\n<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a shocking monologue early in one of Hallmark\u2019s new holiday films<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t have a tree. I don\u2019t make freshly baked cookies. I\u2019m not a wife or a mother,\u201d declares Brooke D\u2019Orsay,<\/strong> heroine of Following Yonder Star,<\/em> which airs on December 15. D\u2019Orsay stars as Abby, an actor who\u2019s eager to shed the idealized Hallmark-esque character she\u2019s known for playing.<\/p>\n Her very meta speech is antithetical to everything that Hallmark has come to represent in pop culture: heteronormative ideals, tradwife-esque<\/a> domesticity, and a blinding commitment to all things Christmas. Parodies of the network abound, like a running gag about a fictional Hallmark film starring Danica McKellar<\/strong> in Knives Out,<\/em> or storyline about the \u201cHallhark\u201d Christmas universe in Bros,<\/em> which featured former company man Luke Macfarlane<\/strong><\/a>. This year, Jimmy Fallon<\/strong> even wrote a tongue-in-cheek jingle<\/a> titled \u201cHallmark Movie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re the butt of a lot of jokes. We play with them sometimes. I laugh as much as anybody,\u201d Hallmark executive vice president of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly<\/strong> tells Vanity Fair.<\/em> \u201cThat James Franco<\/strong> skit on SNL<\/em><\/a> is still one of the funniest things ever\u2026. I don\u2019t get too anxious because, for the most part, it feels loving.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to laugh when you\u2019re on top. Hallmark heads into the 15th anniversary of its Countdown to Christmas programming as the most-watched cable entertainment network<\/a> of 2023. The channel reigned supreme with women over 18 in the final months of the year, as it has for the last decade. Nielsen reported<\/a> in 2021 that over 80 million people had tuned into a Hallmark movie during that holiday season. Vulture<\/a> subsequently deemed Hallmark \u201cTV\u2019s last great basic-cable channel.\u201d Earlier this year, Emmy-winning Abbott Elementary<\/em> creator Quinta Brunson<\/strong> shared her dream of ghostwriting a Hallmark Christmas film<\/a>. \u201cPeople are joking,\u201d says Daly, \u201cbut they\u2019re watching.\u201d<\/p>\n When Hallmark\u2019s Countdown to Christmas launched in 2009, it featured a mere four holiday films. By 2011, the network and its sister channel, Hallmark Movie and Mysteries, were airing dozens of Christmas movies nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, beginning in late October. This year, the lineup has snowballed to a staggering 47 films\u2014setting the pace for an entire ecosystem of holiday fare at Lifetime, Netflix, and beyond.<\/p>\n The cozy predictability of Hallmark movies is integral to their success<\/a>. Still, the network has recently begun toying with certain tropes in its modestly budgeted, expediently filmed films. \u201cWhen people say there\u2019s a formula<\/a>, I feel like they\u2019re not referring to the last four or five years,\u201d says Julie Sherman Wolfe,<\/strong> who has written two dozen Hallmark titles over the last decade. These days, for instance, there\u2019s (slightly) less emphasis on romance; last year\u2019s A Merry Scottish Christmas<\/em> reunited Hallmark\u2019s foremost star Lacey Chabert<\/strong> with her Party of Five<\/em> costar Scott Wolf<\/strong> for a sibling-centered story. That season also brought the This Is Us<\/em>\u2013coded Christmas on Cherry Lane,<\/em> about interconnected people living at the same address decades apart.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n