Month: November 2024

Why You Are Still Wrong To Like The Film Elf

Will Ferrell and a number of children in a scene from the film Elf

This weekend, it will have been 10 years since I published my most talked-about BLOGPOST, Why You Are Wrong To Like The Film Elf, and the reaction to this piece has taught me three valuable lessons.

The first lesson is that people who like the film Elf, really like the film Elf. This is not all people, admittedly, and very few of them are serious people. But when you tell somebody that you don’t like the film Elf, it doesn’t matter how many iron-clad arguments you have for why the film Elf is visual slop, indistinguishable from what would happen if you tasked one of those AI programs they have these days with making a “heartwarming Christmas-based comedy starring Will Ferrell”. They become outraged and purple-faced, in a way that is ironically at odds with the insipid philosophy expounded by the eponymous protagonist of the film Elf.

“How can you not like the film Elf,” they ask, spittle flecking my glasses? “What sort of joy-dodging, Scrooge-diddling scumbag are you?”

And, as I wipe away the phlegm and mince pie crumbs from my lenses, I reply, “The sort who can tell the difference between good things and bad things. Why are you so angry? I was given to understand you believe smiling to be – and I quote – your favorite.” I spell it that way because the film Elf is American, giving the film Elf far more respect than it pays to its viewers.

There is nothing I can do for these people. They are lost to logic. These are the sort of people who have made Ladbaby number one for the past few Christmases. The sort of people who thought Boris Johnson was “a laugh”. The sort of people who were disappointed by Captain Sir Tom Moore’s family, rather than amused.

The second lesson is that there are people out there who do not believe that somebody can be wrong to like the film Elf, not because they themselves consider the film Elf to be good, but because taste is subjective. They are easier to deal with than the lovers of the film Elf, partly because they are less likely to become violent.

Taste is subjective, but reality is objective. You can have a favourite colour or a favourite food, but you can’t really have a favourite mass murder. If you do have a favourite mass murder, you are wrong. And, in the same way, if you like the film Elf, which is objectively a bad film, you are wrong.

Now I am not equating mass murder with the film Elf, but also I sort of am. In one way, the film Elf is worse than mass murder because individual acts of mass murder are not repeatable owing to the fact that victims can only die once, while the film Elf is repeated every Christmas.

And the third lesson is that people who don’t understand hyperbole really, really like the film Elf.

I’ve Heard This One Before

A cup of tea with a biscuit

For some reason, I’m reminded of the old joke about a man who dies and goes to Hell.

The devil meets him at the gates, welcomes him, and gives him the old orientation spiel, his lanyard, etc. “We’ve had a bit of a rethink about how we organise things down here,” says Old Nick. To be fair, eternity probably does get a bit samey. You’d want to shake things up every so often.

“Oh,” says the man, non-committedly, probably still trying to get over the whole everlasting damnation thing and wishing he’d used earphones when watching videos on the bus.

“Yeah,” the devil replies. “Now you get to choose your punishment. Let me show you a few options.” And he takes the man to a door, which he opens.

Behind the door are thousands of unfortunates, all being whipped by one demon, while another pours lemon juice into the wounds. “Er, no,” says the man.

The devil takes him to the next room. Thousands more unfortunates on the receiving end of red hot pokers. “Again, not really for me,” says the man.

In the next room are thousands more, all standing waist deep in sewage, but, crucially, they’re all drinking cups of tea. “On balance, I think I’ll have this one,” says the man.

He wades into the sewage and is handed a cup of tea. Just as he’s about to take a sip, a whistle blows, and the head demon says, “Right, lads, tea break’s over. Back on your heads.”

Right, lads. Tea break’s over. Back on our heads.