Thanksgiving movie lessons

Although Thanksgiving is a very important holiday in the United States, in other countries, all the information about Thanksgiving has been leaked through movies and TV series. As turkey party night falls, here we’ve rounded up some of those productions that directly and sometimes indirectly share a lesson about the characteristics of Thanksgiving.

Movies like Planes, Trains, and Cars (1987), “Dutch” (1991) and “Scent of a Woman” (1992) cover genres like comedy and drama that have nothing to do with each other, except for two details: Thanksgiving is a key element of the plot In each, they highlight that this national holiday is one of the most important family celebrations in the United States.

It’s not very common for movies and television to show the dark side of Thanksgiving, specifically all the abuse that Native Americans have suffered throughout US history. However, in “Addams Family Values” (1993) there is an entire sequence dedicated to this topic and it is completely covered in “The New World” by Terrence Malick.

It goes without saying that a disproportionate amount of turkeys are consumed on Thanksgiving Day, and although this can be a very delicate topic to deal with from a bird’s-eye view in a movie or documentary, it has been sought after as a comic side-effect to this situation in Productions such as the animated film “Free Birds” (2013).

There are an impressive number of episodes of TV series devoted to the Thanksgiving theme, but among the most popular are Friends. This popular show featured a special Thanksgiving episode in each of its seasons and among the most memorable is the episode where all the characters played football, there’s also an occasion where Brad Pitt joined in the celebration and Monica participated in it. Her head is in a turkey and she danced in front of Chandler.

There are also movies where Thanksgiving dinner becomes the perfect setting for developing dramatic moments and emotional struggles between family members. This appears in such films as “Home for the Holidays” (1995), “The Ice Storm” (1993), “Pieces of April” (2003) and “Brokeback Mountain” (2005).