Make Christmas even more beautiful.

This should be the motto of GAC Family, the network launched this fall as a healthy, family-friendly alternative to Hallmark Channel.

Yes, you read that right. For those who think the TV equivalent of a pine-scented Yankee candle is too risky, or that Hallmark – who has joined an industry-wide effort to diversify its holiday content, including, last year his first gay romance – became a mouthpiece for Awakened Warriors, there’s a new channel where the only snowflakes allowed are those that fall during sappy rom-com climaxes.

The Hallmark connection isn’t exactly a coincidence. The GAC family and its brother, GAC Living – “GAC”, formerly Great American Country, now stands for Great American Channels – are headed by Bill Abbott, the former managing director of Hallmark’s parent company, Crown Media.

Abbott oversaw the company during perhaps its biggest scandal to date. In late 2019, a series of commercials for wedding planning website Zola featuring brides kissing at a same-sex marriage sparked an outcry from conservative lobby groups like One Million Moms, who said the spots went “against the Christian and conservative values ​​that are important. to your primary audience ”and threatened that the network would lose viewers for“ giving in ”to the so-called LGBTQ“ program ”. Hallmark withdrew the ads, causing even greater backlash, and finally apologized. Abbott left the company a month later.

Obviously, Abbott had some things pending, including finding a solution to the decline of all excellent The Christmas lineup he had helped build over the years. (Your Hallmark Christmas movie joke here.) He’s since created the new GAC family, a network that promises to deliver family-friendly, holiday-themed movies and TV series that celebrate “culture, heritage and the American way of life ”- or at least the“ ambitious ”image of America that he and the people who fund the place envision. (A group of investors with ties to former President Trump back the network, according to Vulture.)

As you would expect from the dog whistle of “American Culture, Heritage and Way of Life,” dreaming of a White Christmas takes on a whole new meaning when examining the original lineup of holiday movies. network, including “A Christmas with a Big Heart”, “A Miracle Christmas for Daisy” and “A Christmas Star”. All but one of the channel’s 12 films this year revolve around straight, white characters. On its website, GAC Media states that the company’s mission is to “celebrate great American traditions and invest in timeless, family-friendly entertainment that honors Americana.” Abbott said in a separate press release that he hoped the networks “would keep the promise of safe storytelling …”.

And who, you ask, is the star of this safe haven of vacation entertainment? Well, the criminal Lori Loughlin, of course. Last year, the “Full House” actor spent two months behind bars after pleading guilty to paying half a million dollars in bribes to get his two daughters to college . GAC is helping facilitate his comeback in his Hallmark “When Calls the Heart” spin-off, “When Hope Calls”. She will also appear in the two-part premiere of Season 2 on December 18.

So, is the holiday rate on GAC better or worse than Hallmark, Lifetime, and other competitors in the Christmas movie space? It’s worth noting that the network isn’t exactly full of Christmas headlines. At this point, the majority of its lineup still consists of reruns: “I Dream of Jeannie”, “Bewitched”, “Hazel”, “Father Knows Best” and the relatively modern sitcom “Who’s the Boss”. The dozen or so films in his “Great American Christmas” collection are essentially well-made romantic comedies, between boys and girls, as mundane and sickly as drugstore candy canes. Even the titles are interchangeable. In other words, they are on TV what the ugly Christmas sweater is in: an unhappy holiday tradition.

Americana. American traditions. Tell stories safely. It is the coded language the network uses about its content, as much as the content itself, that reveals its underlying message, echoed in conservative media and politics: the ‘real’ America is suburban or rural, predominantly white, heterosexual and Christian. Especially when tied with a holiday knot, it’s a much more dangerous and blatantly false message than any Christmas movie (or wedding planning announcement) with a gay couple at its center. And for that alone, GAC – a channel whose name sounds more like indigestion than a celebration – can give you an upset stomach.