"Just Because I Cannot See It Doesn’t Mean I Can’t Believe It!"
The Meaning of Love in "The Nightmare Before Christmas"
I watch The Nightmare Before Christmas pretty much every year, usually around Halloween, and have done since it came out thirty years ago. Despite this, I usually notice stuff I hadn’t noticed before on repeat viewings, and this time I noticed that Jack is literally gone one day when his subjects start panicking over his disappearance. I was struck by how odd it was that they were so clingy towards their monarch – obviously he’s beloved, but you can’t give him space to have one day on his own? It’s weird behavior, this kind of obsessive, stalker version of love, and it got me thinking about the broader implications of the movie’s themes.
I also had a recent conversation with a colleague, a fellow fan of the movie, who mentioned how much she didn’t like the character of Sally because she was so passive and incidental to the plot. I thought perhaps we weren’t watching the same movie, or perhaps this person had just been brainwashed through years of “strong, female characters,” that they couldn’t see what an actual strong female character Sally was, because her role is more supportive, and she does traditionally feminine things, like cooking. I thought it was baffling that they couldn’t see her character as being equally important to Jack, which she is, and how she’s basically the hero of the movie, even though she isn’t the central focus. I guess her characterization is too subtle for modern audiences or something, and I’m envisioning a remake where Sally tries to steal Christmas and succeeds this time, because women are so much better at everything than men, even hostile takeovers of holidays. Thankfully I don’t think that will happen, but the conversation also got me thinking about why Sally’s character is so important, and actually essential to the plot. So when my class had to write a 2000-word analysis essay for their final paper, I decided to explore my thoughts on the movie in analysis essay form, to give them an example. Below is that essay, posted just in time for Christmas. I hope everyone spends the holiday with the people they love, in whatever form that love takes!
Most people are familiar with The Nightmare Before Christmas, even if they haven’t seen the film – the images of Jack Skellington, Sally, and the Ooogie Boogie Man are everywhere during both the Halloween and Christmas seasons, which is remarkable for a movie that celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. The enduring power and fascination of this movie is worth an examination, and its deceptively simple plot hides a deeper and perhaps surprising message about the nature of love.
The premise of the film is that every holiday has its own realm, one of which is Halloweentown, where Jack Skellington lives. He’s the King of Halloweentown, but has grown tired of celebrating Halloween over and over again every year. He yearns for change, and finds his way into Christmastown, which is the opposite of what he’s used to – rather than fear and terror, Christmastown celebrates and spreads love and joy. Jack becomes obsessed with this holiday, and resolves to replace Santa and spread his own Halloween-inspired version of Christmas this year. Naturally, this goes horribly wrong, and Jack realizes his mistake after he is shot out of the sky by the people he’s terrorized. Fortunately, this brief and doomed exercise in trying something different has reinvigorated his love of his original role, and he returns to Halloweentown excited about the plans for next year. He also realizes the love he has for Sally, the only resident of Halloweentown who tried to warn him that his Christmas was a terrible idea.
Why did Sally think this? In the movie, she has a premonition about a Christmas tree burning in fire, but I think that’s symbolic of a deeper intuition she has. Sally is the wisest character in the film, and I believe her wisdom is linked to her understanding of love, just as Jack’s naivety is linked to his. While Jack is desperate to uncover the meaning behind Christmas, concocting scientific experiments in an effort to reveal its essence, Sally appreciates it for what it is. She is intrigued by the objects Jack brings back from Christmastown, but becomes concerned when Jack begins to obsess over them, and even more so when he resolves to take over Christmas this year. Sally already understands what love is, since she feels these emotions for Jack from the beginning of the movie. She loves him enough to try and tell him he’s clearly making a mistake. She is honest enough to tell him the truth, while the other citizens of Halloweentown just blindly follow his lead. She understands that love is about trust and honesty and challenging the people we care for, while Jack’s only understanding of love comes from two different sources – first, his loyal dog Zero, who loves him as all dogs love their owners, completely unconditionally. The other source is the citizens of Halloweentown, his subjects, who love him more often than not with a kind of unhealthy obsession and submission.
Jack goes off on his own for one night when he discovers Christmastown, and already the citizens of Halloweentown are in an uproar and panic, sounding an alarm and checking everywhere for him. The Mayor wants to start planning Halloween the day after the previous one finished, and is unable to do so without Jack’s input. In one of the best lines of the movie, the Mayor exclaims: “Jack, please, I’m only an elected official here – I can’t make decisions by myself!” He’s totally dependent on Jack to take the lead, even though his job is to do precisely that. When Jack returns from Christmastown, he hides away in his home to study Christmas, and the citizens of Halloweentown fear he has died. Their level of attachment to their king is incredibly unhealthy, and you can see how uncomfortable Jack is with it when they keep excessively complimenting him after Halloween, and nearly try to mob him. This is all Jack knows of love at this point, and he finds it stifling. He yearns to escape from it, and when he sees the version of love in Christmastown, he instantly wants it.
