalism, they had rather a selective affinity for each other. We could say that the Protestant work ethic was inherently tied to to the bourgeoisie values that were spreading everywhere, but that’s not the same as establishing causation. At least I thing it isn’t, it’s been a while since I’ve studied Weber and quite frankly I don’t remember.
@@sabinasabino141 There's been a lot of responses to Weber's argument that while protestantism and capitalism reinforced one another in their histories, in the first instance, it was the first developments of market capitalism that created the desire for "reform" that caused the reformation. So while protestantism helped facilitate a christian, capitalist society; it was the economic conditions of early capitalism that first encouraged people to change their relationship with religion. The earliest protestants were often already market-participating urbanites. Not the other way around. I've never read Weber directly though. Just responses to him.
the people around the kid being like “we’re supporting you in spirit!” but not actually giving him money was probably the most accurate part of this movie
Seriously this movie defines capitalist realism. Instead of illuminating the possibility of overcoming mass systemic depression through juxtaposing two morally different individual paths, it seems to say either path is ultimately futile in creating more meaning beyond that system's parameters. Very nihilistic.
@@Bisquick Exactly!!! I am kind of blown away with how perfect this movie is for this type of examination. It's both absurd and yet totally sensible in our society that the "labor" required for the kid to create a commodity of love for his mother is...collecting cans. And how do we deal with that? How can we resolve that? The people who made this movie were unprepared to answer that, considering they didn't even mean to ask the question in the first place. But posing the question at all has made this a very interesting movie.
As opposed to the communist version where he can't get the shoes because the government didn't ration them out. Seriously I don't think the shoes being a purchasable good is the problem, more his lack of money.
It's not an easy question to answer. If you have to worry about money every day of your life, in a way you are poor. Even if your standard of living seems quite high.
Maybe they are rich in assets and poor in cash. They own a huge house (an expensive asset) but have little savings or income (liitle amount of cash) to spend readily
How cool would it have been if the kid and Rob Lowe never interacted, and the big twist ending was that Rob was just the kid grown up? Holy, they missed a big opportunity to show they were *literally* the same person.
@wardm4 Yeah, could've made it like "It's great to try to do things for your family and people around you, like working hard to provide for them, but sometimes it takes so much from you that it actually starts hurting everyone." A lesson around balance or good and bad or something like that.
my favorite part of poverty, having a home i own to live in and as much nutritious food to eat as i want. man it sure is hard to be a totally broke homeowner with one job that supports my whole family.
Ooh, I know the message! It’s ‘Rich people should rest more, poor people should work more.’ What’s the difference between our two lads? Class. Bless us every one, the deserving poor who are deserving because they work, and the deserving rich who are deserving because, er, well, I guess they wouldn’t be rich if they weren’t?
Classist propaganda? I was thinking mostly the same thing, Kit Whitfield, but I'm not sure the rich even factor into the story because this isn't for them. It's a veiled message to everyone below the top that if you're working class and probably won't gain much from working harder, it's heartwarmingly human to work even harder, that the futility of your efforts is beautiful and endearing, but if you're upwardly mobile middle class and might be able to step up by working harder, slow down before you become an emotionless jerk. To be honest, I don't think the writers even knew what they were trying to say.
I wish the whole part with "Noodles" creating the can treasure hunt was just because the teacher thought this kid weirdly obsessed with cans. That would be amazing and honestly more heartwarming.
The lack of a difference between Nathan and Robert could work if Nathan realizes their similarities in the end: "Oh, that boy has been working all month for something he presumes his dying mother wants instead of spending time with her? That's actually really sad. Maybe it could teach me something about my own relation towards my family and my work." Then instead of Robert trying to buy the shoes last minute before the store closes, have him be under time pressure because of another event (maybe to see his mom at home, before she's transported to the hospital? Someone could probably come up with a better idea...) and when he realizes that he doesn't have enough money, he is willing to collect more cans and miss said important event, just so he can buy the shoes. Then Nathan steps in, buys him the shoes and tells him to go home to his family. The message then could be about labour for people you love not being inherently bad, but time spent labouring FOR your loved ones not being automatically better than time spent WITH them and that you shouldn't get so caught up in doing what you assume is good for them that you overlook their own feelings.
@@caseyw.6550 Right? THE KID'S MOM IS DYING. DON'T TELL THE KID WITH THE DYING MOM TO DIG THROUGH GARBAGE. GIVE THE KID WITH THE DYING MOM A TWENTY YOU MONSTERS
Are we sure that isn't already the message the movie is going for? They definitely don't do as clean of a job presenting it as your changes would, but that's the only reason I can see for hammering home just how similar Rob and Nathan are. Nathan trying to buy the shoes is definitely supposed to be seen as noble, but can't imagine the movie wants us to think it's the best idea. Clearly he should instead be spending time with his mom, hence the dad's "hurry back" line. I do think it's very strange they never have a scene where Rob comes to that conclusion himself, but I still think that's most likely what the movie is going for.
It's unsettling classist propaganda dressed up as a heartwarming Christmas story that's trying to get a win from all directions (except for the dying mum I suppose). If you're poor, work hard and keep working, but not to the point where you become rich, just work because your work is plucky and endearing and heartwarming to see you strugglin' by bless your little blue collar socks. But the rich, well they need to work less, learn to appreciate the little things, humble yourself a bit, because you wouldn't wanna be too rich and threaten the actually rich rich people, so loosen up. Everybody stay nice and complacent, pay no attention to the man behind the veil.
You come to the conclusion that this is intentional propaganda based off a subjective interpretation of the movie? The people behind this thing werent plotting and scheming to make the Christmas Shoes starring Rob Lowe the way to end some resistance
@@WhaleManMan I don't think it's intentional, just film creators and audiences are very biased, and repeat tropes that have been distilled down to us for many decades of capitalist movie making. It's basically hard working dad should fight for his family trope + heartwarming rags to riches story about hardworking boy with cliche dying parent. Both are capitalistically distilled and arbitrarily juxaposed, to make this stew of contradiction. Human fantasy is not supposed to coherent, but amplification of certain moods or narratives at a given time and place. It's like getting confused over language paradoxes, merely tools, not reflect of perfect reality.
@@draco89123 True, but I'm not sure if this guy really thinks that. Seems more like the typical rants that are eerily similar to theories on the Illuminati
@@WhaleManMan I don't entirely disagree with the parent comment though. It does have those classist undertones: wealthy people should take a breather, the poors should have more ambition. I don't agree with the fostering complacency part, to protect the richy rich, that's probably an overread.
@@WhaleManMan Whether or not it's intended as literal propaganda, the movie is all about pushing "all-American" "wholesome" values in support of, not just the status quo, but the vague nostalgia for America that never was. Like, it's definitely present in the... let's call it dissonant way that Rob Lowe's whole thing is that he works too hard and needs to relax, but at the same time the kid's scrounging for trash is inherently noble because work is by definition good for the soul (unless you're a white-collar professional, I guess?). And of course it's only the men who work; Lowe is actually shown to be in the wrong because he thinks that his wife should use her business degree to get a damn job, rather than be a stay-at-home mom for a teenager. That's not even going into that bizarre non-sequitur where Lowe's car is having engine problems and Wise Old Guy suggests he buy American. So yeah, it might not be directly designed to be an argument against class consciousness, but it's definitely a whole display of small-c-conservative Americana, where everyone's in a nuclear family of working dads, stay-at-home moms, kids who speak entirely in innocent wonderment or cheesy shmaltz, and the occasional beatific senior citizen dropping Old Time Wisdom about how work is noble but also family is more important than anything but also ever think about buying American.
Movies that are very invested in women owning red shoes: 1. The Wizard of Oz 2. The Christmas Shoes 3. The Red Shoes The female owner of aforementioned red shoes dies in every one of these movies coincidence or conspiracy, you decide
@@josie3221 rubi slippers were retrieved from the witch's corpse on the beginning of the story. Arguably they became Dorothy's along the way, but the original owner did die.
I would also like to point out that on Christmas Eve, the recycling center would likely be closed anyway and he wouldn’t be able to exchange said cans for any money.
The amount of time and effort Noodles put into creating that cache of cans was surely worth more than $5 to him. I guess teaching Little Nathan the Protestant Work Ethic is what made it worth his while.
It's really unfortunate as on one hand you kinda get it as a teach a man to fish type of thing but this is for his could die at any moment mother, this is literally not the time let alone drink a bunch of soda to put in an alley...JUST GIVE HIM THE DAMN MONEY, RAMEN-SENSEI!
Young people who are better at critical thinking than the typical United Stater would look at the more complicated method through which the teacher enabled the child to buy the shoes, see how much that overcomplication set the child back, and only grow to resent Calvinism and the Calvinist Work Ethic even more. Bootstrap mentality owes everything to Calvinism for getting it as far as it's gone.
Dude could've just gotten the kid the ten dollar shoes instead of littering excessively and making the kid clean it up for five dollars, especially since the kid's mom could die at any moment and he could be spending his time with her instead of doing labor. Like, I'm not saying what noodles did wasn't wholesome, but even though he had good intentions, I think it did more harm than good, even if it made the kid happy. The kid probably would've been even happier if noodles gave him the actual money or even the shoes instead. Edit: I just realized that the other comments pretty much say exactly what I did. Probably should've read them before writing this long ass comment lol
Just think, if the US had universal health care it's quite possible Nathan's mum would have been fine as a result of being able and willing to seek treatment earlier. Then we wouldn't have this heart warming tale, proving that universal health care is bad or something.
