As each year passes, and Gremlins evermore secures a place in the must-see canon of Christmas movies (even if unconventional ones in the vein of Edward Scissorhands), the 1984 classic offers an increasing amount of resonance apropos of every generation becoming worse than the last. Sure to be more nefarious, irreverent and generally upheaval-causing. Of course, Gen Zers a.k.a. snowflakes would try to reason that if the baby boomers are any indication, it is previous generations that are the worst, who wrought the most havoc on this earth for subsequent generations to have to clean up. But let us say we’re not talking about the happenstance of being born at a time when it was socially acceptable to use products with CFCs in them. Instead about the fact that every new generation is, well, just slightly more uncouth, less polished and generally stupider while somehow being smart with regard to how to annoy the shit out of people.
The generational divide commences immediately when a grandson defies his grandfather’s wishes after a failed inventor (not totally unlike Maurice from Beauty and the Beast) named Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) picks up a gift for his son from Chinatown (presumably the New York one as the town of Kingston Falls is meant to be in the same state) in the form of a mogwai–Cantonese for “devil.” Once it is, unbeknownst to him, clandestinely sold, he brings it back to his quaint suburban town to give as a Christmas present to his son, Billy (Zach Galligan). Billy, incidentally, already has a pretty amazing dog named Barney (a canine that really should’ve nominated for an Oscar for all of his on-point reactions). Although Billy is excited and, for some reason, not at all shocked at seeing a previously unknown species, he still has other problems to worry about. Like the town’s resident curmudgeon, Mrs. Deagle (Polly Holliday), a rich, elderly woman who seems to control everything that goes on with her tentacles. Thus, Billy can’t help but be mildly threatened when she tells him, in essence, she’ll kill his dog if he doesn’t keep it away from her. His co-worker at the bank, Kate Beringer (Phoebe Cates), is largely nonplussed by Mrs. Deagle. For as we later found out in the film, she’s had far worse happen to her. Part of which is the reason why she hates Christmas so much.
With Billy’s dad out of town for an inventors’ convention (taking Barney with him), the sweet-natured mogwai that has since been dubbed Gizmo has become a part of the family. The only problem is, Americans are apparently too retarded to follow the three simple rules of: don’t expose the mogwai to light, don’t get water on him or put him anywhere near water at all and, most importantly, don’t feed him after midnight. Thanks to Pete Fountaine (Corey Feldman, obviously), a younger neighborhood acquaintance of Billy’s, the second rule is broken, and it’s a slippery slope from there as five other gremlins are spawned from his back. But these aren’t any “sweet” mogwais like their forebear. No, these ones are pure evil, wanting only to become more so by getting the third rule violated so that they can enter a “pupal” phase that will allow them to further embrace a demoniac spirit. This, naturally, reminds one of all the things youths do to distance themselves from their parents. To be as unlike them as possible, even at the cost of taking the whole rebellion shtick a little too far.
Yet the forebears are just as much to blame–for no one wants to believe something they could beget could be so terrible. That despite their own “pleasantness” à la Gizmo, the only thing they can create is the agents of chaos and destruction. In this way, one can argue that Gremlins is rife with the underlying message never to have children. And no, no one wants to believe Billy when he tells them that something as adorable as Gizmo could be the progenitor of sheer wickedness.
Of course, the dastardly creatures also remind one of the current Trump government, run amok and only continuing to run one for the sake and unbridled joy of watching the world burn. For if Stripe (the metaphor for the Orange One in this instance) can’t have it, then no one else can. So if the movie tells us anything on that front, it’s that a ragtag gang of misfits and underdogs must come together in order to topple the status quo. Then again, that was easier to believe in the 80s, ironically when Trump first rose to power in the first place.
As for the generations that follow only worsening, well, with that territory comes the notion that they won’t even see fit to watch a masterpiece like Gremlins to learn about themselves as a cautionary tale (just like the generation of the present doesn’t see fit to watch The Bishop’s Wife around the holidays so that men can learn not to neglect their wives or an angel will come round to seduce her). But oh well, this world’s been going to hell in a handbag ever since Marilyn Monroe’s centerfold was put in the debut issue of Playboy anyway.
