One
of the (many) ironies of the United States that is often overlooked, is the
complete assimilation of Pegan rituals commodified by major corporations into
cultural practices of spending that results in revenue that rivals many small
countries. Meanwhile, the holiday that is directly related to US atrocious
human rights violations is ignored. Granted, Thanksgiving itself is just as commercialized
by big box grocery stores, and the meal itself, is directly symbolic of the
American glut for resources. But it has never reached the notoriety and
cultural importance of its spooky or festive neighbors on the calendar. While
the reasoning is understandably clear, the aforementioned atrocities, this lack
of cultural enthusiasm spills over into film and popular culture with the
glaring absence of Thanksgiving related media content. This brief paper will
examine the reasons for a historical lack of Thanksgiving films, interrogate
the miniscule trickle of Thanksgiving films that do break through the joyful/horror
holiday barrier, while finally investigating and cultivating a criterion for a
“Thanksgiving film” as to better fill the yawning maw of a gaping hole in the
cinematic zeitgeist.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The
term “revisionist history’ is multi-layered, often being invoked in the process
of obfuscating abuses of power or revealing them. The first revision is (usually)
when the white supremacist capitalist heterosexist ableist patriarchy warps the
reality of their for-profit slave collecting genocidal pursuit of land
acquisition, into folktales about ruggedness, cherry trees, honesty and new ‘friendships’.
This new myth is solidified through generational
repetition by its inclusion in educational institutions as foundational cultural
knowledge; used as an allegorical mechanism of social control to teach children
about the importance of sharing and fairness. The second revision takes place when
we view history outside of the white cultural lens of the oppressors, and instead,
look at history
from a variety of perspectives especially those of the
oppressed. As the latter revision has become more prominent in the last 20
years with efforts to “decolonize
the syllabus” and the creation and inclusion of courses
and curriculum in Chicano Latinx Studies, Black Studies, Asian Pacific Islander
Studies, and Indigenous Studies; there has also been pushback of the former. Right
leaning lawmakers emboldened by the perfunctorily putrid populism of Donald
Trump, ironically appropriated
the term “woke” from Black culture. Originally meaning
simply to remain
politically literate and aware of the first revision,
since its assimilation by the political right, it has been used as a catch all
for any policy, program or perspective that is in any way left leaning, often accompanied,
and framed by anti-socialist rhetoric. Thus, the word “woke” has been weaponized
to undo and reestablish the former revision through an “anti-woke” agenda that
has been successful, as of this writing, to keep half the country “asleep”.
In the realm of media
consumption, film, and popular culture, the ‘sleepy’ brigade of ‘anti-woke’
radicals have mostly set their sights on one of the other holidays adjacent to Thanksgiving.
The most common example is the ‘War on Christmas’ where far right pundits languishly
lament over their perceived inability to be able to say: “Merry Christmas”. The
reality being that, like masculinity, their holiday cultural construction of
Christmas is so fragile that it cannot exist around any religious diversity
without shattering…an indication of their insecurity which fuels their overall
outrage. While Thanksgiving has been spared most of the public ire of egotistically
erroneous ignoramuses, it is not exempt from the media’s general ability to
reshape the public perception away from its problematic history, which needs to
first be decolonized before revealing the Thanksgiving media myth.
Brief Historical reality
of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
is historically problematic. The celebration is culturally constructed to allow
White Americans to distance themselves from history. The creation of this
historical chasm is purposeful as mechanisms of social control. This
indoctrination of the revisionist myth begins with the history books we give to
children, “it starts with heroic adventure- there is no bloodshed- and
[Thanksgiving] is a celebration.” (Zinn 2003: 7). The reality of Thanksgiving
is as bloody and tragic as the rest of our colonial history. Yet, we have been
taught to bury our atrocities in order to provide a perception of unity under
one governmental rule, instead of choosing to “see history through the
“standpoint” of others (Zinn 2003:10).
Contrary
to popular boomer, Gen X and early Millennial teachings of history, when the
Pilgrams came to the “New World” they did not settle on abandoned or vacant
land. After ignorantly deciding that the indigenous culture was “savage” the leaders
of the settlers used English Law as an ethnocentric justification to declare
the area legally a “vacuum”. This began the idea of the land needing to be
tamed, and anything within it had a ‘natural right’, but not a “civil right”,
which were the only rights with legal standing (Zinn 2003).
