{"id":90131,"date":"2023-12-12T16:22:59","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T21:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=90131"},"modified":"2025-08-19T09:37:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:37:04","slug":"tv-specials-holidays-inspire-hope","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/tv-specials-holidays-inspire-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Brown, Frosty and other ‘anti-heroes’ of TV specials: How holiday soundtracks inspire hope for a little more\u00a0love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Charlie Brown, Frosty and other 'anti-heroes' of TV specials: How holiday soundtracks inspire hope for a little more\u00a0love\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

This article is republished<\/a> from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. All photos provided by The Conversation<\/a> from various sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Deaville<\/a> is a professor of music at Carleton University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the beginning of A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/a><\/em>, the 1965 Peanuts Christmas movie, the story’s anti-hero<\/a>, Charlie Brown, expresses sentiments with which many of us can identify at this time of year: “Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel \u2026 I always end up feeling depressed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Schulz understood the uncomfortable truths of human nature<\/a> like few other cartoonists. This is part of why A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em> so effectively conveys the double-sidedness of the holiday season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Yorker<\/em> writer Adam Gopnik recognized this in his 2011 CBC Massey Lecture in Edmonton, “Recuperative Winter<\/a>,” noting that we experience “the happiest time of year as a time of maximum stress, with feelings of sadness, disappointment, confusion, depression \u2026” more often “than elation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet we cannot and would not want to envision a winter without holidays. At least if we look to broadcaster choices for this time of year<\/a>, many of us keep returning to holiday screen narratives from childhood, whether those of Charlie Brown<\/em>, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer<\/a><\/em> (1964) or Frosty the Snowman<\/a><\/em> (1969).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key to the formation of this Christmas nostalgia is the music<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flawed heroes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Why do we continue to find such pleasure<\/a> in these tales? After all, these title characters not only experience challenges to their identities but are somehow impaired in and of themselves. Charlie Brown remains a blockhead<\/a>, Rudolph’s unique bright nose, for which he is ostracized by other reindeer<\/a>, keeps glowing brightly and Frosty ultimately melts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even George Bailey, the ostensible “hero” of It’s a Wonderful Life<\/a><\/em>, (1946) responds less than admirably<\/a> to the various hardships that beset him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Christmas classic film<\/a> sees an angel intervene in the life of a suffering and frustrated businessman. But after the holidays, Bailey will still have to deal with banker Potter in the “crummy little town” of Bedford Falls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That viewers identify with these flawed characters<\/a> helps explain the attraction their holiday specials have, and for some families, annual rituals<\/a> of watching them in a family circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, it may well be such collective engagement with these musical narratives of broken individuals and compromised conclusions that makes it possible for some of us to feel a sense of familial togetherness and belonging<\/a> often associated with the holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n