Urgent Questions About the Unholy Provenance of Netflix’s Hot Frosty

Photo: Petr Maur/Netflix

Every year, Jackson and Rachel gather like a conclave of popes to discuss what Netflix has done to Christmas. This year’s offerings include Hot Frosty, a movie about a snowman who comes to life to seduce a widow, and Lindsay Lohan’s latest, Our Little Secret, about exes who unintentionally converge at Christmas and must grapple, profoundly, with their unfinished business. International law states that we can’t talk about that one until November 27, so please return to this exact spot on that date for part two.

Rachel: Jackson, hi, and welcome to our semiannual conversation that I force you to have about Netflix’s Christmas properties. I was just reviewing our past work in this vein, and this is either the fourth or fifth time we have done this. I am so sorry and also there is nothing else I would rather do. Let’s first talk about Hot Frosty, which is in my estimation both a Jesus allegory and a complex work of art examining the failings of our justice system and the consequences of fascist police overreach. I am Jewish so my knowledge of Jesus is limited, but let’s address that one first: This is a movie about a dead(?) snowman who comes back to life and becomes a carpenter with good morals. Is this a Jesus movie?

Jackson: Well, both my parents are Catholic, but I was never baptized — but I did just watch Conclave so I’m just going to assert myself as an expert here and say yes. Hot Frosty is an allegory for the life of Jesus as told through the prism of a perpetually damp and sleeveless guy who used to be on Schitt’s Creek and Lacey Chabert. She is, I guess, a sort of Virgin Mary, because she wills “Jack” into existence by giving the chiseled snowman a magic scarf she got from a knowing older couple at a thrift store, as well as a Mary Magdalene, because she is very horny for Jack. Her own husband died of cancer, we discover, and she needs to lust after a hot cold snowman to move on. What I found remarkable about this movie is that the Netflix Christmas Operation seems to be trying to differentiate itself from Hallmark and the like by being ever so slightly more erotic than the rest, while still falling back on the traditional values of the genre — vague faith-based allegory, small-town values, home renovation. He learns a lot about the latter by watching TV. What did you make of the surprising rate at which Jack picks up skills from television?

Rachel: I have a lot of questions about snowman taxonomy, biology, and psychology after watching this film. Jack emerges fully formed from his snow body, able to speak English perfectly, understand and embody the concept of love, and in a sort of charming, Robin Williams–as-other-Jack way, behave like a relatively normal human person with light brain damage, but has otherwise totally unexplained and massive holes in his personality and knowledge bank. For example, he knows what Christmas is, but not cancer. He knows how to use a crayon, but not a TV remote. He is an instantaneous victim of compulsory heterosexuality and is basically born attracted to Lacey Chabert but does not clock it when every other woman in town hits on him. We never get any information about from whence he sprung — was he once a human man cursed by a witch? Who built this ripped, anatomically graphic snowman for the town’s “annual snowman competition” and what kind of other haunting supernatural powers does this talented gay possess? Does the scarf that Lacey’s friend gives her to put around his neck specifically have snowman-turning powers, and does that mean that Lacey’s friend’s husband is also an ex-snowman? Does this imply that there is a world of snowmen offscreen waiting to be turned into sex objects for widows? I demand almost nothing from my Netflix Christmas movies, but I want at least a winky nod (ideally by some elfin sprite who has nothing to do with the plot but pops up to cause some drama, as is Netflix tradition) to some kind of internal logic. What are your thoughts on Jack’s unholy provenance?

Jackson: I spent a lot of the runtime pondering Jack’s fondness for the other snowmen in the town square whom he implies are missing out on the joys of being human. Those snowmen look like, well, snowmen! If Lacey Chabert had placed a scarf on one of them, would we be watching a whole movie about a fleshy humanoid being made out of three giant spheres? The body horror lingering at the fringes of this is very eerie. Also eerie, as you mentioned: The way this Netflix movie dabbles in the politics of surveillance and police violence. This little town has a police officer played by Darryl Philbin who is so intent on cracking down on the smallest crimes, he becomes obsessed with reports of a man streaking in the town square (Jack, when he’s just wearing his scarf; the way they make sure the scarf is always connected to Dustin Milligan’s crotch is hilarious). Jack becomes the White Whale to his Captain Ahab. He even uses the hidden camera on an ATM to track him down. The eyes of the police state are everywhere, even at Christmas!

Rachel: Yes, this is a film about how absolute power corrupts absolutely and how there is no hope of true justice under late capitalism. I could not believe how harrowing a turn this movie took, especially near the end. Jack, who has spent the movie avoiding the police for the reasons you mention above, is finally caught and accused of terrorism (because he has no fingerprints), locked up overnight, has his bail set at an unreasonable $2,000 (this is likely Lacey’s entire year’s rent for her house that has a lot of holes in it and no heat), then denied his basic human rights, even as the townsfolk gather and protest outside the police station. He ultimately dies in police custody. We literally watch as an overheated Jack codes out on the STREET in a town that “hasn’t had a murder in 100 years,” suggesting that the corrupt local police force has been manipulating the numbers all along. Then, Lacey, who purports to love him, is led away from his corpse by the town DOCTOR (side note: was also obsessed by this doctor’s availability; Lacey is able to walk in whenever without an appointment, a healthcare fantasy that I would watch an entire movie about), who puts her arm around her friend and says, “Let’s go, honey — let the sheriff take care of this.” The very sheriff who murdered him in the first place!!! At this point I was screaming. Lacey puts up no argument, kisses Jack, then walks away from her boyfriend, who, again, was just killed in public by the cops. Jack comes back to life shortly thereafter as a human person, which is never explained, and everything is fine again, but I don’t think we can ignore the urgent implications of the above plotline. Is Netflix ACAB?

Jackson: I can only assume that in the style of Hail, Caesar!, someone deep inside the Netflix Christmas operation is trying to sneak leftist messaging into these movies. Also, I have to add that I was haunted by the idea that the prison is too hot for Jack to survive in, and that he is, in fact, dying at every moment that the temperature around him is above freezing. What could be more Christlike than coming to earth to die constantly over a few days, all to redeem Lacey Chabert’s belief in humanity? (And also institute some very minor reforms to a small town’s bail operation.) I hope that we all take Jack the former snowman’s lessons to heart and chase after what we love this holiday season, no matter how much it interferes with the intentions of the carceral state. And as for the other lessons that Netflix may have in store for us this Christmas? Well, just you wait until the review embargo is up and we can talk about Lindsay Lohan …