I have a theory: this movie is made for middle to upper-middle class Christians. They like the idea of family, and they like to think that material things are not what Christmas is truly about. Rob's plot about a hard-working dad taking a break and spending time with his family speaks to them, because perhaps they are in similar family situations and can identify with it. Then, the kid's plot comes in. The kid is a hard worker. His story makes comfortable, logical sense: hard work=good things (in the form of material objects). The kid justifies the conditions of Rob's family, and by extension the class and conditions of the families who are watching. The kid is rewarded with the shoes because he worked (unnecessarily) hard. Perhaps this is because the universe is logical and balanced. The kid DESERVES the shoes, and his desire for the material shoes is not shallow, but it is deep and meaningful and justified. By extension, people who are well off are well off because life (essentially) is fair and their money is a direct reward of their hard, earnest work. And their desire for material objects is not shallow; instead it is HOLY. Jesus will like the Christmas shoes. They have to do with the mother's getting into heaven. Also, the kid gets into medical school and becomes a doctor. This will probably allow the kid to move up in class and wealth. The kid is already established to be a good person, and I think this could imply that people are middle class because they are good and hard working, and that good, hard-working people are not poor (or do not stay poor for long). In conclusion this movie is made to make people feel good about themselves. Which everyone already probably knew. Also there is a lot to be said about the role of the wives in the beginning. For example Rob's family is "bad", and he makes his wife have a career instead of her volunteering at church. And the kid's family is "good"; his mother doesn't work (and they can still afford a house somehow?)
I know what a lot of you are thinking right now: "Big Joel sure seems to love christmas a lot. Wouldn't it be great if he would make a christmas album?" Well, you're in luck. He already has made one, it's called "Breaking Up With Santa" and you should give it a listen!
"What I hear is a crushing nihilistic tale about a little boy with no guidance trying to make sense of this horrible tragedy that's about to befall him; and is under the delusion that a pair of shoes would matter at all" Lindsay Ellis (Christmas Shoes review)
So what is the boy supposed to do? Yes, the tragedy is coming and there's nothing he can do about it. His life is likely a little better that he tries to do something. He tries to make his mother happy on her last day on Earth. That is not Nihilism.
@@davidking4838 the tale is nihilistic, the character is not. "His life is likely a little better that he tries to do something." But his life would be a lot better if other characters helped him accomplish the goal of "make his mother happy on her last day on Earth", right? Thus the nihilism. If the movie was: Shoes fall off a truck, the guy finds them, goes to town square "Anybody wants these shoes?", mom says "I do", you could have the rest of the movie being spent with a kid and his mom trying to deal with a disease that is going to kill her. That's not just one day, that is multiple days spent collecting cans that he could have spent with her. Or, if he just said to one random guy "I'm collecting cans because I want to buy shoes for my mom. She has cancer." what sort of non-nihilistic non-ahole person wouldn't say "That's rough kid. How much do those shoes cost?". If they were 50$ or 100$ I would go to store with the kid, buy him the damn shoes and wouldn't even care if the kid is trying to scam me. Because, again, cancer, mom, holy shit that's dark! But that is not the movie we got. Instead we got this hopeless nihilistic mess. Nobody is going to help you, nobody is going to give you money even if you really desire it. Because if he just went to somebody and asked for money and received it, then it would send the wrong message somehow and we can't have that!
@@jo1stormlord So, it's "Hey mom, here's some shoes I got from begging.....hope you like them."......Write that crap story and maybe Hallmark will make it into a movie.....I kind of doubt it though.
@@davidking4838 Begging? He wasn't begging for them. But it would be utter bullshit if all the people in the city just gave him cans. How about some gift from the town's Scrooges? They could have gone with other Christian and Christmas moral if they wanted. Maybe the community comes together, they talk with each other... "Have you seen this kid asking for cans? What's all that about?" "Oh, his mom has cancer." "Oh shit, I told him I don't have any cans. If I knew it was so important to him, I would have told him to clean my driveway. And paid him handsomely." So when he comes to recycling center on Christmas eve, there is nobody there. He comes to buy shoes, he can't find them, the store owner tells him somebody already bought them. Finally, in despair, he goes to hospital and the whole town is there, people whose hearts he touched over the months he was collecting cans. They made cookies and food, they bought the shoes and everybody is in Christmas mood. And then his mother sees the people in front of her room, the neighbors that forgot about her but have remembered. And she puts on the damn shoes and dances with her husband and her son and it is all Hallmark feel good movie.
It makes sense to me as a form of capitalist recuperation. Like, the explicit idea the movie sets out to present is that labor and consumption are not ends in themself and that we should prioritize human connections over them. However, the scripts and norms set out for us by capitalism insist that those are, in fact, the central values around which we should organize our lives. Unable to recognize this because it would require that capitalism be cast in a negative light, the movie just straight reproduces consumerist values, contridcitng its own intent.
That's the obvious reading, but I feel it is anti-Marxist, and actually more of a reinforcement of capitalism than simply accepting the message of the movie as correct. Anti-capitalism isn't based in this naive idea that you can just *withdraw* from capitalism. Return to some more basic human togetherness that's supposedly better in some way. No. It comes from a recognition that capitalism can't go forth with its own promises. You go out and try to buy the shoes, that's great, you *should* do that. But then the system fails you, and you end up with your life wasted and no shoes. Or you inevitably come to recognise the child-like naiveness of trying to buy the shoes, understanding that the struggle to gain them is only real because of an arbitrary barrier drawn up by yourself and others in your society. Joel is right that the message of the first half of this movie would be a facile Christian morality tale. The movie doesn't negate it just because it contradicts their interests as capitalist ideologues. In fact, a capitalist ideologue could very well say "That's great, go spend time with your family." Getting middle class families not to worry so much and just enjoy the simple things in life is a great help to the capitalist system.
What if the meaning of the movie is the protagonists actualizing manhood by negotiating love and labor. It's worth noting that both protagonists are funding this self-actualization by sacrificing their female relationships and hanging out with other men. Maybe in a sequel they'll both be openly gay and we'll realize that the pretty shoes, hanging out with Noodles, and "helping out the farmers" should be interpretted differently.
Whether intentional or not, it seems like this movie exposes Christmas for the contradictory holiday that it is. Like, there's this idea put forth about how important it is to spend time with family, but companies relentlessly urge people to buy all of this stuff for their loved ones. However, having the money to buy gifts for your loved ones requires time away from family, and well, time at work. As a whole, we could take The Christmas Shoes as a vapid product that is designed to tell you the contradictory stuff that you hear during the season. There's no "real" message, other than what you're told each year: Spend time with family, but also work lots and lots of hours.
Josh Davis I think contemporary consumer Christmas should be rejected and it should only be celebrated for the religious event of Jesus coming to earth. (pagan origins be damned)
@@lukericker8325 If you're gonna go that route, I want you to give back the whole "tree with lights and big feast with family in the dead of winter" thing. Respect my Pagan origins. Also, we want Ēostre back. You can keep the chocolate crucifixes.
kahbn Well, that’s why I said pagan origins be damned. But fine, I would rather have no Christmas at all and let you barbaric pagans have it, (almost none of you actually exist, mostly just as an edgy counter cultural fad), than have the horrific display of consumerism and decadence that it’s become.
@@lukericker8325 hey, nobody said you couldn't have your whole "baby in a barn and old men bringing gold and incense" thing. Just leave the pine trees out of it. Heck, the kid was born in the middle East. I don't think they even have evergreens in that climate.
I get why a person, particularly a child, would choose to focus on something they think they can do rather than the dying family member. What's strange is that no one tells him 'what you can do, what woukd make your mum feel special, is being there with her'. His dad and teacher are right there.
I'm guessing the writers' intent here was to have the man start off working too much and not caring for his family and then the kid cares for his family but doesn't work enough, and the idea was that by the end of the movie the two would reach some kind of equilibrium, where they both care for their family enough but also work enough. But they just handled that idea clumsily and instead made a movie that negates itself. Like a sock that's been twisted inside out.
That read is way too charitable, I think. The more realistic scenario is that, first, they wanted to make a Christmas movie. Basically every Christmas movie is about how consumerism and materialism trying and failing to pollute the purity of Christmas, which here broadly symbolizes family togetherness and "true" happiness. It helps, here, that the song features the guy learning his lesson in a store. Second, they wanted to make a movie about this song, The Christmas Shoes. This is a song that is, regardless of how the emphasis is placed, about the magical wonderment of buying some shoes. The kid wants to buy shoes, and this is treated as "good", so the man buys the kid the shoes, and thus learns the true meaning of Christmas. Consumption saves the day. So, they did both things. Rob Lowe's arc is about how the true meaning of Christmas is family togetherness instead of materialism, the kid's arc is about how the true meaning of Christmas is working hard so you can buy some shoes for your mom, and a contradiction is born. The song itself is arguably kinda contradictory in this way too, but it gets away with it better because the kid's actual path to getting the shoes is deemphasized in a way that isn't particularly possible in a full length film. And then they did it all super messy, rendering the contradiction harder to resolve.
