by The Cowl Editor on December 9, 2021
Opinion
Zach Rossi ’23
The Christmas season is finally underway, which restarts a prominent debate of our time: Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? The decades-long debate finally ends here, for the correct take is that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, and to think otherwise does not make any sense.
Die Hard is an action and thriller film. It revolves around the character John McClane, an NYPD officer tasked with saving his wife and other civilians who are being held hostage by terrorists. The movie is a constant battle between McClane and the terrorists. It provides viewers with great action scenes, but the only aspect of the movie that has to do with Christmas is that it takes place on Christmas Eve.
Compare Die Hard to actual Christmas movies like The Santa Clause, Elf, or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. It is clear there is no actual element of a Christmas movie within Die Hard. The movies listed above have some sort of Christmas theme within them, whether it be Santa Claus, a literal elf, or hanging out with a crazy family for the holiday. Bruce Willis with an assault rifle shooting at terrorists while yelling “yippee ki-yay” does not exactly scream Christmas.
If the movie took place on any night besides Christmas Eve, there would be no debate. Die Hard is a great movie, and if people want to watch it at Christmas time, good for them. But it is not a Christmas movie.
Erin Garvey ’22
Waking up in the morning, seeing the white flakes of snow outside my window, and thinking, “Maybe today will be a snow day,” was always one of my favorite ways to wake up during the winter because it meant an extra day off from school and more time to sleep in. But thanks to Zoom, are snow days a thing of the past?
The snow made commuting to school dangerous or even impossible under some conditions, which, in turn, resulted in a snow day. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom has become the go-to for teachers when they feel in-person classes are not the safest option. So, if it is too dangerous to commute and professors are unable to travel to school, will they move to remote learning for the day?
Currently, it is unclear what a snow day will look like in the near future; however, it is safe to say that it will not be the snow days that we all experienced in the past. Snow days might be changing into days of remote learning and learning from home, replacing days off and sleeping in.
What does a snow day mean to you? Will remote learning on a snow day be just as accepted as a day off? Or, should we just start hoping now that we have no snow days soon? Personally, I am going to miss waking up to an email stating “Snow Day: Day Off.”