December 4, 2023

Clark Griswold: Not a Good Guy

“Well, that’s an hour and forty minutes I’m never going to get back,” said my eldest child as the credits rolled for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, beloved holiday flick of my youth. And she wasn’t wrong—it was terrible. (I’ve never seen the two earlier films in the franchise, and upon perusing the trailers, I wonder if “not terrible” was never actually the point.) Clark Griswold is an awful person, and while I remember spending earlier viewings rolling my eyes at his idiot neighbours, senile aunt, miserable teenage daughter, and dumbass cousin, now I’m not sure how any of them managed to stand him. Not to mention his wife, the longest suffering of all of them. Can you imagine if YOUR husband invited your entire family for Christmas, and then spent the holiday stapling twinkling lights to your roof because he couldn’t actually stand their presence? And apart from nicer clothes, how different is Clark from Cousin Eddie, really? It made me think a lot about the tropes and stories we took for granted in the 1980s and 1990s, be glad that there is been some progress since in terms of what we expect from men/husbands/fathers—and especially that my kids are wise enough to see it.