@@eggynack Also, they clearly could not have either of their deuteragonists be "flawed" in any way. So Rob works too much...because he came from poor origins and he just CARES TOO MUCH and all the too much work he does is actually helping people who are extremely needy. He didn't really need to learn the lesson of the film at all, he just forgot he didn't need to learn it at the beginning of the movie. The kid is a kid and therefore legally cannot not know the true meaning of Christmas, so he just automatically gets a pass because he's just such a little trooper.
I'm not sure it's fair to say he's working too much and doesn't care for his family when it's likely that he works too much BECAUSE he cares for his family.
As a devout Big Joel watcher and a devout Christian, The Christmas Shoes song is openly and mercilessly mocked by every Christian and non-Christian that I know
I'm one of those Christians who hates this movie, and the awful song. But I know other Christians who like them both. I had a good friend who loved this song. Whenever it came on the radio she would turn it up. We visited friends of hers for Christmas in China. They liked it too. They essentially lived in a compound. There was nowhere for me to go to escape to. It was a very difficult two weeks.
this reminds me a lot of a book i had to read in Sunday school as a kid called "socks for Christmas" and it's about the authors childhood when he got socks for Christmas one year and hated it because he wanted cool expensive toys like the other kids but he sees his poor neighbors couldn't afford socks so he starts being grateful he has socks as a kid i remember saying "oh why can't he just give some of his socks to the kids" and being told i missed the point of the story by my teacher
The film is a tragedy about how capitalism forces people into cycles of toil and consumerism. Robert's sees Nathan labouring and concludes that he himself works too much and doesn't spend time with his loved ones, but is powerless to stop Nathan from following down the same road. I have no idea. I've never heard of this film before.
@CommandoDude So are these just made-for-tv movies that are a bit more accepted just because christmas? I'll never understand the american christmas obsession I guess
I was thinking - maybe the difference is meant to be that Robert is working to find security in his worldly, mortal life, while Nathan is working to prepare his family for the immortal afterlife. I mean, nothing else about the movie seems like it'd suggest that, but I figured it was an idea worth putting out there.
Perfect example of commodity fetishism. Shoes represent the work of laborers and their use to consumers, but they're treated in society as another form of wealth.
Back when I was a kid and was being raised in a Christian home, I heard the song and what stood out to me about it was that, apparently, according to this song when you die you go to heaven wearing the clothes you were wearing when you died because it seems to be the case that this kid's mom will meet Jesus wearing those shoes if he brings them home so she can die wearing them, and I just couldn't get over that because it didn't seem to me like that's how it would work. I just now realized watching this video that I made it to adulthood with no idea if anyone had posed any kind of a theological answer to that question or not.
@@rattyeely www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/love-actually-richard-curtis-comic-relief-keira-knightley-a7643801.html Here's one. www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/12/-em-love-actually-em-is-the-least-romantic-film-of-all-time/282091/ Here's another. In general what happened was the movie turned 10 years old and people wrote think pieces about why it's not feminist (which I kept on commenting on while my family was trying to have together time and watch a movie on Christmas eve). The next year everyone wrote think pieces defending the movie. It's very similar to the discourse around "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Is he drugging her to get her to stay?!?!?! Lots of people have opinions about why the song and Love Actually are/aren't problematic.
@@Eilowyn The short and infuriating answer to Baby It's Cold Outside: Both sides have a point Fundamentally, it's just another case like Deck the Halls not being about putting on homosexual clothing. It's just that instead of becoming a really easy dumb joke, it shifted from "Is there alcohol in this that I can use as an excuse later?" to sounding like she's worried about date rape. There's definitely still a Discussion™ to be had about how the intended story still perpetuates the myth that people just play "hard to get", but that's also a lot more nuanced than just dismissing it as the Date Rape Song
I watched this because it was largely shot in my home town. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in the downtown core. And I was able to walk around the set with that fake store at night when they stopped shooting but still had the set lightng on full blast.
There are a lot of aspects of "The Christmas Shoes" that fascinate me, but I think the biggest one for me personally is the idea of inspirational disadvantage. The same kind of thing that makes the general populous see disabled people as heroes for living their daily lives, or children who need breathing machines and won't live past 20 existing just to make you feel good about yourself. I've pointed out in several arguments about both of these things that it's a sort of benevolent removal of someone's humanity: their suffering is uncomfortable and so many of us feel powerless to change or help their situations, so by making them non-human vessels that cater to YOUR existential 3AM thoughts, they can be justified with good feelings and little to no effort on your part. The poor boy in the song is inspirationally disadvantaged. It's not a story about how say, the system might've fucked his mom over by healthcare being prohibitively expensive, or about the working poor needing more quality of life and social safety nets. It's a song about how people worse off then you make you feel good about yourself and the least of your efforts. (The guy in the song gives the kid a dollar or something?) And God apparently made these people worse off than you for the explicit purpose of showing them to you in order to make you feel grateful. The psychological manipulation inherent in that is just fabulously nihilistic. It suggests so many things, most notably that God is insane, and not above cruelty in order to force feelings of love and adoration. God intentionally makes the poor as nonhuman vessels whose purpose for existing is the penultimate five minutes of being too poor in a line for shoes. I identify as a spiritual nihilist, so this being a supposed "good" showcase of Christianity makes me laugh and laugh.
Similar problems with the alternate ending of "I Am Legend", if I recall. And the movie "Signs" (oddly released the same year as The Christmas Shoes....)
The good in the movie is that a man helped a boy whose mother was dying so he, at least, has some good memory of her last day on Earth. This will mean a lot to him and for the rest of his life...... You are right in the sense that helping the boy was a fairly easy thing to do, it required no great sacrifice - that doesn't make in meaningless. It is fair to say that the message of the movie is difficult to decipher. However, I would not call it nihilistic. The boy loved his mother. Is it nihilistic because he couldn't stop her from dying?
I went to a church once that played the music video for the song during it's Christmas Eve service (😬) Almost the entire congregation had a collective near-death experience while trying desperately not to burst out laughing. It's become like a meme within the church as the most capitalistic display of Christianity we've ever seen.
This film absolutely RUINED me as a 7 year old watching it right before Christmas, and for the last 19 years it has been this weight I've carried with me. Thank you for helping me to work through why this film was so distressing. The confusing, contradictory and dangerous American work ethic is so brilliantly captured in this film, and it is unbelievably distressing
[near the end of part 1] Me: -never saw the movie- "yeah that sounds like a good and simple set up for this kind of story" Joel: "but...that's not what we get" Me: what.....? but...what...?!
19:44 "You can't be something and its negation at the same time!" Schrödinger's cat: "I beg your pardon!?" "You can't be inside a room AND outside of it." Elementary particles: "We beg your pardon!?"
This is one of the most interesting analysis I've seen in a long time. Even the title of this movie perfectly represents the contradiction within; the Christmas (family, values, caring) Shoes (Material, empty, meaningless )
I remember my mom singing this song nonstop around christmas (she still does) and telling us all how sad and amazing it was. very glad she never saw the movie or we wouldn't have heard the end of it!
I lost two relatives within a year or so, when I had to ask for the time off for the second funeral, my boss flippantly said , ( with a f@#king smile ) “Must be something in the water up there.” Almost thirty years ago , but I remember it well .
I mean Rob Lowe pretty much looks the same now in 2021 as he did in ST. ELMO’S FIRE in 1985. The guy is ageless. And will probably still be incredibly attractive when he is 70.
I could not for the life of me shake the thought and had to check. Maggie is played by the actress who also played Virginia in The 10th Kingdom, which I used to rewatch religiously as a kid. Makes me want to revisit it and see if it holds up, but I'm kinda scared to do that
The real conflict of the movie seems to be Labor vs. Charity. Neither of the main characters seem to want to rely on charity to accomplish their goals. The adult doesn’t want his wife doing charity when she can be working, the kid doesn’t wanna ask his dad to buy the shoes because he wants to work himself. Yet the ending of the song is all about the beauty of giving to someone else and the value of that. Charity, in both of these scenarios, would enable human connection to take precedent over labor - enable people to interact with each other in meaningful ways more than have to worry about working for the sake of it. Perhaps the message of the movie is, had charity been called upon and offered earlier, the kid could have spent more time with his mom and the adult man‘s result of servicing his community could’ve been accomplished more than just as a byproduct of his work. But that’s not the spirit of the town. The kind man Noodles makes a mess of cans for the kid to collect, meaning we can intuit they live in a society that idolizes labor for labor’s sake. Perhaps, secretly, that’s the real tragedy. Human connection could’ve been achieved faster if helping hands were offered head-on instead of as a byproduct of the system working properly. Yet the system doesn’t work improperly enough to call that inefficiency into question. So no one questions the system, charity isn’t focused on, and things continue on as they are, with generation after generation viewing continuous labor as the only way to prevent things from getting worse for others. Nothing changes. “The system works well _enough_ so it’ll continue this way in perpetuity.”