This began the
justification of genocide, guising colonialist barbarism in politically
advantageous legalese. There were no people there because, under British Law, indigenous
groups were not considered human. This specific legal interpretation solidified
the annihilation of Native peoples. According to Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (2018), not
only did the law give justification to the removal of native peoples from the
land, but quite often, settlers would venture out past the colony boundaries to
settle in “unclaimed” areas. This practice would lead to the establishing of violent
militia groups designed to raid and raze indigenous communities for both land
and resources. Families were slaughtered
in order to expand territories often without regard for age or gender
(Dunbar-Ortiz 2018). This violence coupled with Canon Christian law
institutionalized Settler Militias, leading to arming households to ensure the
destruction and control of native people; later used as evidence in the
creation of the Second Amendment. It is “a right to bear arms” against
indigenous communities to “discover, pursue, fight, surprise, destroy or subdue”
the Indian enemy (Dunbar-Ortiz 2018:45). Thus, the cycle of dehumanization, violence
and death, making treaties and then breaking them, was repeatedly played out
between the Settlers and native peoples; all based upon the needs, whims and
greed of the colonial authorities of rich white men. The Colonial armistice
with native peoples that would later be misappropriated as “Thanksgiving” was
no different.
The origins of the
mythical understanding of “Thanksgiving” began during the early
days of colonization in the original eastern colonies. The settling group in
New England brought with them the tradition of days of fasting and Thanksgiving[1] in 1619. The first winter
killed nearly half of the settlers when an emissary of the Samoset people,
convinced that the group was not there to fight because they brought women and
children, taught the Pilgrams how to catch eel and grow corn. The
Wampanoag also gave food to the colonists during the first winter when supplies
brought from England were dwindling. This was because there was a desire for a
treaty between the Wampanoag and the better armed Settlers against the Narragansett
tribe who, unlike the Wampanoag, had largely been spared from smallpox. The
Wampanoag also taught them to grow squash, beans and to use fish remains as
fertilizer.
In 1621, to celebrate the
first good harvest, a feast was prepared[2] but those responsible for
the settler’s survival, the Wampanoag, weren’t invited. Instead, they showed up
to investigate the violence of firing muskets and general revelry from the
colony, They were only welcomed by the settlers when they showed they had
something to contribute.
Some accounts even suggest that they brought most of the food that was consumed
and outnumbered the settlers 90 strong to the Pilgram’s meagre 50 settlers.
Unfortunately, just a few years later, the treaty that was brokered between the
Wampanoag and the Pilgrams turned to ash, with the igniting of the Pequot War
in 1630 and the King Philips War in the 1670’s (Burgos 2019). However, the myth
of Thanksgiving becomes an indelible part of our learned history to eventually
be recreated in popular culture.
The Value of False Friendship: the durability
of The Thanksgiving Myth
The first instance of the
mythology of “the first Thanksgiving” being used in the media for propagandic purposes
is in the winter of 1621, just after the actual celebration and treaty between
the Settlers and Wampanoag. Gov. Edward Winslow of the Plymouth Colony, to
bring more people to the settlement, falsely described an inclusive 3 day-long celebration
and peace between the two groups (Smith 2003). From this, the friendship myth was
born, implying that the enduring friendship between the Native peoples and the
settlers were invaluable to the survival of the Plymouth Colony and the existence
of the United States. This myth is woven into White American’s sense of
nationalism, dulling the sharp edges of colonialism and genocide into a softer
story of multicultural cooperation, which is more palatable to the many flag
waving fathers we’ve sat across from at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
The Second piece of media
that became integral to the legacy of the myth of Thanksgiving is Jane Austin’s
novel Standish of Standish in 1889. A fictionalized account of life in
the Plymouth Colony, Austin’s narrative perpetuates many of the falsities that
we’ve come to associate with the ‘holiday of generosity’. The belief that it
was an outdoor feast, the worshiping of “The Great Spirit” and the traditional
Thanksgiving menu was all manufactured in this story, Austin being the first to
include: turkey stuffed with beechnuts, other types of fowl, venison, boiled
beef and other roasts, oysters, clam chowder, plum-porridge, hasty pudding, sea
biscuit, manchet bread, butter, treacle, mustard, turnips, salad, grapes,
plums, popcorn, ale, and root beer in to the Thanksgiving meal. Austin's lavish
descriptions became so popular that it was repeated by other writers, adapted
for plays and public events, and incorporated into school curricula (Smith
2003).
