Too Low on the Ho,Ho,Ho!

It’s the season of giving. It’s also the season of asking. For over a month, my mailbox, phone and TV screen have been flooded with requests for comfort and joy. I’m all for generosity to family, friends, and personally meaningful causes. Since both my parents died of cancer, I’ve got a terrified spot in my heart for that cause.

At this time of year every worthy or unworthy cause under the sun obviously has concluded that people with holly in their hearts will be easy marks. But there can be too much of a good thing, and philanthropic fatigue sets in. Someone should tell the solicitors that no matter how Christmas-y we’re feeling, our means are finite.

So far I’ve been asked to save starving or afflicted children here and abroad, maltreated or orphaned cats and dogs, endangered species and habitats. I’ve also been reminded that the world is filled with a nearly infinite array of nightmarish diseases from ALS to Zika, and that Dengue Fever, Breast Cancer and Parkinson’s could all do with an infusion of cash.

The arts are also in dire need of my help — museums, public broadcasting, orchestras, theater and opera companies, and ballet corps. So are needy political and social causes from ACLU to the NRA to the Y. No amount of help I could give would constitute more than a droplet in the ocean of charity needed to deal with a world of suffering, misery, and hopelessness. No wonder so many feel depressed around the holidays. They open their mail or watch tearjerking TV and despair.

And speaking of tearjerking, diseases and giving, this is the time of year when Hollywood rolls out its annual offering of Oscar-bait movies. And there’s apparently no more surefire way to be given a nomination or win than to appear in a horrific tale of suffering, of lives cut short or blighted by tragedy of all sorts.

So, just for example, Casey Affleck won for carelessly burning his children to death in a house fire, Eddie Redmayne for playing a man with ALS, Daniel Day-Lewis for a man with cerebral palsy, Matthew McConaughey for a man with AIDS, Colin Firth for a king wth a stutter, Tom Hanks for being mentally challenged in “Forrest Gump,” for being discriminated against for AIDS in “Philadelphia,” and for being cast away when his plane crashed.

Other winners and runners-up have played the mentally ill, sufferers of PTSD, the enslaved, the imprisoned, a man with a cheating wife in a coma, victims of the holocaust, parents of murdered children, and so on..

Women suffer just as much pursuing their Oscars, as does the audience forced to go along for the ride. Brie Larsen was kidnapped and held hostage in “Room,” Jennifer Lawrence’s husband is killed and her new boyfriend is bipolar. Kate Winslet is an illiterate concentration camp guard, Hillary Swank ends up brain dead after a boxing match, Charlize Theron is a sociopathic serial killer, and Nathalie Portman a suicidal swan.

An even more depressing trend, for audience members of a certain age, is to sooner or later cast any actor over the age of 50 in the part of an Alzheimer’s victim. So far the list includes Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore who both won Oscars for their trouble, Henry Fonda, Gena Rowlands, Judy Dench, Donald Sutherland (twice), Julie Christie, Frank Langella, Alan Alda, Linda Lavin, Ian McKellan, Angelica Huston, Patrick Stewart, Genevieve Bujold, and Nicholas Cage.

Call me a curmudgeon or a coward, but I can’t wait until the requests to save pretty much everyone on earth die down and the uplifting movies that are actually grim downers give way after the holidays to mere entertainment. Preferably something comic or light-hearted. Since we now all know about the CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopy) caused by playing in the NFL, we can’t even relax with a football contest without cringing.

In January, I hope, I once again won’t have to be afraid to open the mail, turn on the TV or go to a film. Until then, I’m sticking with safe bets like “Holiday Inn,” Christmas in Connecticut,” “Remember the Night,” Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Home for the Holidays,” “The Ref,” and “The Christmas Story.” Even then, I will worry that Hollywood, in a cynical bid for an Oscar, may just decide to make a tragic sequel in which Ralphie really does shoot his eye out.

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