ABSTRACT
Hallmark uses nostalgic casting and the trope of time travel as types of reactionary nostalgia that work to restore the family-making discourse of the new social conservatism of the late 1960s. Hallmark Christmas movies often depict a homecoming, the festive season providing an opportunity to relive nostalgic moments or correct past wrongs. As an escape from the social, economic, and political stressors of our current time, they expound an aspirational nostalgia for an America rooted in conservative family values that coheres with sanitized and whitewashed narratives of inclusion and diversity. However, time travel movies like Christmas Comes Twice and Next Stop, Christmas reveal a tension between these neoconservative narratives and Hallmark’s commitment to inclusivity, as the company’s efforts to leave politics outside of its formulaic structure provides little meaningful representation of minority communities, whose lived experiences are constrained to fit the white, middle-class, heteronormative impulse of neoconservatism.