I believe it is this feeling of love that is the primary attraction of Christmastown to Jack – during the song “What’s This?” Jack keeps emphasizing the love and comradery of its citizens who are all gathered together: “Oh look, what’s this?/They’re hanging mistletoe. They kiss?/Why that looks so unique – inspired!/ They’re gathering around to hear a story roasting chestnuts on a fire…The monsters all are missing and the nightmares can't be found/ And in their place there seems to be good feeling all around,” etc. In Halloweentown, Jack lives alone except for Zero, and while he has the adoration of his dog and his subjects, it’s not the same kind of love as being together and appreciated by a family or partner. In modern English, we typically think of romance when we use the word “love,” but other languages have a variety of words for these different types of love – the ancient Greeks had seven for each different conception, from altruism to the platonic love of friendship. There are also warped perceptions and perversions of love, such as in the archetypes of the tyrannical father and devouring mother. It is this latter, smothering, stifling love that Jack is used to, because it is what he receives from his subjects. And because Jack hasn’t experienced any other kind of love than what he knows, his way of showing love is to instantly smother and dominate the thing he loves. His study of Christmas concludes with: “You know I think this Christmas thing is not as tricky as it seems/And why should they have all the fun/It should belong to anyone. Not anyone, in fact, but me/Why I could make a Christmas tree/And there’s no reason I could find/I couldn’t have a Christmas time/I’ll bet I could improve it too/And that’s exactly what I’ll do!”
Jack can’t just appreciate and love something different for its difference – he tries to co-opt it and fit it into what he already knows. This is twisting and warping not only the meaning of Christmas, but the meaning of love itself. He initially tries to explain to the citizens of Halloweentown the differences between their home and Christmastown, but the citizens keep bringing the conversation back to what they know, and Jack resigns himself with, “I may as well give them what they want.” In doing so, however, he lies about what Christmas is actually about, saying it’s run by “a fearsome king with a deep mighty voice…carting bulging sacks with his big great arms…And on a dark cold night/Under full moonlight/He flies into a fog/Like a vulture in the sky/And they call him Sandy Claws.” Because of this lie, Jack and the citizens reimagine Christmas as a variation on the theme of Halloween. They build toys that attack and frighten children, wreathes that eat people, and skeleton reindeer to drive Jack’s sleigh. Jack sends his minions to “Kidnap the Sandy Claws,” and while he does order that Santa is made comfortable, the children given the task instead deliver Santa into the clutches of the nightmarish Oogie Boogie Man, and it is there where Sally goes to rescue him. Sally risks her life to help Jack right the wrong he made of Christmas, and when Jack realizes this, it’s the first time he understands love as something not just involving adoration and dependency, but also sacrifice. He realizes that if you love something, you have to let it go, as he has to do with Christmas. Love is not about domination, but about appreciation for the individual and unique. Not trying to control it or imitate it – that’s a hollow version of love that seeks to wear the lover’s skin without winning its heart. Which I guess is appropriate for Halloweentown.
The Biblical definition of love is one that depends on self-sacrifice – “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) This definition makes the concept of sacrifice central to love - love is selfish if you just take it without giving anything in return. The story of Jesus is all about this kind of self-sacrificing love, and Jesus is, of course, whose birth people celebrate at Christmas. The citizens of Halloweentown think their devotion and worship of Jack is enough, but that’s not a truly loving or equal relationship. It’s a parasitic relationship of an obsessed fan with a celebrity, known as a parasocial relationship. As with fans of celebrities, the citizens of Halloweentown adore the image of Jack they think they know, the façade he presents to the world, and they can’t see that he’s desperately unhappy and trapped by it. He laments: “Oh, there's an empty place in my bones/ That calls out for something unknown/ The fame and praise come year after year/ Does nothing for these empty tears.” Sally understands Jack, and relates to his feelings, since she’s actually being kept trapped and imprisoned by her creator, Dr. Finkelstein, until he discards her to create a perfect female version of himself. Dr. Finkelstein’s idea of love is to literally just replicate himself, which is obviously incredibly narcissistic. As with Sally, he is again controlling and dominating the woman he creates by twisting her to fit the image of himself. This seems to be the prevailing version of love in Halloweentown, which isn’t surprising in a place where everyone is a monster – their ideas of love would naturally be monstrous as well. Only Sally is different. By the end of the movie, Jack realizes this, and realizes that Sally has the greatest form of love for him, a kind of love who will lay down her life for her friend.
It is telling that Jack approaches Sally at the conclusion of the movie with, “My dearest friend, if you don’t mind, I’d like to join you by your side,” asking her permission and addressing her as his friend, which is a deeper form of love than the shallow, parasitic fan-worship of his subjects, or even the slavish devotion of Zero. Jack and Sally meet at the end of the movie not as king and subject, or pet and owner, but as equals. They both conclude the film with the line, “For it is clear, as anyone can see, we’re simply meant to be,” and then kiss, the action that Jack was so inspired by back in Christmastown. His co-opting of Christmas has failed, but he discovers what he loved about Christmas all along, and what was missing from his life. It was the version of love that Christmastown celebrates, the Christ-like version of love and self-sacrifice. Although the film is not explicitly religious, the focus on Christmas, the Christian religious holiday, hints at its broader context and themes, and its depiction of love fits into that. It is a feeling that Jack, being from a more pagan festival like Halloween, is unfamiliar with, but one that he comes to understand through the actions of Sally.
As previously stated, the film is more complex than it appears on the surface, and I believe it is this complexity that has kept viewers engaged for three decades. From children to grown-ups, we can all understand and empathize with Jack’s feeling of something missing, his excitement at discovering something new and different, and his realization of what really matters, to both the living and the dead. It is this simple yet profound message that has resonated for thirty years, and will continue to resonate every Halloween, Christmas, and beyond.