I think there was an intent there, to show that you should value memories over material goods, but then halfway through the script they realized "oh shit, that would mean we're implying capitalism isn't perfect" and backpedaled without revising anything because they refused to actually make any sort of political statement just my take
They could have easily told a more interesting albeit depressing version of this story where the lesson the child learns is that he spent so much time trying to get these stupid shoes for his mom that he missed out on the last days of her life.
i just kept thinking about the mediterranean working class dad taking out a huge wad of cash and arguing loudly about not giving the kid the money for the shoes until the kid yells they're only $10 and then the dad peeling him off a $20 with a "why didn't say? $10? get her a something nice too."
Okay just speaking as someone who works in a school as a teacher's aide if a student is struggling and their parent is dying. My thing would be plant cans it would be "hey how about I buy the shoes in exchange for you sharpening pencils in the morning so that you can spend time with your DYING PARENT"
I laughed at the full two minutes after you introduced the teacher as noodles because he makes you smile. JUST BUY THE SHOES, NOODLES. WHY ARE YOU DUMPING CANS IN AN ALLEY?
I feel like wer missing something: The fact that the kid didnt earn the shoes through labor. He got them because of the kindness of Rob Lowe. With this we can reframe the kids actions through the whole movie as real tragic. That, just like Rob Lowe, he was too focused on making money than making memories and it cost him time with the people that had little time AND didnt even get him what he wanted.
Speaking of which, a video on the thematic implications of Christmas itself would be cool. A holiday that insists it’s not about material objects, yet creates consumerism at its highest point, a holiday which, at least in media, is all about discovering what it actually represents. It’s so thematically messy that a standard experience is to attempt to unpack it (especially in seasonal morality plays)
One thing I'd like to say about column a is that the idea isn't really anticapitalist, but rather a core element of capitalist culture. Yes, you can read it as "don't just make money, make memories with your loved ones". But the flip side is "there is no need to envy the rich because you are rich at something more meaningful, good memories and time with your loved ones." This is where the synthesis shows how wicked celebrations like consumerist Christmas actually are comes in. For those good memories, you don't just need each other. It starts with the poor people in movies having big houses and full fridges and it extents to lavish Christmas decorations and expensive Christmas gifts. The Christmas shoe fits this mold perfectly: I'm sure the mother would rather spend her time with her child, but this child works to acquire those shoes as an act of love to her. Consumerist culture and late capitalism in general heavily relies on creating needs through cultural and emotional association. This movie is about middle class attitude. Middle class people generally don't live for their work. Working yourself to the bones to just to become more obscenely rich is a trait of the upper class. Middle class works for their children's college fund, for the new family car, for the craved home entertainment system, for their own house, for the family vacation. The message isn't contradictory. It's "keep in mind what you work for and keep on prioritizing work."
Damn this is actually a pretty interesting movie. Even just watching your video I got pretty frustrated not being able to hid in the comfort of the "Christmas Carol Binary" that so many other holiday movies push.
Hey hope you liked the video, it was a super fun one to make! What is your favorite christmas shoe? Also, here's the link to my Patreon, if you're interested lol www.patreon.com/bigjoel
Great video, Joel! My favorite Christmas shoes are those foamy flip-flops with the floral Hawaiian shirt design on them. I sure love wearing those Christmas shoes around the holiday season.
My favourite christmas shoe is croc :)
According to a BuzzFeed quiz I just took, the Christmas shoe that best represents my personality is a Wellington boot.
Australian Christmas shoes are usually thongs, (known as flip flops and other things in other countries) but I'll be in workboots as usual.
Hi Joel! Thank you for the video! My favourite Christmas shoe is when I stuff my feet inside dual Christmas turkeys I bought by avoiding my family. I use then to slide away from my loved ones in order to earn more money for more turkeys. Next year, I am hoping to be able to but 4 turkeys for hands also
I know this is like a year old but that ominous line about "hurry back" makes me think of one of the most radicalizing moments of my life. My great aunt was on her death bed and I had to go in for a shift at work. My mom told me she might not be there when I got back. I walked into work and broke down sobbing that I might miss her passing. They let me go home. When I returned to work, they asked how things went and I said that she passed peacefully around midnight that night surrounded by family. And they said "Oh, so you mean you could have stayed for your shift?"
That was one of the most inhuman things I had ever heard.
That's such a fucked up takeaway, I'm so sorry that happened to you
People say some really dumb things......I'd like to think he later realized how stupid that was to say. But then, some people are really stupid.
that man is my new personal hero
@@jknifgijdfuihow did he manage to edge out ahead of stalin and hitler?
@@Ari-ez1vj cause a hero for me is someone i can strive to be and sadly being a dictator is hard so best i can do is a little trolling
The movie is accidentally about the contradicting moralities of capitalism.
Turns out, it's actually a deliberate justification for a Hegelian worldview.
Actuallt it's a movie about the catholic idea of work as damnation vs the protestant work ethic, and the subsequent rise of capitalism.
@@user-xz2rv4wq7g Are you implying "the protest work ethic" lead to capitalism? It's the other way around.
Taylor I think Weber didn’t go to any of the extremes, if I recall correctly capitalism did not create the Protestant work ethic nor did the Protestant work ethic created capitalism, they had rather a selective affinity for each other. We could say that the Protestant work ethic was inherently tied to to the bourgeoisie values that were spreading everywhere, but that’s not the same as establishing causation. At least I thing it isn’t, it’s been a while since I’ve studied Weber and quite frankly I don’t remember.
@@sabinasabino141 There's been a lot of responses to Weber's argument that while protestantism and capitalism reinforced one another in their histories, in the first instance, it was the first developments of market capitalism that created the desire for "reform" that caused the reformation. So while protestantism helped facilitate a christian, capitalist society; it was the economic conditions of early capitalism that first encouraged people to change their relationship with religion. The earliest protestants were often already market-participating urbanites. Not the other way around. I've never read Weber directly though. Just responses to him.
the people around the kid being like “we’re supporting you in spirit!” but not actually giving him money was probably the most accurate part of this movie
Thoughts and prayers
oops we accidentally did an argument against capitalism in our conservative christian movie
Ooooops
Whoopsie.
No one: chistmas shoes
karens: DONT COME NEAR ME OR MY WHOLESOME CHRISTIAN VALUES WITH YOUR *anti capitalism*
BASED CRIMMUS SHOE?
did you know the first form of anarchism was christian
christian collectivism is pretty interesting historically
That movie is the definition of "This isn't Wholesome, this is the Capitalism Dystopia"
Seriously this movie defines capitalist realism. Instead of illuminating the possibility of overcoming mass systemic depression through juxtaposing two morally different individual paths, it seems to say either path is ultimately futile in creating more meaning beyond that system's parameters. Very nihilistic.
@@Bisquick Exactly!!! I am kind of blown away with how perfect this movie is for this type of examination. It's both absurd and yet totally sensible in our society that the "labor" required for the kid to create a commodity of love for his mother is...collecting cans. And how do we deal with that? How can we resolve that? The people who made this movie were unprepared to answer that, considering they didn't even mean to ask the question in the first place. But posing the question at all has made this a very interesting movie.
As opposed to the communist version where he can't get the shoes because the government didn't ration them out.
Seriously I don't think the shoes being a purchasable good is the problem, more his lack of money.
@@likira111 Shoes are obviously the problem. And communism, which rations them.
@@likira111 If we're going to live in a capitalist society, don't you at least want to examine the psychological and social implications of that?
Perhaps the real Christmas Shoes was the friendly teachers who wouldn't give us ten dollars we met along the way
You think we pay teachers enough to spare ten dollars?
@@poingupoingu True that adds some nuance
@@suzysquidink Only if you ignore the fact that he, effectively, gives the kid 5 bucks.
@@quebeccityoliver4742 But thoes sodas cost way more than 5 dollars
@@quebeccityoliver4742 It probably required the teacher to do way more than $5 worth of labor to get all those cans, too.
"Are we poor?"
Living in a house that was built for 7-person families.
It's not an easy question to answer. If you have to worry about money every day of your life, in a way you are poor. Even if your standard of living seems quite high.
@@davidking4838 seems like the system is broken if even the decently well off are struggling too
@@davidking4838 If you HAVE TO worry about money every day, you're poor.
If you don't have to but you worry any way, you just THINK you're poor.
Maybe they are rich in assets and poor in cash. They own a huge house (an expensive asset) but have little savings or income (liitle amount of cash) to spend readily
It’s hard to accurately portray impoverished dwellings because the camera needs to be in the rooms
How cool would it have been if the kid and Rob Lowe never interacted, and the big twist ending was that Rob was just the kid grown up? Holy, they missed a big opportunity to show they were *literally* the same person.
How would his mom get resurrected though…
@@tarkelprice6875 Jesus™️
@wardm4 Yeah, could've made it like "It's great to try to do things for your family and people around you, like working hard to provide for them, but sometimes it takes so much from you that it actually starts hurting everyone." A lesson around balance or good and bad or something like that.
The Christmas Lakehouse
"It's almost Christmas time"
*Halloween wants to know your location*
*Thanksgiving just doesn't care anymore*
Thanksgiving is like "idk if i should even exist anymore. My life is predicated on the softening of an near genocided people"
I work in retail and before that food service, the holiday season is just a really stressful 3 and half month blur, that's built around christmas
Thanks what?
I deadass forgot about Thanksgiving untill reading this comment..
