Artistic Significance: It’s important to give people a chance

Heading into the final weekend before Christmas, there’s one more seasonal movie I want to discuss, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” from 1983.
When the woman who seems to be in charge of everything at church breaks her leg, the other adults need to step in and cover her work.
A new pageant director Grace, a lie that gets the town’s “bad kids” to come to church and one of them threatening the girl who normally plays Mary means the pageant doesn’t exactly go smoothly.
The whole church community, along with most of the students, already have decided the pageant will be a disaster thanks to the participation of the six Hermans.
They drink the communion wine, smoke in the church bathroom and get into fights during rehearsal.
When they hear the story from Luke, they ask questions about who King Herod is and call Mary pregnant.
Anything that this close knit community thinks is bad, they end up doing and smoking members of the congregation at various points.
Basically, they come in like a tornado.
At one point, the pastor says, “Jesus said ‘suffer little children to come on to me,’ but I’m not sure he meant the Hermans.”
Grace repeatedly insists it’s going to be the best Christmas pageant ever, even with the Hermans.
Sure, the pageant doesn’t go smoothly in the end. The angel comes in a little more aggressive than normal, and the Wisemen bring non-traditional presents.
However, it has personality. It tells more than the Christmas story because it also shows the personalities of those participating in it.
Throughout the film, even when members of the church argue with her, Grace insists on continuing to try with the Hermans by listening, answering questions and ultimately, just giving them a chance.
These are six kids who’s father left, mom worked all the time, and we see the social worker more than anybody in their family. They needed somebody to give them a chance.
Did they completely change their ways? No, and that can’t to be expected, but they started to learn and grow beyond focusing on themselves and their siblings.
Ultimately, that’s the point. Don’t judge others and decide they’re a lost cause before giving them a chance.
Michael Shine is a staff writer at the Daily American Republic. He can be reached at mshine.dar@gmail.com.