The Golden Age Holiday: Bakhtin’s Chronotope and the Representation of Christmas Across Film Genres in 1940s Hollywood

Zhang, Tong (2026) The Golden Age Holiday: Bakhtin’s Chronotope and the Representation of Christmas Across Film Genres in 1940s Hollywood. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis provides a cross-genre study of Christmas in 1940s Hollywood films through Bakhtin’s concept of the ‘chronotope’. Existing research has largely focused on single-genre analyses, typically family Christmas films, or broader historical studies treating Christmas films as a category. Drawing on textual and comparative analyses, my research addresses this critical gap by providing a comprehensive study of how Christmas functions as a cross-genre representational motif and its cultural and political roles. The 1940s are a key focus due to the dominance of the studio system and the decade’s social and economic upheavals, including the lingering effects of the Great Depression and World War II. I argue that Christmas emerged as a narrative trope of growing resonance, exemplified by films such as It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947), shaping narrative structure, thematic development, and marketing strategies, and establishing conventions that influenced later cinematic depictions. Using Bakhtin’s (1981a) notion of the chronotope, this study treats Christmas as a distinct spatio-temporal configuration. It examines four genres—family melodrama, fantasy, romantic comedy, and film noir—to uncover the narrative and generic strategies mobilizing Christmas. Within the specific social and historical context of 1940s America, including wartime anxieties, shifting gender roles, and evolving notions of family and national identity, Christmas emerges as a site of narrative and ideological tension. Textual analysis shows that its chronotopic deployment simultaneously reinforces dominant ideologies and social stability while articulating underlying anxieties and exclusions. Genre variation fosters a complex cultural dialogue, revealing subtle dynamics of power. This research constitutes the first sustained study of Christmas as a cinematic chronotope and demonstrates the value of integrating chronotope theory with genre analysis. The framework offers potential for examining other cultural rituals across cinematic traditions and historical periods, providing insights into how spatio-temporal configurations reflect and shape social ideologies.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Media, Language and Communication Studies
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	15 Jun 2026 08:30
Last Modified:	15 Jun 2026 08:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103384
DOI:

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