For: moral confusion, sensuality and immodesty, and crossdressingWhite Christmas is a movie full of the Christmas spirit... and several less appealing things that most Christians would, in fact, be shocked and horrified to find friends or family engaged in (or even watching) in real life. While the music is nostalgic and all that, the inappropriate, immoral and even illegal behavior – tolerated, laughed at, defended throughout the movie – makes the decision to pass up White Christmas an easy one.
Moral Confusion
The constant laziness, dishonesty, spite, scheming and manipulation of the main characters in White Christmas are portrayed, not as immoral, but as comical and even endearing.
The main characters evade arrest and a lazy, incompetent (but legally in the right) sheriff in a scene that is supposed to be humorous.
A general in the United States Army orders a sergeant to drive the in-coming general by a long route (longer by an hour and a half) claiming that it is a shortcut.
Sensuality and Immodesty
White Christmas features several songs involving skimpily dressed dancing girls. One dance number in particular features dozens of women in revealing, red sequined costumes in the same vein as Las Vegas showgirl attire.
Flirtation ranges from dancing girls showing off their bare legs and shoulders in an attempt to gain a more personal relationship with their producers, to one of the two positively-portrayed main female characters fishing around for a temporary engagement to a man by batting her lashes, leaning in, and pursuing him as he tries to move away, with her hand on his thigh, suggesting that they “ought to at least kiss or something.”
When the middle-aged housekeeper kisses the main character in rather passionate gratitude, the only thing keeping him from going back for more is another man’s hand on his collar.
The hero of the story makes his lady love laugh by telling her about his dreams of other women, especially of the “sexy” kind.
A song from the main characters boasts about the sensual intimacy of dancing, even and especially with strangers.
Another song from the main characters, sung from the women’s perspective, reminisces about the ease of finding male companionship in the Army, with statements like, “A million handsome guys / With longing in their eyes / All you had to do was pick the age, the weight, the size.”
Crossdressing
Two men dress up and behave like women to entertain a crowd in a positively-portrayed number that has the men singing about their relationship as sisters and their romantic relationships with men.
