The Home Alone star’s opinion on a beloved Christmas film caused some of the crowd to boo
Hollywood stars are no stranger to courting controversy with their personal opinions about politics or social justice.
But Macaulay Culkin learned this week that there are some topics you simply cannot talk about without whipping people up into a frenzy.
You might think that being the star of the Home Alone movie series would give you the right to speak definitively on the topic of Christmas films, but 45-year-old Culkin found himself being booed on stage after sharing his mind at an event in Long Beach, California.
During this event marking the 35th anniversary of the Christmas flick that launched him to child stardom, called A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin, the actor was asked what his favorite film is to watch over the holiday season – and his answer certainly divided the crowd.
Macaulay Culkin’s ‘Home Alone’ is a Christmas classic (20th Century Fox)
He started off with a classic crowd pleaser, with People reporting the star as sharing: “A big one in our household growing up was A Christmas Story, certainly was always on.”
Culkin then shared his love for a classic but less-remembered Bill Murray film, adding: “A lost classic or one that people kind of forget: Scrooged…. Scrooged is awesome though. Yeah, we watch it all the time. Those were ones that really stick out.”
But after this good start, he was perhaps too honest. Culkin said: “There’s some ones that come later. Elf is a really good one, but I wasn’t raised on Elf so it doesn’t have that nostalgia factor.
“And also, OK guys for real: Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie.”
This last line caused some of the audience to boo Culkin at his own event, but the former child star had clearly heard worse before and doubled down despite the jeers.
The ‘Die Hard is a Christmas movie’ crowd have grown in strength over the years, with people bored by the formulaic and often childlike plots of traditional festive films pitching the 1988 action flick as another essential part of the TV schedule.
Die Hard takes place at Christmas, but is it a Christmas film? (20th Century-Fox/Getty Images)
This is because the film’s events take place during the holiday season, with Bruce Willis’ John McClane traveling to a Christmas party at Nakatomi Plaza to reconcile with his wife.
“I know. Some of you guys want to fight me. I’ll meet you at the loading dock, but it’s just a movie that’s set at Christmas,” Culkin argued.
Despite some fairly vocal backlash from parts of the audience, Culkin clearly believed he was right and made quite a good point about the film using the season as set dressing.
“If you set it at St. Patrick’s Day, the exact same movie. But you set Home Alone at St. Patrick’s Day…” the star pointed out.
And now we are all thinking about 8-year-old Kevin McCallister attempting to thwart two burglars who have drank too much Guinness, which would certainly have made his Home Alone mission all the easier.
