Have Yourself a Merry Little Rant

The Wednesday Pop Culture Rant is required by Internet Law to produce a listicle by the end of the year. Otherwise Russian hackers flood your site with topless Putin photos and Breitbart starts a rumor the basement of your offices are being used for bear-baiting and mimeograph huffing.

So, what to list? The obvious answer: Women in Christmas Movies Power Rankings. After exhaustive research and the consumption of an entire bowl of eggnog,¹ we list.

No. 1 with a Bullet: Donna Reed, It’s a Wonderful Life. Do we really need to even discuss this? The Rant’s knees still go weak every time the camera turns on Donna for the first time at the graduation dance. In real life, Reed protested the Vietnam War and worked as a peace activist. A wonderful life indeed.

2. Miss Piggy, A Muppet Christmas Carol. Miss Piggy gets to show off her acting chops (thank you, I’ll be here all week) as Mrs. Cratchit, and holds her own with Michael Caine as Scrooge, who probably made twelve other movies simultaneously with this one.

3. Carol Kane, Scrooged. This movie has slowly become a cult classic because of the presence of Bill Murray, but Kane steals the show as the Ghost of Christmas Present, as she literally tries to pound some sense into Murray’s Scrooge.

4. Lucy, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Critics breathlessly point out Lucy’s presence in Peanuts as a shadow reality for Charles Schulz’s troubled marriage to his first wife. But Lucy was a Grrrrrl long before anyone had even conceived of the pop-culture type. Lucy would have mentored Hillary in how to kick Trump’s ass all over the electoral map and never apologize for it.

5. Melinda Dillon, A Christmas Story. The Best Mom Ever navigates a crotchety husband, an erotic lamp, needy children, and a demonic furnace without complaint. When she covers for Ralphie after his fight with Farkus, The Rant loves her all over again.

The Rant wishes you a wonderful holiday season. And if things get sideways with the in-laws, remember the Templeton. We have a case cooling its heels in the trunk.

1. Both of those are lies. We did less research than Trump preparing for a presidential debate, and The Rant has been consuming Santa’s greatest gift of all, Templeton 6yr Rye, which we feared would never make its way to the Home Offices, but has appeared like a Channing Tatum movie cameo, surprising and delightful