"Home Alone" – poorly disguised libertarian propaganda

Last year, we presented "7 Libertarian Themes for the Christmas Eve Table," which continues to be a relevant message in 2019. Today, we are publishing something in the same vein – this time not from the traditional ritual Christmas dinner, but from the traditional ritual television program for the holidays.

The hit comedy with McCauley Culkin - "Home Alone" - has overcome many cultural and temporal barriers and today, especially if we observe the reactions and comments of celebrants on Facebook, it is already considered an invariable presence in the holidays around Christmas. We have trees, gifts, tangerines, rolled up sarmi, groaning from overeating and watching "Home Alone" [1]. Cultural appropriation from American pop almost on the level of Santa Claus from German folklore.

It sounds like flowers and roses or Christmas desserts and pumpkin pie, but not if we are vigilant statists. Behind the jokes, the gaffes, the wonderful early 90s aesthetics and McCauley's charm lies something that is impossible to achieve with all the money of the Koch brothers and their evil think tanks. Namely, a frontal attack on the basic foundations that we are taught since school - obedience, passivity and reliance on authority to fix everything. The most slippery form of market fundamentalism - cultural!

The first thing that is addressed in the production, even in the title of the film, is private property. The importance of protecting your home, protecting the fruits of your (or your father's) labor. Kevin McCallister's main role is to turn his house into a fortress against those who want to take from him and his family. In the absence of his parents, he is the master and takes the initiative to repel the malicious thieves.

The wet bandits have something to take, because both the McCallister home and their entire neighborhood in the suburbs of Chicago are a showcase for the successes of capitalism. Huge, beautiful houses, strewn with decorations and lights, two cars in the garage, children's rooms full of toys, video tapes, pizza at home, the abundance in the stores... Christmas in Paris. What did we compare all this to, watching the film in the 90s in Bulgaria? With the queues, the gray panels and the coming hyperinflation. The contrast could not be more stark.

If he's not going to run away from the problem, Kevin has to protect his home alone. When they arrive in Paris, having already learned that their son has remained in Chicago, the parents of Culkin's character try to contact the local representatives of the state - the police. The case is taken up by disinterested, doughnut-chewing bureaucrats, who, after long persuasions, send a patrol to the house. The patrol's inspection is carried out with the diligence that we know from our native police, respectively, the little boy is abandoned to his fate.

In another scene, after accidentally stealing a toothbrush, Kevin is chased by a comically overweight police officer who manages to beat himself up in an attempt to catch up with him. The inability of the authorities to help is strongly emphasized. The scene even sends us a more precise message. The character who challenges the police officer to the unwitting petty thief is the boy apprentice at the neighborhood grocer. Instead of the pubescent teenager catching up with the short-legged nine-year-old Culkin himself, he passes the responsibility on to the state... and loses. The brush is lost, the police officer rolls on the ice, and Kevin has escaped. Our protagonist must not repeat that mistake. He will protect his private property himself.

Kevin is too young to use a firearm, although he has an air rifle, which also comes into play for home defense. He enjoys the banned film “Angels with Dirty Souls,” which includes a scene with the mob’s favorite dry-run machine gun, the Thompson. If we look at the YouTube reviews of the film, there are worried comments about the violence, damage, and wounds that the little defender inflicts on the wet bandits trying to catch him. In the real world, Kevin might kill the attackers of his home.

In general, putting all these elements together, the doubt arises whether the director has actually managed to insert propaganda for the use of weapons in self-defense into this children's comedy? The Second Amendment to the American Constitution – inserted by Kohtopoda in "Home Alone". Can't we interpret the plot of the film series as a retelling of the popular stories in the US about young children successfully defending themselves from burglars? After all, everyone knows that in the real world they don't achieve this with toys and clever traps. The great equalizer of forces is someone else.

A fundamental criticism of libertarian ideas is touched upon extremely subtly – that they will degenerate into the word “freedom” beloved by all socialists. Left to complete freedom, people will fail and sink into the pit of regression. As soon as Kevin is left alone, the fears seem to be confirmed. He eats ice cream and chips, watches banned films, scatters, rummages through his brother’s things, breaks things and stays up late. Until the moment he has had enough, however, and starts shopping, he tidies up and defends his home. We reach one of the last scenes of the film, where, having already accepted responsibility, Kevin has even left cookies and milk for Santa Claus. Symbolically, we have moved from a box of ice cream in the pigsty on the sofa to a plate of sweets next to the decorated Christmas tree. From relaxed freedom to internalized responsibility.

Last but not least, the role of the community, the people in the neighborhood, who are significantly more concerned about Kevin's well-being and more capable of helping him than the state social services and the police, is left. Starting with his parents trying to contact the neighbors, who are unfortunately also on vacation, passing through the concerned cashier at the supermarket and of course, we get to the main role of Old Marley, also a neighbor of the McCallister family, about whom, however, there are scary rumors.

Marley not only saves Kevin at the end of the film, but also emphasizes the importance of natural human institutions such as family in the famous church scene. [2] In it, Kevin learns the truth about Marley and is motivated to protect his home. Marley treats Kevin as deserving of freedom and responsibility, and carefully watches over the young child to ensure that he doesn't run into trouble he's not ready for. As a counterpoint to Culkin's parents at the beginning of the film, Old Marley is one who gives freedom and watches over him, rather than locking him up and forgetting him.

Throughout the film, we can follow the thread of the thesis that the individual and voluntary communities are superior to violent power structures. And although problems arise in them too, as in the families of Kevin or Marley, they can be internally corrected at least temporarily (until Home Alone 2). The values are also visible - man, home, family, community and prosperity. If this is not libertarian propaganda, I don’t know what is. It is also a good film and worth watching even without ideological glasses.

[1] The author supplements these with a Christmas concert by Vesko Marinov

[2] Another working non-governmental structure

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