We're a couple days away from Thanksgiving, the holiday sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas that is often neglected. Society isn't as excited for Thanksgiving like they are Halloween and Christmas, and retailers just want to rush to Christmas to get those holiday sales. As I thought about the Horror or Halloween theme movies I watch every year, or the Christmas movies that are a must every year. I started thinking about Thanksgiving movies and wondered why there are so few?
Thanksgiving tradition is to cook the dry ass turkey, watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, and watch some football. For someone like me movies are a big part of my holiday traditions and I just don't have any Thanksgiving tradition movies because there really aren't many of them.
On the TV front there is A Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving special, but that is nowhere near as adored as the Halloween and Christmas special. Thanksgiving is a prime holiday for good stories, lessons for the characters to learn, and tell stories about families. So I'm really curious why there arent many Thanksgiving focused films. You'll never see a 24 hour Thanksgiving film marathon or anything like Freeforms 31 days of Halloween or 25 days of Christmas for Thanksgiving.
There are movies that put you in the mind of Thanksgiving but isn't set during Thanksgiving such as Soul Food or The Big Chill. There are films that may have scenes during Thanksgiving such as You Got Mail and Funny People but it's not the focal point likeor have pivotal scenes occur around Thanksgiving such as the classic scene in She's Gotta Have It, but there aren't too many straight Thanksgiving films. When I think of those films, the one's off the top of my head I think of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Home For the Holidays, my Thanksgiving favorite Dutch, and Pauly Shore's Son-In-Law. There's Tower Heist which uses Thanksgiving as a plot device to commit a crime and also Paul Blart: Mall Cop which is focused on Black Friday.
On the TV front there is A Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving special, but that is nowhere near as adored as the Halloween and Christmas special. Thanksgiving is a prime holiday for good stories, lessons for the characters to learn, and tell stories about families. So I'm really curious why there arent many Thanksgiving focused films. You'll never see a 24 hour Thanksgiving film marathon or anything like Freeforms 31 days of Halloween or 25 days of Christmas for Thanksgiving.
With all the content and content providers out there, I'm challenging any of them to make a true Thanksgiving classic for all to enjoy and become a tradition to watch for years to come.
