However, since a two-sentence is post is not really good enough, allow me to pontificate for a few paragraphs longer.
Yes indeed, I did watch Black Christmas on Black Friday, on our first of two nights away down in Phillip Island, about a two-hour drive from our home in Melbourne. Just as Black Friday does itself, it was a way of informally kicking off the Christmas season, though in this case, it's the Christmas movie-watching season. And as a bonus, it had both the words "black" and "Christmas" in the title.
Actually, that viewing season technically got underway for me a week beforehand when I watched a Netflix release called A New York Christmas Wedding in order to review it. But I wouldn't have chosen to watch it, or at least not watch it then, had I not been hard up for a new release to review. I do adhere to the basic guidelines of not trying to get into a Christmas mood until Thanksgiving is over.
Of course, neither Thanksgiving nor Black Friday should really mean anything here in Australia. But since we now live in an economic marketplace that encompasses the entire world, the entire world freaks out when it's Black Friday (or really, within a week of Black Friday) in America.
So when I went to the shopping centre (don't call it a mall) on Thursday night -- which I guess, technically, was Thanksgiving night, though I had a burrito for dinner -- I was confronted with Black Friday sales every which way I looked. And when I bought the one gift I ended up buying that night -- a photo printed on to a wood block -- the woman had to tell me both at the beginning and the end of my transaction that if I bought one more, the third would be free. I would have thought my first rejection of her offer would have been sufficient, but I suppose the psychology of the consumer mind suggests that you try again, especially after the consumer has already definitively committed to the first purchase, and may have gained in consumer confidence over the course of the transaction.
The movie? Let's just say Jason Blum has had his better moments for me. (Seriously, did you see this year's Nocturne?) I was surprised at just how much of an all-out assault it was on frat boy rape culture and mansplainers. Not that such people don't deserve to be eviscerated in popular culture whenever possible, but they also likely make up some decent percentage of Blum's audience, and I've known him in the past to play it a bit more conservatively. So, kudos to that I guess.
Anyway, it's Black Friday proper in the U.S. as I post this. If you are out there fighting for that last Furby or Cabbage Patch Kid or PS5, I hope you stay safe.
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