Thanksgiving is a mistake more news at 10
The "poor" family is what TV thinks a poor blue collar family looks like. It's pathetic the tropes they constantly use and get nothing right.
Right? Many poor families live in a state of panicked chaos. It's stressful as fuck to be poor.
Poor has a big house, family, 2 cars, full fridge, and they're just a little bit dirty.
Is this your first Hallmark movie?
@@user-account-not-found So true!
my favorite part of poverty, having a home i own to live in and as much nutritious food to eat as i want. man it sure is hard to be a totally broke homeowner with one job that supports my whole family.
Ooh, I know the message! It’s ‘Rich people should rest more, poor people should work more.’ What’s the difference between our two lads? Class.
Bless us every one, the deserving poor who are deserving because they work, and the deserving rich who are deserving because, er, well, I guess they wouldn’t be rich if they weren’t?
Dudeeeeee
We have a winner
Hmmm... Yup, checks out! We found the answer!
One is focused on the immediate future and has divine intervention
Classist propaganda? I was thinking mostly the same thing,
Kit Whitfield, but I'm not sure the rich even factor into the story because this isn't for them. It's a veiled message to everyone below the top that if you're working class and probably won't gain much from working harder, it's heartwarmingly human to work even harder, that the futility of your efforts is beautiful and endearing, but if you're upwardly mobile middle class and might be able to step up by working harder, slow down before you become an emotionless jerk.
To be honest, I don't think the writers even knew what they were trying to say.
"... This nice teacher... We'll call him Noodles, because he makes me smile"
That made me a happ boi
I wish the whole part with "Noodles" creating the can treasure hunt was just because the teacher thought this kid weirdly obsessed with cans. That would be amazing and honestly more heartwarming.
Movie:Money can't buy happiness. also movie: GOTTA GET THOSE SHOES!!!!
Money can’t buy happiness, but you can rent it.
@@jonimaricruz1692 and if nothing else can bring a great deal of peace of mind.
The lack of a difference between Nathan and Robert could work if Nathan realizes their similarities in the end: "Oh, that boy has been working all month for something he presumes his dying mother wants instead of spending time with her? That's actually really sad. Maybe it could teach me something about my own relation towards my family and my work."
Then instead of Robert trying to buy the shoes last minute before the store closes, have him be under time pressure because of another event (maybe to see his mom at home, before she's transported to the hospital? Someone could probably come up with a better idea...) and when he realizes that he doesn't have enough money, he is willing to collect more cans and miss said important event, just so he can buy the shoes. Then Nathan steps in, buys him the shoes and tells him to go home to his family.
The message then could be about labour for people you love not being inherently bad, but time spent labouring FOR your loved ones not being automatically better than time spent WITH them and that you shouldn't get so caught up in doing what you assume is good for them that you overlook their own feelings.
I just want someone to buy him those damn shoes. The end.
That would be good, but then it would paint that hard working Good Boy as flawed in some way, and we can not have that.
@@caseyw.6550 Right?
THE KID'S MOM IS DYING.
DON'T TELL THE KID WITH THE DYING MOM TO DIG THROUGH GARBAGE.
GIVE THE KID WITH THE DYING MOM A TWENTY YOU MONSTERS
THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AMAZING!!!
Are we sure that isn't already the message the movie is going for? They definitely don't do as clean of a job presenting it as your changes would, but that's the only reason I can see for hammering home just how similar Rob and Nathan are. Nathan trying to buy the shoes is definitely supposed to be seen as noble, but can't imagine the movie wants us to think it's the best idea. Clearly he should instead be spending time with his mom, hence the dad's "hurry back" line.
I do think it's very strange they never have a scene where Rob comes to that conclusion himself, but I still think that's most likely what the movie is going for.
It's unsettling classist propaganda dressed up as a heartwarming Christmas story that's trying to get a win from all directions (except for the dying mum I suppose). If you're poor, work hard and keep working, but not to the point where you become rich, just work because your work is plucky and endearing and heartwarming to see you strugglin' by bless your little blue collar socks. But the rich, well they need to work less, learn to appreciate the little things, humble yourself a bit, because you wouldn't wanna be too rich and threaten the actually rich rich people, so loosen up. Everybody stay nice and complacent, pay no attention to the man behind the veil.
You come to the conclusion that this is intentional propaganda based off a subjective interpretation of the movie? The people behind this thing werent plotting and scheming to make the Christmas Shoes starring Rob Lowe the way to end some resistance
@@WhaleManMan I don't think it's intentional, just film creators and audiences are very biased, and repeat tropes that have been distilled down to us for many decades of capitalist movie making. It's basically hard working dad should fight for his family trope + heartwarming rags to riches story about hardworking boy with cliche dying parent. Both are capitalistically distilled and arbitrarily juxaposed, to make this stew of contradiction. Human fantasy is not supposed to coherent, but amplification of certain moods or narratives at a given time and place. It's like getting confused over language paradoxes, merely tools, not reflect of perfect reality.
@@draco89123
True, but I'm not sure if this guy really thinks that. Seems more like the typical rants that are eerily similar to theories on the Illuminati
@@WhaleManMan I don't entirely disagree with the parent comment though. It does have those classist undertones: wealthy people should take a breather, the poors should have more ambition. I don't agree with the fostering complacency part, to protect the richy rich, that's probably an overread.
@@WhaleManMan Whether or not it's intended as literal propaganda, the movie is all about pushing "all-American" "wholesome" values in support of, not just the status quo, but the vague nostalgia for America that never was.
Like, it's definitely present in the... let's call it dissonant way that Rob Lowe's whole thing is that he works too hard and needs to relax, but at the same time the kid's scrounging for trash is inherently noble because work is by definition good for the soul (unless you're a white-collar professional, I guess?). And of course it's only the men who work; Lowe is actually shown to be in the wrong because he thinks that his wife should use her business degree to get a damn job, rather than be a stay-at-home mom for a teenager. That's not even going into that bizarre non-sequitur where Lowe's car is having engine problems and Wise Old Guy suggests he buy American.
So yeah, it might not be directly designed to be an argument against class consciousness, but it's definitely a whole display of small-c-conservative Americana, where everyone's in a nuclear family of working dads, stay-at-home moms, kids who speak entirely in innocent wonderment or cheesy shmaltz, and the occasional beatific senior citizen dropping Old Time Wisdom about how work is noble but also family is more important than anything but also ever think about buying American.
“i hope you’ve been thinking...” bold of you to assume i can think, joel
Agreed, don't push your assumptions on us. I haven't had a thought in years
Once in a while there's something on my mind.
When I wear a hat.
Lou Walker coherent thoughts? don’t know her
Thinker? But I hardly know her.
Movies that are very invested in women owning red shoes:
1. The Wizard of Oz
2. The Christmas Shoes
3. The Red Shoes
The female owner of aforementioned red shoes dies in every one of these movies
coincidence or conspiracy, you decide
tv show 4. Red shoe diaries
Mind: blown
dorothy doesn’t die? idk if you’re joking sorry
@@josie3221 rubi slippers were retrieved from the witch's corpse on the beginning of the story. Arguably they became Dorothy's along the way, but the original owner did die.
You forgot the Tom Hanks movie: The Man With One Red Shoe......ah, but then, come to think of it, so did everyone else.
I would also like to point out that on Christmas Eve, the recycling center would likely be closed anyway and he wouldn’t be able to exchange said cans for any money.
The recycling people also overwork themselves for material possessions
Wow someone is about to get smacked in the face with a Christmas miracle. The recycling center is open!
oh that would be a fucking crushing conclusion. and then he gets the shoes gifted to him and runs on home
The amount of time and effort Noodles put into creating that cache of cans was surely worth more than $5 to him. I guess teaching Little Nathan the Protestant Work Ethic is what made it worth his while.
Dorian sapiens think about the sodas he must have consumed... my god...
@@caralineg6568 😳
It's really unfortunate as on one hand you kinda get it as a teach a man to fish type of thing but this is for his could die at any moment mother, this is literally not the time let alone drink a bunch of soda to put in an alley...JUST GIVE HIM THE DAMN MONEY, RAMEN-SENSEI!
Young people who are better at critical thinking than the typical United Stater would look at the more complicated method through which the teacher enabled the child to buy the shoes, see how much that overcomplication set the child back, and only grow to resent Calvinism and the Calvinist Work Ethic even more. Bootstrap mentality owes everything to Calvinism for getting it as far as it's gone.
Dude could've just gotten the kid the ten dollar shoes instead of littering excessively and making the kid clean it up for five dollars, especially since the kid's mom could die at any moment and he could be spending his time with her instead of doing labor. Like, I'm not saying what noodles did wasn't wholesome, but even though he had good intentions, I think it did more harm than good, even if it made the kid happy. The kid probably would've been even happier if noodles gave him the actual money or even the shoes instead.
Edit: I just realized that the other comments pretty much say exactly what I did. Probably should've read them before writing this long ass comment lol
Just think, if the US had universal health care it's quite possible Nathan's mum would have been fine as a result of being able and willing to seek treatment earlier. Then we wouldn't have this heart warming tale, proving that universal health care is bad or something.
