Lint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds) is a media consultant who sells whatever image his client
wants to the public, unconcerned about the pesky truth. He’s also being haunted by
a slew of ghosts, and he’s having none of it. He interrupts the floating corpse of
Jacob Marley in the middle of his haunting (Patrick Page).
“I’m so sorry,” Briggs says. “I’m stuck on the first thing you said—past, present,
future—like the Dickens story A Christmas Carol?” “The Bill Murray film starring
Bobcat Goldthwait?”
“Yes, yes, like the Dickens book and the Bill Murray film,” Marley says, frustrated.
“And every other modification that no one requested!”
Spirited, a musical comedy starring Reynolds, Page, Will Ferrell, Octavia Spencer, and
Sunita Mani, will be available for streaming on Apple TV+ on November 18. It’s the
hundredth retelling of Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, a timeless
tale that has evolved over time. This time, however, the classic story is told through
the eyes of the ghosts, who choose one corrupt soul to reform each year.
The True Motive Behind Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
And the new film musical is not alone: the Internet Movie Database lists over 100
different versions of A Christmas Carol, including a video game. The novella has
inspired episodes of more than 20 TV shows, and there are four opera and two ballet
versions of the story. This season alone, three adaptations are due; in addition to
Spirited, Netflix has an animated version voiced by Olivia Colman and Luke Evans due
Dec. 2, and a version will be staged on Broadway beginning Nov. 21 with actor
Jefferson Mays playing more than 50 roles.
A Christmas Carol has spawned numerous iterations, possibly due to its penchant for
redemption and faith in humanity. While the original is set in the mid-nineteenth century, its
themes are all too relevant today.
“It is not surprising that A Christmas Carol continues to capture the hearts of cultures
founded on and unsettled by socioeconomic inequality,” Tim Carens, director of
British Studies at the College of Charleston, said in 2018 on the English department
blog Folio.
“It’s a melodramatic morality play written for communities that can’t justify or
condemn the process by which a small minority extracts vast wealth from the labour
of the many,” Carens continued. “By polarising good and evil, melodramas achieve
catharsis.”
The Briggs Media Group, which specialises in exploiting human laziness and
desperation to sell products, images, candidates—you name it—represents that
small minority in Spirited. In one early scene, the National Association of Christmas
Tree Growers depicts the many as they struggle against the rise of artificial Christmas
trees and same-day shipping.
Briggs takes the stage at a Christmas tree convention to dupe members of the trade
group into purchasing his exorbitant services—and manipulating their customers.
Briggs sings, “Every Facebook-loving Boomer wants to fight a culture war.” “So tell
your core consumer what they’re fighting for: a battle for morality.”
The Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) finds his ideal Scrooge in Briggs, a
symbol of modern apathy, narcissism, individualism, and capitalism. The media
consultant is a “unredeemable,” deemed too far gone to be saved by the other
ghosts, but the Ghost of Christmas Present is determined.
What makes A Christmas Carol so effective?
The themes and framework of A Christmas Carol are as relevant today as they were
when it was first published. The first edition, which was released on December 19,
1843, was sold out by Christmas Eve. It has never been out of print since, owing in
large part to its examination of the haves versus the have-nots.
Laurie Lang Bauer, an English and comparative literature professor at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, instructs her students on the novella.
“It’s persisted because it’s such a good story written by an excellent writer,” Lang
Bauer explained to The Well. “Dickens was attempting to capture fundamental
questions about human fellowship that we are still concerned with today.”
As long as there is a desire for stories about people, there will be a market for ghost
stories. Christmas, one of the longest nights of the year, was associated by the
Victorians with darkness and ghosts, which lent itself to magic and fairy tales.
How Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Changed the Way People Celebrate the
Holiday
Dickens, according to Langbauer, “caught that almost crystalline structure of the
fairy tale that makes it easy to grasp.” “However, it is infinitely malleable and
important for what it captures about psychology and culture.”
The je ne sais quoi of A Christmas Carol, according to Langbauer, lies in the fact that
redemption is still possible for everyone in Dickens’ world. If even the most miserly,
unhappy characters have the potential for change, so does the reader.
“With a narrator who’s genial, really avuncular, a kind of expansive narrator who
makes jokes and has a worldview that tells us this is a world in which people are
sometimes not kind, but kindness is still the most important thing,” Langbauer said.
“People want to believe that they live in that kind of world, particularly during the
dark days of the year.”
A Christmas Carol in Other Versions
A Christmas Carol has captivated the public for 179 years: upon publication, it was
widely plagiarised in print, entangling Dickens in a protracted legal battle. Almost
immediately, the story was adapted for unlicensed stage productions.
The narrative’s simple structure allowed it to be endlessly adapted, including
onstage. Ray Dooley, emeritus professor of acting at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, has appeared in several theatrical versions of the story. (Dickens
himself staged over 150 productions of the text.)
“You can paint the house whatever colour you want, but the house will always be
there,” Dooley explained. “You can do pretty much anything with it, and the
foundation will back you up and provide some delightful alternatives.”
Many people may not have read the original text, but they may have seen the 1988
film Scrooged, or The Muppet Christmas Carol from 1992, or Home Alone, in which a
Scrooge figure (Old Man Marley) has a change of heart inspired by a young boy in
danger (Kevin)—much like Tiny Tim.
“How The Grinch Stole Christmas is just a ‘Seussified’ version of the story with an
embittered, exploitative old man who has an epiphany,” Carens explained.
“Embracing the ethos of giving rather than grasping and learning the ‘true spirit’ of
Christmas.”