You might be wondering why Hallmark would produce a CHRISTMAS movie featuring an Indian family when the vast majority of Indians are Hindu.
While people of all backgrounds appreciate the warm fuzzies of Christmas, the reason for the season is to celebrate Jesus--our Lord and Savior. Only 2.3% of India's population is Christian--quite a minority--and most of the population celebrates Diwali.
Scriptwriters, Patricia Isaac and Emily Ting, attempt a work-around to reconcile these disparate elements, and although they create an amusing story, it's clear they have zero understanding of Christianity and should have invested a little research.
What Is Christmas with the Singhs About?
For Asha Singh (Joshi), Christmas is the most important time of the year. But when she’s stuck working at the hospital during the holidays, she wishes for some much-needed Christmas magic. Enter Jake (Hollingsworth), her former high school classmate, who unexpectedly reappears in her life. After a magical year together, Jake proposes. But their first Christmas as an engaged couple isn’t exactly the fairytale they imagined. When they head home for the holidays, they quickly discover their picture-perfect romance is about to get a serious reality check: their families couldn’t be more different! Juggling various holiday traditions, big personalities, cultural differences and complicated family dynamics proves to be a challenge as Asha and Jake have to learn if they can bridge their two families and survive a Christmas with the Singhs.
Hallmark Is Becoming Increasingly Godless
Why do fans frequently lament on social media that the older Hallmark movies are vastly superior to the ones produced after 2020?
Hallmark's origins are Christian. It originally launched as part of ACTS--American Christian Television System--but later rebranded as The Faith and Values Channel. In 1996, after Liberty Media acquired 49% stake in the company, it was relaunched as Odyssey Network and religious programming was replaced with family-oriented films and TV series. Soon after, Hallmark Entertainment and The Jim Hensen Company acquired increased stakes, which led to a corporate reorganization and another rebrand in 2001, this time as the Hallmark Channel. The emphasis shifted to romance films and comedies themed around seasonal celebrations.
Hallmark Channel viewership peaked in 2015 with 90 million viewers, and as of 2023, it has progressively declined to 70 million.
It's clear that Hallmark Channel has steadily devolved from its faith-based roots, but even worse, the network increasingly embraces secularism and wokeism, which is why many no longer trust the brand to deliver the wholesome, family-friendly programming of years past.
As one fan posted on social media, "Every Hallmark movie looks like a meeting of the United Nations." Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is a huge emphasis at Hallmark, and while viewers have no problem with diversity in and of itself, the way Hallmark incorporates it into storylines is forced, unnatural, and smacks of left-wing identity politics more than a genuine effort to invite everyone to the table. Every black character has to have a white BFF and vice versa. Even though a mere 10% of Americans are in a biracial relationship, every movie has to include one.
The biggest blight on Hallmark is the inclusion of LGBTQ characters, and stories that attempt to normalize sexual deviancy are a deal-breaker for many viewers.
The faith-filled stories of the past are gone, and in their place are watered down versions that reek of pantheism. Instead of crediting God for divinely arranging circumstances, movie characters now say things like, "The universe brought us together," or "The universe is trying to tell us something."
Past CEOs like Bill Abbott (who now heads Great American Family) made sure that no character shared a bedroom, vacationed together unwed, or stayed overnight under the same roof without supervision. Hallmark movies in the past were squeaky clean. Not anymore.
While liberals and progressives applaud Hallmark's movement toward wokesim and try to shut down critics by saying things like, "Welcome to the 21st century," or "Go clutch your pearls and watch Great American Family instead," the bottom line is that Hallmark's viewership is dwindling because loyal fans feel abandoned by a network that no longer reflects their values of faith, family, and country.
This review of Christmas with the Singhs will explain how the movie is riddled with several of the issues mentioned above.
Review of Christmas with the Singhs: Scriptwriters Bungle the Singh Family's "Christian Faith"
Jake is surprised to learn that Asha's family is Christian. She explains that her father's family was one of the few Christian families in India and that her mother converted to the Christian faith when they were married and emigrated to the United States.
Okay. The writers explain why an Indian would celebrate Christmas, so now the movie's premise doesn't seem far-fetched. It falls apart after that.
Asha's mom is superstitious and won't leave shoes lay upside down. Asha and her brother light candles in front of the pictures of their grandparents and bow and pray before them. When the Singhs invite everyone to their house, guests are handed stringed good luck charms, and one family member waves what appears to be incense to newcomers to ward off the "evil eye." The engagement party isn't discussed as an "Indian tradition" but as a "Hindu custom." The women, even Jake's mom, wear bindis on their foreheads, which have both social and spiritual Hindu implications.
None of this tracks with Christianity. Anyone who truly accepts Jesus Christ and becomes biblically literate would soundly reject all past rituals, beliefs, and pagan Hindu practices. While it makes sense for the Singhs include Indian customs in their celebrations, linking any of them to the Hindu faith is completely anti-thetical to Christianity.
Nearly 70% of Americans identify as Christian, and the writers just slapped all of them in the face by watering down the Christian faith to not only make it unrecognizable, but to add insult to injury by lacing it with Hinduism. BOO to writers Patricia Isaac and Emily Ting!
Jake also references vacations the couple has taken together, and then he's shocked when Asha's parents won't let them sleep in the same bedroom. This is a bold step for Hallmark--a network that once stressed purity and avoided even the remotest hint of sexual immorality. It might be the 21st century, but sin is still sin, so shame on Hallmark.
The Salvageable Parts of Christmas with the Singhs
The humor is the best part of Christmas with the Singhs, especially the part where Jake freaks out when he learns that Asha's father had expected him to ask for her hand in marriage before he proposed.
Jake's reaction to spicy Indian food, his parents' disregard for taking off their shoes in the Singh's house, his fall from the ladder, and his mom's only understanding of Indian culture stemming from the movie Eat, Pray, Love are fun parts of the film.
Ultimately, the family learns to blend their cultures for the sake of their children, but real-life rarely works that way. Christmas with the Singhs is another attempt by Hallmark to impose their woke ideals on loyal viewers. It's no wonder their ratings continue to plummet.
Yeah, I still long for the Hallmark of my teen years. The network that had Little House, The Waltons and The Middle on during the day, and Home and Family in the morning.
I still root for any movie to not force feed us gays, but even with the dramatic cut backs of this year, there is still much to be done about that and the other issues you've pointed out.
While the network is now beating those awful liberal cable news networks in the ratings, I'm betting it's because people want to watch the older movies.