Drunk Feminist Films on how to survive the holiday movie season
We turned Elf, It's a Wonderful Life and Die Hard into a drinking game... because it's Christmas.
The holidays are all about togetherness, a time to celebrate family and friends… and binge-watching old movies instead of making conversation. And whatever you shove in the family DVD player year after year, sheer nostalgia is usually enough to make us feel warm and fuzzy and full of cheer even when we know the plots are as phony as a mall Santa's beard.
Once you start to notice it, it's hard to unsee it.- DFF co-founder Gillian Goerz on Hollywood's gender problem
After a few days of Netflixing in your parents' basement, the feelgood memories might start to fade, though. Maybe you'll finally realize there are more deadbeat dads in holiday flicks than the North Pole has reindeer. Or maybe you'll just want to watch Elf…and laugh harder than usual.
Drunk Feminist Films would always rather than laugh than cry when they see the way gender's portrayed in Hollywood films — the festive ones, included. "It's gender, it's race, it's sexuality, it's bodies: it's the whole gamut of the way that people are seen or not seen in films," co-founder Gillian Goerz tells CBC Arts. "And once you start to notice it, it's hard to unsee it."
In the last two years, what started as a goofy YouTube drinking-game among a group of Toronto pals has developed into a regular movie-screening series, which the group now stages in multiple cities around southern Ontario. Next up is Love, Actually in Toronto (Dec. 3, 5) and Kitchener-Waterloo (Dec. 4). Guests get a list of drinking-game rules inspired by what the movie gets wrong — and right — when it comes to representation. Anyone can tweet new rules during the show, too. And the mob shouts and laughs at the screen all night, while the DFF crew leads the action.
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Can't make it to a screening? Well, it's a 23-days-until-Christmas miracle! CBC Arts got DFF to help us make a deluxe home edition.
DFF's Gillian Goerz, Scaachi Koul, Bee Quammie and Amy Wood shared their favourite holiday movies and a few drinking-game rules for each.
Elf, Bad Santa, It's a Wonderful Life, Die Hard and Love, Actually: do any of these holiday staples get a pass, or is it time to roast these old chestnuts?
Watch and see. This is how you'll survive another holiday (movie) season.
Love, Actually. Presented by Drunk Feminist Films. Dec. 3, Revue Theatre, Toronto. Dec. 4, Apollo Cinema, Kitchener. Dec. 5, Revue Theatre, Toronto. drunkfeministfilms.tumblr.com