Ten years after Austin’s
book was first published, the painting “The First Thanksgiving” by Jean Leon
Gerome Ferris was complete. The artwork represents and solidifies many of the
mythological elements that are commonly associated with Thanksgiving. The image
depicts an outside gathering by a camping style cookfire with the Wampanoag sitting
on the ground and the Pilgrams in their black and white garb, with buckles on
the shoes and black top hats serving the meal. Upon greater historical
reflection, nearly every aspect of the painting is incorrect. The Pilgrams
would not wear those clothes as they were reserved for religious service. As
indicated above, the meal was a complete fabrication. It would not have been served
outdoors on the ground, and the Wampanoag did not wear headdresses, as that was
the ceremonial attire of the Native people of The Great Plains. However, this
was used as a cultural marker for the misrepresentation of Thanksgiving for
generations.
The impact of these
(false) media images in and around Thanksgiving has a generational impact
because of their inclusion in social institutions. Every year elementary
schools still make ‘Pilgram Hats” out of paper and gram cracker turkeys with
candy corn feathers[3](education),
Macy’s still has a televised Thanksgiving parade with an anthropomorphized
turkey balloon (media), and retail stores (especially grocers) bring in considerably
more revenue (economy) helping every American household recreate “The
traditional” Thanksgiving meal ever since FDR declared Thanksgiving a Federal
Holiday in 1941. Embedding cultural, social or religious practices into the
structural organization of a society, fundamentally shaping its operation, and
the interactions people have with it and each other is an exercise in power.
According to Pierre
Bourdieu, one such exercise of power is the development of a habitus (Schwartz 1997).
When specific behaviors for people’s participation in necessary social
institutions (schools, the economy etc.) are required and often ritualized
through the process of socialization (social learning); these actions imbue
individuals with a “habit forming force” that includes a set of deeply held
master patterns that ultimately govern our interactions with individuals,
organizations and institutions. They become habits. These holiday-related
habits are less likely to be questioned, let alone critically analyzed, because
of their annual habitual re-creation. We just do it, because it is what we have
always done. This normalization keeps the system operating in its current form,
embedded in the minds and emotional resonance of millions of (nonnative) people
that then get reinforced through nostalgia. Unfortunately, the ignorance that
often accompanies the development of the habitus, often leads to ethnocentrism
and racism when challenged.
In the late 90’s/the
early 2000’s, began a concerted effort to reclaim the Native Identity from the
“noble savage” caricature that is perpetuated by its inclusion in Thanksgiving.
A history of genocide and segregation onto Federally stolen land allowed the mythology
and racist symbolism to persist, when so many other discriminatory depictions
were laid to rest. Fewer Native people meant less collective power to protest
these images. Undeterred, this movement slowly began to make progress. The
first significant cultural blowback happened when Native groups began to
challenge sports team mascots. Habitus and nostalgia were being challenged by egalitarianism
and anti-racism; resulting in the baffling occurrence of white male sports fans
trying to convince groups of Native activists that their mascot (often represented
by a white person in redface) was respectfully honoring their culture. This mentality
is born in the wake of genocide. These images persist because of the
annihilation of Native people and the lack of interaction and assimilation of
their rituals and customs into broader US culture. Instead, the cultural vacuum
left by this demographic decimation was filled with frivolously insensitive
cartoons that have bled into every aspect of our society. Therefore, the indelible
power of a culturally ingrained and institutionally supported images of
Thanksgiving are hard to shake. People become emotionally invested in its recreation
because of its connection to their own biography, and the subsequent parasocial
relationship they’ve developed around fictional characters. This emotional
investment in and parasociality of media depictions, is important in analyzing
Thanksgiving Films
SOCIAL ANALYSIS
In
looking at Thanksgiving themes in media, it should be unsurprising that the
portrayals of Thanksgiving, especially in film, not only contradict the
historical accuracy of Thanksgiving, but also serves to further engrain the mythology
of Thanksgiving into consumers for generational perpetuity. Yet even though
Thanksgiving equally obfuscates and deflects from history like its sororal holidays
flanking it on the calendar; Thanksgiving is clearly the neglected one. While
this can be understood from a variety of cultural perspectives, through the
lens of film, it is a plum to ponder.
