Three Public Relations Campaigns for your Favorite Holiday Movie Villains

By: Yelaine Aguilar

With the flurry of winter holidays comes the time to re-watch our favorite classics. When screenings of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “Home Alone,” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas” pick up again, the movies’ timeless “villains” — or maybe just misunderstood characters — will have to face the zeal of Whoville residents, an 8-year-old troublemaker and the Christmastown police.

Each crisis demands a need for better public relations. Luckily, these campaigns will make even the Grinch have a joyful holiday season. 

The One Who Always Steals Christmas

Whether you read the 1957 book by Dr. Seuss or watched any of its three movie renditions, you’ll find the Grinch at odds with the residents of Whoville in every version of this classic tale.

Via: lockhaven

Whoville residents are particularly terrified of the Grinch in the 2000 live-action rendition — the mayor sees the Grinch as a threat to Christmas, fearing he will ruin Whoville’s 1000th anniversary.

In this version, the Grinch is given the backstory of an outcast who gets made fun of for his appearance growing up. When he finally gets into the Christmas spirit, almost the entire class laughs at him. This backstory serves to highlight why the Grinch becomes evil.

Running away from Whoville to live on a mountaintop is the Grinch’s first PR mistake — no one is going to understand him any better through hissilence.

His second mistake that turns into a full-blown crisis involves his attendance at the Holiday Whobilation. At the Whobilation, Whoville mayor Augustus May proposes to Martha May and gives the Grinch a razor as his Christmas “gift.” 

This gives the Grinch flashbacks to when he was bullied for being too hairy. In response, the Grinch leaves a scratch on the car the mayor offered to Martha while proposing, yelling at the entire town before setting Whoville’s Christmas tree on fire. 

When it comes to crisis management in public relations, the Grinch really is “a mean one.” Staying calm is important, as every “Intro to Public Relations” student knows from studying the Page Principles. The Grinch does not remain calm, patient or good-humored. Instead, he steals all the Who’s trees and presents. It isn’t until the gifts are about to fall off a mountain when he realizes his mistake.

What can be done? A Whoville-Worthy Remedy

If the Grinch had a PR agency, it would have told him to formulate a campaign and give measured, well-thought-out responses to Whoville residents. One of the Page Principles is to tell the truth; the Grinch should’ve prepared a sincere apology with an honest glance into his past so that people could have better understood where he was coming from. At the same time, he needed to rebuild and restore trust. 

Another one of the Principles is to “prove it with action;” the Grinch should have immediately offered to do something for the Whoville community, such as help put up a new Christmas tree. He could have even started an initiative to deliver extra toys to kids on Christmas, rather than taking them away, as a way to really show he cared about Christmas cheer.

In the end, the Grinch does go on his own version of an apology tour, handing back Whoville’s gifts and trees, helping to light up the city once again and participating in Whoville’s Christmas feast. Finally, the Grinch responds in a way that PR professionals would approve of — although they likely would have told him he was beyond saving after stealing all the presents. 

The “Home Alone” Dynamic Duo

In this 1990 family-favorite film, the Wet Bandits, a duo composed of thieves Harry Lyme and Marv Merchants, cast their eyes on robbing from the McCallister house upon hearing the entire family will be gone for vacation. But when Kevin McCallister, a mischievous 8-year-old, gets left behind, The Wet Bandits face literal barriers to entry (and reputational damage). 

Going through with the robbery even though they knew Kevin was inside was The Wet Bandits’ first PR mistake; they should have done their research as part of the RPIE process. Through simple research, by observing Kevin, anyone could see him as clever and capable of putting The Wet Bandits through harrowing moments.

Via: IMDb

The Wet Bandits’ PR crisis truly emerges as they walk (or fall) into the McCallister family’s house and Kevin’s booby traps. Getting hit on the head with an iron and slipping on black-ice-lined steps mortifies the Bandits. 

On top of that, The Wet Bandits hang Kevin on a door hook when they are convinced they have caught him. The Wet Bandits don’t remain calm or patient when dealing with Kevin’s antics. 

When the police come, they are able to trace every house The Wet Bandits robbed because they filled each one up with water after each robbery, leading them to face more jail time and a bigger crisis. With their constant oversight, from not doing research on Kevin to filling up houses with water, the Wet Bandits do not manage for tomorrow. 

Cleaning Up the Flood

With the help of PR professionals, The Wet Bandits should’ve done a lot of apologizing, once again telling the truth to an uncomfortable extent. The Wet Bandits, just like the Grinch, were in desperate need of an apology tour. After their jail sentence, they should’ve gone back to all the houses they’d robbed and personally apologized, displaying a concrete plan of how they would change. 

There is nothing like proving words with action, so a way The Wet Bandits could’ve shown a genuine desire for change is through helping police find other robbers in the area, because they might have insider info. 

Another action they could’ve taken was to go on an anti-robbery (“let’s be real, it’s not okay to steal”) campaign with billboards, TV and radio ads. 

Jack’s Afterlife Crisis

Jack Skellington, the jaded pumpkin king of Halloweentown who acts as protagonist of Tim Burton’s 1993 movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” has some of his own demons (aside from the literal demons surrounding him in Halloweentown), which catapults him into a PR crisis.

Via: Getty images

Jack is a relatable villain; he is tired of his current reality, so he wants to do something new. When he finds out about Christmas, he wants to know more and tells the whole Halloweentown about it.

However, when he notices the Halloweentown residents don’t understand the cheerfulness of Christmas, he shifts from talking about how wholesome the holiday is to telling them a hair-raising tale about “Sandy Claws,” who flies around with a big red sack like a vulture in the sky. 

Jack gives the town what they want, which is the illusion that there are other scary holidays besides Halloween that they can try to imitate. Here, Jack isn’t telling the entire truth, and it makes his intentions a little unclear. 

As the movie goes on, Jack proves to be a true leader, motivating the entire town to undergo a Christmas transformation. He manages for tomorrow by knowing what is needed, urging the scientist to create reindeer, the band to learn Christmas tunes and Sally to make him a new outfit. He also proves he will recreate Christmas through his actions.

Not only does he orchestrate what is needed to capture the cheery spirit, he also proves he will indeed be “Sandy Claus” and deliver the toys on Christmas night. He goes as far as to ask the trick-or-treaters to kidnap Santa so that he can take over handing out presents in Christmastown.

But what Jack doesn’t anticipate is that he will terrify Christmastown kids and their parents into calling the police. Here, he doesn’t manage for tomorrow, applying the same logic as he would in Halloweentown to Christmastown even after noticing so many differences between the two. He should have taken into account that a true town’s character is expressed by its people.

Bringing the Joy Back to Christmas Town

Jack immediately realizes his error and gets to work to fix it. He knows that the real Santa Claus has to be there, so he goes back to Halloweentown and rescues Santa from his fate with the boogeyman, allowing him to deliver presents to all Christmastown children. 

Jack’s response to Santa refusing his help to fix things in Christmastown is calm and good-humored as he then turns his attention towards Sally and his own town.  He also comes back with a new appreciation for Halloween, and Santa forgives him with Halloweentown’s first snowfall. 

In the end, a PR agency would have approved of how Jack resolved his crisis, proving he wanted to help with action and remaining calm overall. 

From the Grinch’s and Wet Bandits’ Christmas stealing, to Jack’s terrifying cheer, each villain had their own crisis to grapple with. Each remedy had its own way of getting resolved, but by managing for tomorrow and listening to stakeholders, effective public relations would have resolved these crises a lot faster or averted them altogether.