Hallmark Channel And The Celebrity Paradox

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 If you have been watching Hallmark Channel, and more specifically the Countdown To Christmas programming, over the past two years, you may have noticed something peculiar about some of the movies. Mainly, the fact that they reference other Hallmark Channel movies.

    It started with 2022's "Haul Out The Holly", in which Emily (Lacey Chabert) is seen watching "Christmas In Vienna", which stars Brennan Elliott. (Elliott and Chabert have appeared together in nine movies that have premiered on either Hallmark Channel or Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. They are, in order of release, All Of My Heart; A Christmas Melody; All Of My Heart: Inn Love; All Of My Heart: The Wedding; Crossword Mysteries: A Puzzle To Die For; Crossword Mysteries: Proposing Murder; Crossword Mysteries: Abracadaver; Crossword Mysteries: Terminal Descent and Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead.)

    This trend has continued so far in 2023 with two Countdown To Christmas films. In "Haul Out The Holly: Lit Up", Emily tells Jared (Wes Brown) that she watched "Christmas At Graceland", a 2018 Hallmark Channel film that, perhaps not coincidentally, stars Brown (along with Kellie Pickler. And in "A Biltmore Christmas", the lead actors in Lucy's (Bethany Joy Lenz) remake of the in-universe film "His Merry Wife", who are played by Rachel Boston and Wes Brown, say that the film is better than "Check Inn To Christmas", which of course starred Rachel Boston and Wes Brown.

The fact that a Hallmark Channel film can seemingly co-exist in the same universe as another Hallmark Channel creates what TVTropes would call a "celebrity paradox". This is when a real life celebrity co-exists in the same universe as their character. In addition to the examples listed above, another example can be found in the 2019 Hallmark Channel film "Christmas At Dollywood", starring Danica McKellar as Rachel, in which we see a copy of "Goodnight Numbers", which was written by Danica McKellar. 

Speaking of Danica, the Celebrity Paradox can apparently extend outside of Hallmark Channel as well. In the 2019 film "Knives Out", one of the characters references a fictional Hallmark film starring Danica titled "Deadly By Surprise". Well, in the second film of Danica's "Matchmaker Mysteries" series, titled "A Fatal Romance", it's revealed that "Deadly By Surprise" is a book that is being turned into a TV film, implying that "Knives Out" (and by extension "Glass Onion") and "Matchmaker Mysteries" co-exist in the same universe as well.

What does all of this mean? I am not exactly sure, but the idea of Hallmark characters co-existing with their actors is certainly an interesting concept.


Sources

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CelebrityParadox

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