10/10
Bu..but personal responsibility free markets something something freedom.
nah, that would be communism, and communism is bad because its not america and everyone knows america is always the good guy
@@MelancoliaI "People get cancer because there are lazzy"- Jesus Chrysler
I have a theory: this movie is made for middle to upper-middle class Christians. They like the idea of family, and they like to think that material things are not what Christmas is truly about. Rob's plot about a hard-working dad taking a break and spending time with his family speaks to them, because perhaps they are in similar family situations and can identify with it.
Then, the kid's plot comes in. The kid is a hard worker. His story makes comfortable, logical sense: hard work=good things (in the form of material objects). The kid justifies the conditions of Rob's family, and by extension the class and conditions of the families who are watching. The kid is rewarded with the shoes because he worked (unnecessarily) hard. Perhaps this is because the universe is logical and balanced. The kid DESERVES the shoes, and his desire for the material shoes is not shallow, but it is deep and meaningful and justified. By extension, people who are well off are well off because life (essentially) is fair and their money is a direct reward of their hard, earnest work. And their desire for material objects is not shallow; instead it is HOLY. Jesus will like the Christmas shoes. They have to do with the mother's getting into heaven. Also, the kid gets into medical school and becomes a doctor. This will probably allow the kid to move up in class and wealth. The kid is already established to be a good person, and I think this could imply that people are middle class because they are good and hard working, and that good, hard-working people are not poor (or do not stay poor for long).
In conclusion this movie is made to make people feel good about themselves. Which everyone already probably knew.
Also there is a lot to be said about the role of the wives in the beginning. For example Rob's family is "bad", and he makes his wife have a career instead of her volunteering at church. And the kid's family is "good"; his mother doesn't work (and they can still afford a house somehow?)
I think this is spot on
I know what a lot of you are thinking right now: "Big Joel sure seems to love christmas a lot. Wouldn't it be great if he would make a christmas album?"
Well, you're in luck. He already has made one, it's called "Breaking Up With Santa" and you should give it a listen!
"What I hear is a crushing nihilistic tale about a little boy with no guidance trying to make sense of this horrible tragedy that's about to befall him; and is under the delusion that a pair of shoes would matter at all"
Lindsay Ellis (Christmas Shoes review)
So what is the boy supposed to do? Yes, the tragedy is coming and there's nothing he can do about it. His life is likely a little better that he tries to do something. He tries to make his mother happy on her last day on Earth. That is not Nihilism.
@@davidking4838 the tale is nihilistic, the character is not.
"His life is likely a little better that he tries to do something." But his life would be a lot better if other characters helped him accomplish the goal of "make his mother happy on her last day on Earth", right? Thus the nihilism.
If the movie was: Shoes fall off a truck, the guy finds them, goes to town square "Anybody wants these shoes?", mom says "I do", you could have the rest of the movie being spent with a kid and his mom trying to deal with a disease that is going to kill her. That's not just one day, that is multiple days spent collecting cans that he could have spent with her.
Or, if he just said to one random guy "I'm collecting cans because I want to buy shoes for my mom. She has cancer." what sort of non-nihilistic non-ahole person wouldn't say "That's rough kid. How much do those shoes cost?". If they were 50$ or 100$ I would go to store with the kid, buy him the damn shoes and wouldn't even care if the kid is trying to scam me. Because, again, cancer, mom, holy shit that's dark!
But that is not the movie we got. Instead we got this hopeless nihilistic mess. Nobody is going to help you, nobody is going to give you money even if you really desire it. Because if he just went to somebody and asked for money and received it, then it would send the wrong message somehow and we can't have that!
@@jo1stormlord So, it's "Hey mom, here's some shoes I got from begging.....hope you like them."......Write that crap story and maybe Hallmark will make it into a movie.....I kind of doubt it though.
@@davidking4838 Begging? He wasn't begging for them. But it would be utter bullshit if all the people in the city just gave him cans. How about some gift from the town's Scrooges?
They could have gone with other Christian and Christmas moral if they wanted. Maybe the community comes together, they talk with each other... "Have you seen this kid asking for cans? What's all that about?"
"Oh, his mom has cancer."
"Oh shit, I told him I don't have any cans. If I knew it was so important to him, I would have told him to clean my driveway. And paid him handsomely."
So when he comes to recycling center on Christmas eve, there is nobody there. He comes to buy shoes, he can't find them, the store owner tells him somebody already bought them. Finally, in despair, he goes to hospital and the whole town is there, people whose hearts he touched over the months he was collecting cans. They made cookies and food, they bought the shoes and everybody is in Christmas mood.
And then his mother sees the people in front of her room, the neighbors that forgot about her but have remembered. And she puts on the damn shoes and dances with her husband and her son and it is all Hallmark feel good movie.
@@jo1stormlord Duh! He wasn't begging because it wasn't your version - which had him begging. That's why I said your version probably would be boring.
I want her to look beautiful if Momma meets Joel tonight
joel mamma
mamma joel
It makes sense to me as a form of capitalist recuperation. Like, the explicit idea the movie sets out to present is that labor and consumption are not ends in themself and that we should prioritize human connections over them. However, the scripts and norms set out for us by capitalism insist that those are, in fact, the central values around which we should organize our lives. Unable to recognize this because it would require that capitalism be cast in a negative light, the movie just straight reproduces consumerist values, contridcitng its own intent.
That's the obvious reading, but I feel it is anti-Marxist, and actually more of a reinforcement of capitalism than simply accepting the message of the movie as correct. Anti-capitalism isn't based in this naive idea that you can just *withdraw* from capitalism. Return to some more basic human togetherness that's supposedly better in some way. No. It comes from a recognition that capitalism can't go forth with its own promises. You go out and try to buy the shoes, that's great, you *should* do that. But then the system fails you, and you end up with your life wasted and no shoes. Or you inevitably come to recognise the child-like naiveness of trying to buy the shoes, understanding that the struggle to gain them is only real because of an arbitrary barrier drawn up by yourself and others in your society.
Joel is right that the message of the first half of this movie would be a facile Christian morality tale. The movie doesn't negate it just because it contradicts their interests as capitalist ideologues. In fact, a capitalist ideologue could very well say "That's great, go spend time with your family." Getting middle class families not to worry so much and just enjoy the simple things in life is a great help to the capitalist system.
What if the meaning of the movie is the protagonists actualizing manhood by negotiating love and labor. It's worth noting that both protagonists are funding this self-actualization by sacrificing their female relationships and hanging out with other men. Maybe in a sequel they'll both be openly gay and we'll realize that the pretty shoes, hanging out with Noodles, and "helping out the farmers" should be interpretted differently.
lWlVl best fucking comment
😮
This made me not only laugh, but want to let you all know I laughed.
This is the best, most chaotic, take and I am 100% here for it.
That's awesome take! Good job!
The song always makes me lose my shit because of how balls to the wall depressing it is, I'm so happy to hear there's an entire movie based on it
The movie is based on a book (by the same name) based on the song.
Whether intentional or not, it seems like this movie exposes Christmas for the contradictory holiday that it is.
Like, there's this idea put forth about how important it is to spend time with family, but companies relentlessly urge people to buy all of this stuff for their loved ones.
However, having the money to buy gifts for your loved ones requires time away from family, and well, time at work.
As a whole, we could take The Christmas Shoes as a vapid product that is designed to tell you the contradictory stuff that you hear during the season. There's no "real" message, other than what you're told each year:
Spend time with family, but also work lots and lots of hours.
Josh Davis I think contemporary consumer Christmas should be rejected and it should only be celebrated for the religious event of Jesus coming to earth. (pagan origins be damned)
@@lukericker8325 If you're gonna go that route, I want you to give back the whole "tree with lights and big feast with family in the dead of winter" thing. Respect my Pagan origins.
Also, we want Ēostre back. You can keep the chocolate crucifixes.
kahbn Well, that’s why I said pagan origins be damned. But fine, I would rather have no Christmas at all and let you barbaric pagans have it, (almost none of you actually exist, mostly just as an edgy counter cultural fad), than have the horrific display of consumerism and decadence that it’s become.
@@lukericker8325 hey, nobody said you couldn't have your whole "baby in a barn and old men bringing gold and incense" thing. Just leave the pine trees out of it. Heck, the kid was born in the middle East. I don't think they even have evergreens in that climate.
Or y'know just celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday
That sure is a big house that "poor" family has.
You try filming in a small ass house
@@Nickman826 is filming equipment really that cumbersome?
And the mom doesn't work.
@@Nickman826 Ever heard of sets?
SomethingScanning That’s what sets are for...
I get why a person, particularly a child, would choose to focus on something they think they can do rather than the dying family member. What's strange is that no one tells him 'what you can do, what woukd make your mum feel special, is being there with her'. His dad and teacher are right there.
Every Christmas movie on the surface: CAPITALISM BAD
Look at it for two seconds: GiVe Us MoNeY
"I understand that observation may sound silly to you" Everything you say sounds silly to me, Joel, that's why I'm subscribed
brilliant dystopian film
I'm guessing the writers' intent here was to have the man start off working too much and not caring for his family and then the kid cares for his family but doesn't work enough, and the idea was that by the end of the movie the two would reach some kind of equilibrium, where they both care for their family enough but also work enough. But they just handled that idea clumsily and instead made a movie that negates itself. Like a sock that's been twisted inside out.
