The Hallmark Channel Is Now Too Woke for Candace Cameron Bure
Brian Welk
Don’t expect any holiday cheer for gay characters in a Candace Cameron Bure Christmas movie moving forward. When asked if her new made-for-TV Christmas movies at the conservative-leaning Great American Family network will feature same-sex couples, the “Full House” star demurred and said that it will “keep traditional marriage at the core.”
Bure, who has been referred to as The Queen of Christmas after making over two dozen movies with the Hallmark Channel since 2008, explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that she left Hallmark earlier this year because of a desire to “tell stories that have more meaning and purpose and depth behind them.” But she hinted that even Hallmark, which is working on a Christmas movie featuring an LGBTQ love story, may have gotten too woke in recent years.
“It basically is a completely different network than when I started because of the change of leadership,” she said, adding: “I knew that the people behind Great American Family were Christians that love the Lord and wanted to promote faith programming and good family entertainment.”
Bure this year joined Great American Family as its chief creative officer and is now working on a faith-based holiday film called “A Christmas…Present.” She added in the interview that she left Hallmark to find more creative freedom and make holiday movies that aren’t strictly romantic comedies and can place Christianity front and center in the stories, though she is producing a secular holiday movie that stars her former “Full House” castmate Andrea Barber.
Bure, the sister of Kirk Cameron, describes “A Christmas…Present” as a Christian story that is “not off-putting to the unbeliever or someone who shares a different faith.” Bill Abbott, the CEO of Great American Family’s parent company Great American Media, told the WSJ that “spiritual or faith-based content is grossly underserved” and the network’s strategy is to have a “soft faith” focus in its programming with some secular programming; Bure being a “key piece” of that vision, he said.
A Hallmark spokesperson had this to say about the article: “We want all viewers to see themselves in our programming and everyone is welcome.” Read Bure’s full interview with the Wall Street Journal here.