Comparatively,
there are far
fewer produced Thanksgiving films than its more festive relatives;
the number dwindles further if accounting for quality. The
reasons carry multitudes: from commercial viability and entertainment to its
appeal to children and a lack of a cultural “Thanksgiving Spirit”[4]. Yet, from a filmmaking perspective,
there is little in the Thanksgiving holiday that distinguishes a specific Thanksgiving
film from a typical Family Drama. Almost every Family Drama has scenes
around a dinner table, giving thanks to one another, avoiding people and/or the
airing their grievances (Grebey, 2019). It is therefore difficult to decern
what makes a Thanksgiving film different than a film about thankfulness.
Criteria for ‘a
Thanksgiving Film’
The
difficulty in determining what makes a “Thanksgiving film” as opposed to a
simple drama about thankfulness is that the overlap between them is maintained
by a willful ignorance of the actual heretically horrific history of the event.
Thus, what makes a “Thanksgiving film” is often any story that is set during
the season. This is reminiscent of the annually
regurgitated argument as to whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, which
similarly struggles with the delineation between its satisfaction of both setting
and theme as its primary validating principle. Incidentally, Dr.
Peter Cullen Bryan lays
out a succinct criteria for why Die Hard embodies the themes of
Christmas in addition to simply being set during the season. Bryan, in a virtual
discussion with Dr. CarrieLynne
Reinhard of The
Pop Culture Studies Journal in
December 2022, portends that Die Hard is a Christmas Movie[5] because:
1. It’s
about getting home for the Holidays
2. It’s
about family reunions, while going through a very difficult time
3. It
has a lot of moments of isolation, loneliness and melancholy that often
accompany the Holiday season that speaks to an often-ignored segment of the
population
4. It
has a lot of Christmas cultural aesthetics (tinsel, wrapping paper, a tree,
music etc.)
Later, the panelists determine additional criteria for
a thematic Christmas Narrative to be based around:
1. Nostalgia,
a focus on Childhood and youthful ease, innocence, and exuberance
2. The
feeling of something lost that needs to be regained (Love, Family, Sense of
Wonder- “The Christmas Spirit”).
3. Upper
class, straight white able-bodied politically conservative families
4. Consumerism
as a mechanism to achieve happiness
5. Magnanimity
Similarly to the Christmas Narrative outline above, a “Thanksgiving
Narrative” criterion can also be constructed.
Based
upon films considered to be about or set during the Thanksgiving holiday, a
Thanksgiving Narrative should include:
1. Traveling
home for the event/ being at home with Family and Friends
2. The
Family/Friends are an eccentrically caustic cavalcade of characters
3. Hardships
and reconciliations
4. Acceptance,
deference and gratitude
5. The
mythical Thanksgiving accoutrements (The meal, the decorations, Football etc.)
When
looking at most of the Thanksgiving based or adjacent films, these commonalities
between stories thematically string films together that are eclectic in both
genre and scope. Much like the breadth of films on the Christmas film spectrum.
Independent films, big budget blockbusters, comedy, dramas and action films
both embody the Themes of the Thanksgiving Holiday and have variations on the
important setting.
A Truncated
list of ‘Thanksgiving’ films under this benchmark (in No particular order):
·
Pieces of April (2003)
·
The Ice Storm (1997)
·
Soul Food (1997)
·
Friendsgiving (2020)
·
Thanksgiving (2023)
·
Home for the Holidays (1995)
·
The Humans (2021)
·
Mistress America (2015)
·
Hannah and her Sisters (1986)
·
One True Thing (1998)
·
Alice’s Restaurant (1968)
·
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973)[6]
Honorable Mention: Addams Family Values (1992)
While this film
is genre bent between Halloween and Thanksgiving without many of the
outstanding criteria mentioned above, it does have this wonderful takedown of the
holiday’s greatest myths by Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci), while also
leaning into some of them at the same time.