That read is way too charitable, I think. The more realistic scenario is that, first, they wanted to make a Christmas movie. Basically every Christmas movie is about how consumerism and materialism trying and failing to pollute the purity of Christmas, which here broadly symbolizes family togetherness and "true" happiness. It helps, here, that the song features the guy learning his lesson in a store. Second, they wanted to make a movie about this song, The Christmas Shoes. This is a song that is, regardless of how the emphasis is placed, about the magical wonderment of buying some shoes. The kid wants to buy shoes, and this is treated as "good", so the man buys the kid the shoes, and thus learns the true meaning of Christmas. Consumption saves the day.
So, they did both things. Rob Lowe's arc is about how the true meaning of Christmas is family togetherness instead of materialism, the kid's arc is about how the true meaning of Christmas is working hard so you can buy some shoes for your mom, and a contradiction is born. The song itself is arguably kinda contradictory in this way too, but it gets away with it better because the kid's actual path to getting the shoes is deemphasized in a way that isn't particularly possible in a full length film. And then they did it all super messy, rendering the contradiction harder to resolve.
@@eggynack Also, they clearly could not have either of their deuteragonists be "flawed" in any way. So Rob works too much...because he came from poor origins and he just CARES TOO MUCH and all the too much work he does is actually helping people who are extremely needy. He didn't really need to learn the lesson of the film at all, he just forgot he didn't need to learn it at the beginning of the movie. The kid is a kid and therefore legally cannot not know the true meaning of Christmas, so he just automatically gets a pass because he's just such a little trooper.
I'm not sure it's fair to say he's working too much and doesn't care for his family when it's likely that he works too much BECAUSE he cares for his family.
As a devout Big Joel watcher and a devout Christian, The Christmas Shoes song is openly and mercilessly mocked by every Christian and non-Christian that I know
Agreed.
I can verify this as a fellow Christian
It's SO TRUE AND I HATE THAT SONG FUCK IT
Completely agreed
I'm one of those Christians who hates this movie, and the awful song. But I know other Christians who like them both. I had a good friend who loved this song. Whenever it came on the radio she would turn it up. We visited friends of hers for Christmas in China. They liked it too. They essentially lived in a compound. There was nowhere for me to go to escape to. It was a very difficult two weeks.
this reminds me a lot of a book i had to read in Sunday school as a kid called "socks for Christmas" and it's about the authors childhood when he got socks for Christmas one year and hated it because he wanted cool expensive toys like the other kids but he sees his poor neighbors couldn't afford socks so he starts being grateful he has socks as a kid i remember saying "oh why can't he just give some of his socks to the kids" and being told i missed the point of the story by my teacher
The Christmas Shoes: A Study in Dialectic Materialism
"of course she's right. She is nice and old and dies a few minutes after saying it"
Imagine hearing that in any other context
The film is a tragedy about how capitalism forces people into cycles of toil and consumerism. Robert's sees Nathan labouring and concludes that he himself works too much and doesn't spend time with his loved ones, but is powerless to stop Nathan from following down the same road.
I have no idea. I've never heard of this film before.
That’s probably the most coherent reading that could be taken from it
Big Joel can't wrap his head around the fact that fear is freedom and subjugation is liberation
THE PREY BOWS BEFORE THE PREDATOR'S JAWS
i felt kinda dirty typing that
And we're all just polishing brass on the Titanic.......right?
This is like my favorite channel now
Yours ain't bad either. 😁 But there is no one quite like Big Joel! 🙌
Your channel it's great too.
Its up there on my favs also
"Don't just make money, make memories" is basically the premise of Click, which I take no pleasure in saying
Lol I just came to this video after watching Joel’s Click video
Sadly, so many of my memories of childhood are about........not having money.
The only clear message we can gather from this movie is that Big Joel is one of those maniacs who puts their Christmas Tree up in September
How do you even find films like this? This is a genuine question
@CommandoDude So are these just made-for-tv movies that are a bit more accepted just because christmas? I'll never understand the american christmas obsession I guess
GrapeApeTape It’s a cynical attempt to tug at heartstrings.
@@grapeapetape9132 this is a hallmark movie, they spam America's television stations with hundreds of awful made for TV movies
This one is super well known here in America lol
Be American with elderly relatives from November 1st on out. You literally cannot avoid them.
Let's be real here, Big Joel made this video to have an excuse to put on a Christmas sweater.
I can't blame him. He's rocking it.
Hahaha, that guy is literally blue collar, eating breakfast in his overalls.
My conclusion: don't wear shoes, wear chanclas. They are cheaper.
Jesus loves chanclas!
😂😂😂
Gabriel jacinto lópez just not on your culo! Respect mama y abuela!
Exactooo
Is that an Ayrton Senna picture at you profile???
I was thinking - maybe the difference is meant to be that Robert is working to find security in his worldly, mortal life, while Nathan is working to prepare his family for the immortal afterlife. I mean, nothing else about the movie seems like it'd suggest that, but I figured it was an idea worth putting out there.
Perfect example of commodity fetishism. Shoes represent the work of laborers and their use to consumers, but they're treated in society as another form of wealth.
Yup. Exchange value privileged over use value.
Sometimes, I ask myself "Why is BigJoel talking about this?"
And then I think "Because he wants to." And that's good
big joel are you aware its september
Big joel has big christmas spirit all year
@@theredstheredstheredsthereds That's what the "big" signifies, since he himself is neither big nor Joel.
Damn, those scenes with the kid collecting cans were heartbreaking ngl.
Back when I was a kid and was being raised in a Christian home, I heard the song and what stood out to me about it was that, apparently, according to this song when you die you go to heaven wearing the clothes you were wearing when you died because it seems to be the case that this kid's mom will meet Jesus wearing those shoes if he brings them home so she can die wearing them, and I just couldn't get over that because it didn't seem to me like that's how it would work.
I just now realized watching this video that I made it to adulthood with no idea if anyone had posed any kind of a theological answer to that question or not.
A Marxist take on The Christmas Shoes is just as fun as a feminist take on Love, Actually. I get to ruin Christmas again!
Where can I find the feminist take on love actually?
@@rattyeely www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/love-actually-richard-curtis-comic-relief-keira-knightley-a7643801.html Here's one. www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/12/-em-love-actually-em-is-the-least-romantic-film-of-all-time/282091/ Here's another. In general what happened was the movie turned 10 years old and people wrote think pieces about why it's not feminist (which I kept on commenting on while my family was trying to have together time and watch a movie on Christmas eve).
The next year everyone wrote think pieces defending the movie. It's very similar to the discourse around "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Is he drugging her to get her to stay?!?!?! Lots of people have opinions about why the song and Love Actually are/aren't problematic.
it is a nice sweater
There was a good article on jezebel about how fucking dreadful that movie is
@@Eilowyn The short and infuriating answer to Baby It's Cold Outside: Both sides have a point
Fundamentally, it's just another case like Deck the Halls not being about putting on homosexual clothing. It's just that instead of becoming a really easy dumb joke, it shifted from "Is there alcohol in this that I can use as an excuse later?" to sounding like she's worried about date rape. There's definitely still a Discussion™ to be had about how the intended story still perpetuates the myth that people just play "hard to get", but that's also a lot more nuanced than just dismissing it as the Date Rape Song
I like that you have a face, Big Joel.
I like that you have good grammar, Erin Brenton.
The way they aged Rob Lowe for the scene that takes place years later was spot on with reality
Rob Lowe os ageless.
I watched this because it was largely shot in my home town. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in the downtown core. And I was able to walk around the set with that fake store at night when they stopped shooting but still had the set lightng on full blast.
There are a lot of aspects of "The Christmas Shoes" that fascinate me, but I think the biggest one for me personally is the idea of inspirational disadvantage. The same kind of thing that makes the general populous see disabled people as heroes for living their daily lives, or children who need breathing machines and won't live past 20 existing just to make you feel good about yourself. I've pointed out in several arguments about both of these things that it's a sort of benevolent removal of someone's humanity: their suffering is uncomfortable and so many of us feel powerless to change or help their situations, so by making them non-human vessels that cater to YOUR existential 3AM thoughts, they can be justified with good feelings and little to no effort on your part.
The poor boy in the song is inspirationally disadvantaged. It's not a story about how say, the system might've fucked his mom over by healthcare being prohibitively expensive, or about the working poor needing more quality of life and social safety nets. It's a song about how people worse off then you make you feel good about yourself and the least of your efforts. (The guy in the song gives the kid a dollar or something?) And God apparently made these people worse off than you for the explicit purpose of showing them to you in order to make you feel grateful.
The psychological manipulation inherent in that is just fabulously nihilistic. It suggests so many things, most notably that God is insane, and not above cruelty in order to force feelings of love and adoration. God intentionally makes the poor as nonhuman vessels whose purpose for existing is the penultimate five minutes of being too poor in a line for shoes.
I identify as a spiritual nihilist, so this being a supposed "good" showcase of Christianity makes me laugh and laugh.
It's called sympathy/ inspiration porn.. it's everywhere and drives me bonkers
Similar problems with the alternate ending of "I Am Legend", if I recall. And the movie "Signs" (oddly released the same year as The Christmas Shoes....)
@@bpansky Wasn’t the I Am Legend alternate ending about (spoilers)
Will’s character being the secret villain to what humanity became?
