I met a friend the other day, and over a hot chocolate, she asked me whether I had planned anything special for Christmas. When I told her that my boyfriend and I were thinking of going to the UK to see some friends and his family, she shook her head, particularly unmoved. “Ah… Christmas in the UK… Great”. “Not impressed”, I remarked. “No. They’ll probably make you watch Love Actually about 100 times… That’s what they do every year. They sit around and enjoy a racist Christmas”…
Confused, I stopped sipping my chocolate and looked at her, serious. “Who’s enjoying a racist Christmas”? “The British”. I nodded and tried to let it be. “Ok”. She turned to me, surprised. “Don’t tell me you have escaped Love Actually? How did you manage”? I shook my head. “No, no, I’ve seen it. I just didn’t find it particularly racist”. “Ah, well, that was their plan. In the UK the insult is always covered. And convincingly hidden behind a fake smile”. I had to agree on that one. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. I guess”…
“The movie begins a few weeks before Christmas, when Juliet and Peter get married in a little cute ceremony filmed by the groom’s best friend, Mark. Being the best man at the same time, Mark is in charge of all the videos from the wedding, so a few days after the big day, Juliet goes to his house to see whether she can get a copy of the tapes. But after a few minutes of watching the recorded ceremony, Juliet realises that Mark has pretty much exclusively filmed her and has kept the groom and dear friend out of his own wedding tape, just because he is a brother”. I slowly began to see where this was going. “Right. I see”.
And that’s not even half of it. When days later, Mark shows up at his friend’s house and Juliet opens the door, he takes a moment to confess his love to her in a series of signs. Juliet is flattered and finds the gesture quite adorable, which makes her kiss him”. “Yeah, I remember”, I said, seeing she was getting worked up. “Ok. So then you remember that while the two white kids are flirting openly outside, they have left the husband of Nigerian descent in the living room spending his Christmas alone and oblivious”. “It does sound pretty bad”, I remarked. “A feel-good romantic movie that basically says that if you’re white you get the girl and if you’re dark, you’re left all alone on Christmas day. Well, I’m sorry if I don’t feel that good watching that. That’s the kind of thing that our fathers’ fathers tried to stop. This kind of inequality and offensiveness”. I nodded, accepting her frustration. She had took a sip of her drink and shook her head, devastated. “This why they call it ‘White’ Christmas, Angeliki”…
Written and directed by Richard Curtis, and starring in the controversial love trio Keira Knightley, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Andrew Lincoln, Love Actually is a British romantic comedy that deals with the different stories of a variety of different colours, but in the end leaves its audience desperately dreaming of a white Christmas.