The Epitomal Thanksgiving Film: Planes,
Trains, and Automobiles
Every
year,
new lists emerge
as to the cinematic cornucopia of Thanksgiving films people can watch when they
are not checking football scorers and stuffing their face with turkey or the
vegan/vegetarian equivalent. Every single
list
that takes its curation even quasi-seriously, and is not just trying to promote
its own programing (looking at you Netflix),
holds a spot for writer/director John Hughes’ 1987 road trip buddy comedy Planes,
Trains and Automobiles.
One of the few Hughes
films that doesn’t center around children, or the infamously labeled “Brat Pack”,
Planes, Trains and Automobiles was
originally
conceived when Hughes took a flight from New York to Chicago
and had to be diverted to Wichita, Kansas. Drawing from real life, he crafted the
story of Neal Page (Steve Martin), a pretentiously neurotic marketing executive
as he attempts to make it home for Thanksgiving. At the start of this unexpected Odyssean track,
he gets entangled with Dell Griffith (John Candy) a lovably verbose Director of
Sales in the Shower Curtain ring Division of the American Light and Fixture
Company[7]. Bad weather, bad luck and
even poorer choices follow the duo as they transition from each of the titular
conveyances. Along the way, tensions rise and tempers flare, breaking the pair
up only to throw them back together, and in the end, both are a little more
introspective and a lasting friendship is formed.
Brief ‘Planes Trains and Automobiles’
Production aside
Film editing is a
delicate and precise profession, making sure that you only trim “the fat” of a
scene; and to know what that looks like. On the Planes, Trains and
Automobiles’ episode of the podcast “A
Cinematic Christmas Journey”, it is revealed by Paul Hirch, the film’s
editor, that finding the balance of what to cut, or not, became an issue for
the film’s production. First off, while fantastic, the shooting script for the
film was well over 130 pages at the rate of a minute of screentime per page.
This was at a time when comedies did not venture over 90 minutes very often.
Secondly, they had two known improvisors in Martin and Candy, and a ridiculous 87-day
shooting schedule (most comedies at the time had a shooting schedule around 36
days). There was so much footage to sift through (both coverage and takes) that
Hirch gave PAs[8]
their own “battlefield promotion” and turned them into his Assistant editor army.
Even though Hirch now had help with the volume of material, it was still a
challenge to find the right pacing, story beats and emotional resonance with
the audience. One example Hirch gives on the podcast is when they first showed
the film to test audiences. They hated the first cut of the movie. They saw
Dell as a leech, and they wanted Neal to stand up to him. At the time, the cut
they were showing to test audiences did not have the scene where Dell offers to
pay for the train ticket. When they put the scene back in, the audience warmed
to Dell. It was important for Dell to
remain affable and Neal not to seem too abrasive. This challenge left a lot on
the cutting room floor.
The validity of the cut scenes in Planes,
Trains and Automobiles vacillates between the extraneous, odd, and unfortunately,
essential. Some of the unnecessary scenes were either longer versions of trimmed
scenes in the film, or added scenes that took a joke too far, or did not move
the plot forward. Some scenes were cut because they no longer fit the narrative
they were telling, or simply for pace. Thankfully, for diehard fans of this
picture, many of these scenes are included in the recently released
4k Blu-Ray. Unfortunately, this does not include the greatly
lauded monologue John Candy’s Dell gives to Steve Martin’s Neal, which explains
his history in wonderfully heartbreaking detail.[9]
Much like after a supernova, in filmmaking,
there can be an odd energy that lingers around scenes and subplots that are
removed. Some of that energy is easily dissipated, as with the continuity error
of Dell’s blackeye toward the end of the film. We get a throw-away line that
the truck driver they are about to hitch a ride from is “a little nervous” so
they can’t ride up in the cab with him. It is conceivable that the guy was so
nervous that he was the one that punched Dell off screen, instead of a deleted
scene where Neal punches Dell himself. However, some of the more pivotal cuts are
echoed between some of the characters in the film. Even a first-time watcher of
the film can notice an odd quality in the way that Neal and his wife interact
with each other. There is a suspicious tension that lingers throughout most of
the film that culminates in an overly emotional reunion for the couple. These melodramatic
moments are the remnants of an excised sub-plot where Neal’s
wife suspects him of infidelity. Despite seeing the seams
of these stitches, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is not just a classic
film, but a Classic Thanksgiving picture.