@@DeathnoteBB what i remember is, in the alternate ending, he is given a message FROM GOD.
The good in the movie is that a man helped a boy whose mother was dying so he, at least, has some good memory of her last day on Earth. This will mean a lot to him and for the rest of his life...... You are right in the sense that helping the boy was a fairly easy thing to do, it required no great sacrifice - that doesn't make in meaningless. It is fair to say that the message of the movie is difficult to decipher. However, I would not call it nihilistic. The boy loved his mother. Is it nihilistic because he couldn't stop her from dying?
I went to a church once that played the music video for the song during it's Christmas Eve service (😬) Almost the entire congregation had a collective near-death experience while trying desperately not to burst out laughing. It's become like a meme within the church as the most capitalistic display of Christianity we've ever seen.
This film absolutely RUINED me as a 7 year old watching it right before Christmas, and for the last 19 years it has been this weight I've carried with me. Thank you for helping me to work through why this film was so distressing. The confusing, contradictory and dangerous American work ethic is so brilliantly captured in this film, and it is unbelievably distressing
[near the end of part 1]
Me: -never saw the movie- "yeah that sounds like a good and simple set up for this kind of story"
Joel: "but...that's not what we get"
Me: what.....? but...what...?!
@CommandoDude That, along with vaguely reminding you of a surprisingly intelligent version of Morty from Rick and Morty.
19:44
"You can't be something and its negation at the same time!"
Schrödinger's cat: "I beg your pardon!?"
"You can't be inside a room AND outside of it."
Elementary particles: "We beg your pardon!?"
Same
Noodles is an alright dude. He makes me happy when I see him, I don’t know why. He’s just in the wrong movie.
0:40 I'm a Christian and that's the stupidest premise for a movie I've ever heard.
A lawyer saying “sorry I’m late I had to read a lot of case law” is like a surgeon saying “sorry I’m late, I had to change my gloves a bunch of times”
This is one of the most interesting analysis I've seen in a long time. Even the title of this movie perfectly represents the contradiction within; the Christmas (family, values, caring) Shoes (Material, empty, meaningless )
I remember my mom singing this song nonstop around christmas (she still does) and telling us all how sad and amazing it was. very glad she never saw the movie or we wouldn't have heard the end of it!
I lost two relatives within a year or so, when I had to ask for the time off for the second funeral, my boss flippantly said , ( with a f@#king smile ) “Must be something in the water up there.”
Almost thirty years ago , but I remember it well .
15 years pass in the movie and Rob Lowe looks exactly the same.
Accurate.
I mean Rob Lowe pretty much looks the same now in 2021 as he did in ST. ELMO’S FIRE in 1985. The guy is ageless. And will probably still be incredibly attractive when he is 70.
I could not for the life of me shake the thought and had to check. Maggie is played by the actress who also played Virginia in The 10th Kingdom, which I used to rewatch religiously as a kid. Makes me want to revisit it and see if it holds up, but I'm kinda scared to do that
"It stars Rob Lowe, for some reason" had me rolling I don't even know why.
At least Rob Lowe is a good actor. Why he is lowering himself to appear in a Hallmark movie is the real question.
The real conflict of the movie seems to be Labor vs. Charity. Neither of the main characters seem to want to rely on charity to accomplish their goals. The adult doesn’t want his wife doing charity when she can be working, the kid doesn’t wanna ask his dad to buy the shoes because he wants to work himself. Yet the ending of the song is all about the beauty of giving to someone else and the value of that. Charity, in both of these scenarios, would enable human connection to take precedent over labor - enable people to interact with each other in meaningful ways more than have to worry about working for the sake of it. Perhaps the message of the movie is, had charity been called upon and offered earlier, the kid could have spent more time with his mom and the adult man‘s result of servicing his community could’ve been accomplished more than just as a byproduct of his work. But that’s not the spirit of the town. The kind man Noodles makes a mess of cans for the kid to collect, meaning we can intuit they live in a society that idolizes labor for labor’s sake. Perhaps, secretly, that’s the real tragedy. Human connection could’ve been achieved faster if helping hands were offered head-on instead of as a byproduct of the system working properly. Yet the system doesn’t work improperly enough to call that inefficiency into question. So no one questions the system, charity isn’t focused on, and things continue on as they are, with generation after generation viewing continuous labor as the only way to prevent things from getting worse for others. Nothing changes. “The system works well _enough_ so it’ll continue this way in perpetuity.”
Thank God these aren't hot takes otherwise we wouldn't have been able to stop Joel...
Does the Joel in Big Joel stand for
J esus
O this man
E is
L so freaking cute
or is that just a coincidence haha
I think there was an intent there, to show that you should value memories over material goods, but then halfway through the script they realized "oh shit, that would mean we're implying capitalism isn't perfect" and backpedaled without revising anything because they refused to actually make any sort of political statement
just my take
They could have easily told a more interesting albeit depressing version of this story where the lesson the child learns is that he spent so much time trying to get these stupid shoes for his mom that he missed out on the last days of her life.
True. But then he was doing something rather than just feeling helpless.
Hot Take: Dirty Pennies is just Xmas Shoes for Anarchists.
i just kept thinking about the mediterranean working class dad taking out a huge wad of cash and arguing loudly about not giving the kid the money for the shoes until the kid yells they're only $10 and then the dad peeling him off a $20 with a "why didn't say? $10? get her a something nice too."
I was wondering why my youtube subscriptions felt so attractive all of a sudden.
Okay just speaking as someone who works in a school as a teacher's aide if a student is struggling and their parent is dying. My thing would be plant cans it would be "hey how about I buy the shoes in exchange for you sharpening pencils in the morning so that you can spend time with your DYING PARENT"
I laughed at the full two minutes after you introduced the teacher as noodles because he makes you smile. JUST BUY THE SHOES, NOODLES. WHY ARE YOU DUMPING CANS IN AN ALLEY?
How bad were things going for Rob Lowe that he thought, "Yeah, I think I have to take that part in 'Christmas Shoes?'"
In conclusion, shoes are a clothing item of contrast.
Excellent, the sweater is back - was worried after your Lion King video......
I feel like wer missing something: The fact that the kid didnt earn the shoes through labor. He got them because of the kindness of Rob Lowe. With this we can reframe the kids actions through the whole movie as real tragic. That, just like Rob Lowe, he was too focused on making money than making memories and it cost him time with the people that had little time AND didnt even get him what he wanted.
This video makes me want to Patton Oswalt’s roast of Christmas Shoes (again)!
I watch it every black Friday to bring in the holidays.
@@RisingRecluse same. It's a time honored tradition
“I Died for your sins but those pumps are unforgivable!”
"Why would you name group 'Newsong?' You're just going to be living in an Abbott and Costello routine your whole life."
Honestly one of my favorite Patton bits, and most of his are great.
Speaking of which, a video on the thematic implications of Christmas itself would be cool. A holiday that insists it’s not about material objects, yet creates consumerism at its highest point, a holiday which, at least in media, is all about discovering what it actually represents. It’s so thematically messy that a standard experience is to attempt to unpack it (especially in seasonal morality plays)
One thing I'd like to say about column a is that the idea isn't really anticapitalist, but rather a core element of capitalist culture.
Yes, you can read it as "don't just make money, make memories with your loved ones". But the flip side is "there is no need to envy the rich because you are rich at something more meaningful, good memories and time with your loved ones."
This is where the synthesis shows how wicked celebrations like consumerist Christmas actually are comes in. For those good memories, you don't just need each other. It starts with the poor people in movies having big houses and full fridges and it extents to lavish Christmas decorations and expensive Christmas gifts.
The Christmas shoe fits this mold perfectly: I'm sure the mother would rather spend her time with her child, but this child works to acquire those shoes as an act of love to her.
Consumerist culture and late capitalism in general heavily relies on creating needs through cultural and emotional association.
This movie is about middle class attitude. Middle class people generally don't live for their work. Working yourself to the bones to just to become more obscenely rich is a trait of the upper class. Middle class works for their children's college fund, for the new family car, for the craved home entertainment system, for their own house, for the family vacation.
The message isn't contradictory. It's "keep in mind what you work for and keep on prioritizing work."
Dialiectics. The film is about dialectics.
fiscal marxist We have opposite political compasses lol.
@@lukericker8325 how did you screw up the test that badly
edit: wait nvm i thought you meant auth right
Whenever I see Rob Lowe, I just see Chris Traeger. So, this movie was *literally* one of the weirdest things I have ever experienced.
Damn this is actually a pretty interesting movie. Even just watching your video I got pretty frustrated not being able to hid in the comfort of the "Christmas Carol Binary" that so many other holiday movies push.
The duet was one of the most profoundly beautiful things I've ever seen (heard). It took my breath away.
The score of the film is so weird and intense it's almost frightening I kinda love it
It feels that to make sense of capitalism: Joy can't come from money, but also it has to.
"And she dies a few minutes after saying this" had me laughing up a storm for reasons I cannot comprehend
This is the first movie in a trilogy. The Christmas Blessing and the Christmas Hope.
I love that Hallmark is your favorite studio.
Also I love the use of morbid for Christmas Shoes the song.
I had a moment where I was hesitant to see the date on this video, as it auto-played. I so needed it to be your latest. Thank you!