Love Actually has become somewhat of a Christmas tradition in my house.
After my family have been left deeply disappointed by my cheap Christmas gifts and disheartened by another of my mom's underwhelming festive feasts, I put on Love Actually to show everyone that we're not as bad as Alan Rickman cheating on Emma Thompson.
But despite Richard Curtis' 2003 classic becoming a firm favorite in many households, some people rewatching the Christmas movie have found it to be problematic when viewed with 2021 eyes.
In a move that I'm sure nobody found surprising, many viewers have taken to social media this month to bash the star-studded flick, branding it "sexist" and "fatphobic".
The movie's "fatphobic" comments are mainly aimed at Martine McCutcheon's character, Natalie - whose body is commented on multiple times throughout the movie. Recalling the reason her last boyfriend broke up with her, she says: "Nobody wants a girlfriend with thighs the size of tree trunks."
Elsewhere in the movie, she's described as "the chubby girl", "plumpy", and having a "sizeable a**e and huge thighs".
"Love Actually is a fatphobic piece of rubbish except for the Emma Thompson CD scene. Awful film," writes one Twitter user.
A second adds: "In other news, love actually is extremely fatphobic and I don't know how it's taken me this many years to realise."
One Twitter user commented: "I watched Love Actually for the first time last night and not only is it fatphobic, but it’s also sexist??? there were maybe 2 or 3 times throughout the whole thing that I laughed but most of the film I was just like 'wtf, how is this considered romantic'".
Many complaints of "sexism" in the movie come from how men lust after the female characters and succeed in their conquests with little issue. Colin literally flies to the US in order to find a woman who will tolerate him, Harry cheats on his wife with his assistant with very little being made of it on-screen, and Mark's lusting over his best mate's wife is rewarded with a kiss - rather than a "why are you standing at my door with a load of cards, I'm married to your best friend."
And in the case of Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, and Colin Firth's characters, they all show men in a position of senior managerial power, all of whom woo their subordinates in the name of love.
As one Twitter user writes: "[Love Actually] is a really sexist film but most of you aren’t ready to accept that yet."
A second adds: "I watched Love Actually and completely ruined my Netflix recommendations with that sexist dog diarrhoea."
But despite many people accepting that the movie is "problematic", it appears as if some fans just can't help but rewatch this Christmas classic:
Again, these aren't my personal thoughts on the movie - just what people have pointed out. I'll still continue to watch Love Actually every year because Bill Nighy is hilarious and I need to distract my family from the fact I've bought them a spiralizer for the fourth year in a row.
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