The Trimmings on a Thanksgiving Classic
Planes, Trains and Automobiles is
the quintessential Thanksgiving film. Through Hughes’ script and direction, the
film not only follows the Thanksgiving Narrative structure but firmly plants
itself as an example of the classic Thanksgiving Film. The film satisfies every aspect of the
Thanksgiving Narrative Criteria: Neal (Martin) is going home for the holiday,
Candy’s Dell is himself a caustic cavalcade, the title implication of the shifts
from modes of transportation indicates hardships, Neal and Dell eventually
reconcile, and along the way they learn to appreciate each other. The mythological
Thanksgiving iconography is shown in a memory montage to signify Neals thoughts
as he is on the train going home; signifying what he’s been missing: the
turkey, the pie, and his family.
Culturally, the film has also become a
‘classic’ Thanksgiving film because not only does it have generational
transmission, transcending age groups and solidifying itself as annual viewing
for many friends and families around the holidays, it holds the icons of Steve
Martin and John Candy, who both have claimed Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
as their best performances, and their favorite movie[10]. Finally, the film both
represents the 1980’s filmmaking in its style and reinvents the genre under the
guiding hand of John Hughes, who had a unique way of blending comedy and drama in
ways that are still being studied.
CONCLUSION
While the media content
of Thanksgiving does not compare to its wonderful wintery successor, it equally
carries with it a criterion that is exemplified by John Hughes’ Planes
Trains and Automobiles. Although the film still has issues when viewed
through a 2024 lens (gay panic jokes, white upper-class heteronormativity etc.)
it is a classic of the genre and represents the cultural mythology of the holiday
and the whitewashing of history. It should be of no surprise that few Native
People celebrate Thanksgiving in the mythological Americanized
“Tradition”. For many Native tribes, it is a day of mourning and atonement that
emphasizes fasting and contemplation. Perhaps one day we will get our deeply
contemplative and resonate Thanksgiving film that represents the history of the
appalling events. But for now, we are stuck with the stories of the colonizers,
no matter how charming.
REFERENCES
Burgos, Claire 2019. “The Myths of the Thanksgiving
Story and the lasting Damage they Cause.” In The Smithsonian Magazine Retrieved on 11/2/2024 Retrieved at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thanksgiving-myth-and-what-we-should-be-teaching-kids-180973655/
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne 2018. Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second
Amendment San Francisco City of Lights Books
Grebey, James 2019. “Why aren’t Thanksgiving Movies
More of a Thing” in Gentlemen’s Quarterly November 27th retrieved on: 11/2/2024 Retrieved at: https://www.gq.com/story/why-arent-thanksgiving-movies-more-of-a-thing
Schwartz, David 1997. Culture and Power: The
Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu Chicago. University of Chicago Press
Smith, Andrew F. 2003. “The First Thanksgiving” in Gastronomica:
The Journal of Food Studies retrieved on 11/2/2024 Retrieved at: https://online.ucpress.edu/gastronomica/article-abstract/3/4/79/104701/The-First-Thanksgiving?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Zinn, Howard 2003. A People’s History of the United States: 1492-
Present New York: Harper Collins press
[1]
Indicating that what is recognized as “The first Thanksgiving” was a misnomer,
as “Giving thanks” was a long held traditional practice both prior to settling
in New England, and in other Colonies before 1621.
[2] By
the only four women to survive the previous winter….Religious oligarchic
patriarchy at its finest
[3] Author’s
Note: Candy corn, and its equally abysmal cousin, circus peanuts, are abominable
creations and should be considered poisonous to humans like mercury or arsenic.
[4]
Read the Historical Context section again if you still don’t know why there isn’t
a “Spirit of Thanksgiving”
[5] In
that same discussion, linked in this essay, (see above) Bryan acknowledges that
while Die Hard is a Christmas movie, it is on a “Christmas movie
spectrum” as it may not be as “Christmasy” a movie as It’s a Wonderful Life…
or others in that ‘classic’ section of the spectrum.
[6] This might be the first instance of the now
common tradition of “Friendsgiving” in Media
[7]
Titles and their jobs aren’t important, but I like that I’ve seen this movie so
much that nearly the entire script is committed to memory
[8]
Production Assistants
[10] I
would argue that the 1989 collaboration between Hughes and Candy, Uncle Buck
is equally as good, and I often watch them around the same time every year
