National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

image for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

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Not suitable under 13; parental guidance to 13 (violence, coarse language, sexual references)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
  • a review of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 21 December 2023.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 13 Not suitable due to violence, coarse language and sexual references.
Children aged 13 Parental guidance recommended due to coarse language.
Children aged 14 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Medium level coarse language
Length: 95 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Clark Griswold (Chevvy Chase) is getting ready for Christmas, which he wants to make perfect for his wife Ellen (Beverely D’Angelo) and children Audrey (Julette Lewis) and Rusty (Johnny Galecki), however, nothing goes according to plan. First, they crash the car bringing home the Christmas tree, then the Christmas lights fail to work, causing Clark to get extremely angry. Next, the grandparents all come to stay, resulting in Audrey having to share a bed with her brother. Then, Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and family arrive in their RV, with their Rottweiler. To cap it off, comes Uncle Lewis (William Hickey) and his wife Bethany (Mae Questel). Lewis manages to set the Christmas tree alight with his cigar, causes an explosion with a gas leak, and completely wrecks the house. With everything in disarray, Clark realises Christmas is not about the gifts, the tree and the turkey, but about the magic of the Christmas spirit.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Christmas; Extended family dynamics.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is a lot of violence in this movie, mostly done for laughs, including:

  • In the opening credits, a cartoon Santa gets electrocuted, sets his pants on fire, gets hit by bricks and is chased by a rolling Santa head.
  • A large utility vehicle tailgates Clark’s car with all the family inside. The cars overtake and pursue each other. Clark gives the other driver the middle finger. Then a large truck starts to tailgate as well. Clark pulls out in front of a snow plough and is forced off the road, crashing into the snow. No-one is hurt.
  • The Christmas tree comes crashing down, smashing a window and furniture.
  • Clark’s neighbour says she hopes Clark falls off the ladder and breaks his neck.
  • The ladder does tip while Clark is on it and starts to fall backwards but he’s saved by a tree.
  • Clark slips off the roof and hangs on to the gutters, which then come crashing down. A piece of roof timber flies into the neighbour’s window.
  • Clark steps on a timber floorboard which crashes up into his face. He also gets hit in the head by the attic ladder.
  • Clark goes sliding down a mountain slope on a ski pan. He crashes through a shed, crosses a busy motorway and crashes into a building.
  • A cat eats through some wires and gets electrocuted. A burnt cat shape is seen on the carpet.
  • A squirrel jumps out of a tree and runs through the house, creating havoc. The dog chases the squirrel, everyone screams, Grandmother faints, and all the Christmas decorations in the house gets smashed. Clark says he’ll smack it with a hammer.
  • The neighbour tells her husband to slog Clark in the face. When he won’t, she goes next door and the squirrel jumps on her face. The dog then jumps on the squirrel. She punches her husband in the face.
  • The police surround Clark’s house with rifles. They break in through the windows and the roof.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Clark comes out of his house wearing a hockey mask and wielding a chainsaw.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • A squirrel is seen stuck on Clark’s back.
  • Eddie brings Clark’s boss into the house, tied up with a Christmas bow around him. He has a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • Clark watches an old Christmas home movie of when he was a child. His father hits him.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Purina dog chow
  • Wal-Mart Ol’ Roy.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • A female sales assistant, wearing a sexy dress and showing a lot of cleavage, comes on to Clark. Clark calls her ‘nipply’. She asks if there’s something she can take out for him. Clark tells her he’s divorced and that his wife doesn’t wear underwear. The sales assistant then models some sexy underwear and pulls her skirt up, showing the top of her thigh.
  • Audrey says she has nightmares about what her brother does in bed on his own.
  • Eddie says he and his wife could use a little private time together.
  • Eddie is seen drinking and wearing a singlet and revealing bathing pants.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • The neighbours are seen in bed kissing passionately when they are disturbed by Clark’s Christmas lights and music, which come on suddenly.
  • Clark imagines seeing the sales assistant slowly removing her bathing costume. She’s seen partially naked from behind.
  • Clark and Ellen kiss passionately.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Several characters drinking a lot of wine. One of the Grandmothers is seen a bit tipsy. Eddie is constantly drinking.
  • Several characters smoke, including cigars.
  • Clark’s Dad tells him he had a lot of help from ‘Jack Daniels’.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Oh my God
  • Bullshit
  • Kiss my arse
  • Shit
  • Piss my pants
  • Shitting bricks (said by a small child)
  • Crap
  • Bull
  • Arsehole
  • Fucking
  • Screwing
  • Dammit
  • Holy shit
  • Goddamn
  • Jesus
  • For Christ’s sake.
  • Clark goes on a tirade about his boss and calls him many names, including:
    • Fat arsed
    • Dickless
    • Brainless
    • Full of monkey shit.

In a nutshell

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is a slapstick comedy about everything going wrong at Christmas time. The realisation is that Christmas isn’t about all the trimmings but about the magic and spirit of Christmas. There is, however, a lot of coarse language in this movie and sexual references, which makes it unsuitable for children under 13. Best suited for teens 14 and above.

The main message from this movie is that Christmas doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s enough to have family together despite the chaos.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Positive outlook
  • Determination
  • Kindness
  • Forgiveness
  • Patience.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Irresponsible behaviour by adults would lead to serious consequences in real life. A lot of the stunts show Clark behaving in a manner that doesn’t take safety into account but he doesn’t suffer any ill effects. In reality this wouldn’t happen.