By Joshua Tyler
| Published
Will Ferrell’s Elf is the most-watched Christmas movie of the modern era and one of the best Christmas movies of all time. It’s a simple story told in such a straightforward way that Buddy Elf’s father, Walter Hobbs, is the only character with a character arc.
We’re told right off the bat that Walter Hobbs (played by James Caan) is on the naughty list. When Buddy meets him, everything seems designed to confirm that he deserves to be there. It’s Walter’s character arc that drives the story, not Buddy’s. Buddy is the same person at the end of the film as he was at the beginning. But Walter would supposedly go from being a villain to being a loving father who embraces the Christmas spirit.
Except that’s not what’s happening at all. Walter Hobbs was never a bad guy. He shouldn’t have been on the bad guy list. He is the true hero of Elfand I’m going to prove it.
We’ll start by taking each supposed example of Scrooge-like behavior, one at a time.
Walter Hobbs only cares about his job
From the beginning, we are introduced to Walter Hobbs as a workaholic who devotes all his time to his career and neglects his family. At one point, his son degrades him, accusing him of only caring about money. His wife also attacks him, accusing him of neglecting his son.
However, this is not what happens on screen. The Walter Hobbs we see in Elf is home on time for dinner every night. Of course, once, after having a really rough day, he wanted to go eat in his man cave. The guy was very stressed. Clearly, this is not the norm since his son reacts to his decision to eat alone as if it were a novelty by asking him if he could replicate his father’s behavior.
Eating alone one night doesn’t make Walter Hobbs a devil.
In fact, it’s clear that Hobbs doesn’t care about his job at all. The quality of his work is absolutely disgusting. He was caught intentionally signing the wrong impression, a clear sign that he doesn’t care and hates working there.
Every time we see him at his desk, Walter looks like he’s wishing for death.
So why is he there? Someone has to pay the bills.
Walter Hobbs gets up every day and works a job he hates to support his family. He comes home every night for dinner, which he apparently almost always eats at the table with his family. What a monster.
Walter Hobbs doesn’t accept my boyfriend
When Buddy Elf shows up at Walter’s office, he is understandably confused. He throws Buddy out repeatedly in shock over it all. He has no reason to believe it. The guy is dressed like an elf and talks about Santa Claus. Obviously he’s some kind of mentally ill weirdo. Any reasonable person would have thought he could be dangerous.
To make matters worse, Buddy’s way of convincing Walter that he is his son is by sending him sexy lingerie. This must have made Walter wonder if Buddy’s true goal might have a strange sexual connotation. Almost anyone else would have called the police, but not the good Walter Hobbs. Instead, he decides to give Buddy a chance.
Walter pays to release Buddy from prison, takes him to a clinic and has him tested. A sensible thing to do when a 40 year old man you’ve never seen before shows up at your door, claiming to be a close relative. When the test proves that Buddy is his son, Walter turns around and invites this person, whom he does not know at all, to his home.
All of this happens while Buddy continues to engage in bizarre behavior that, if he had claimed a less kind and less empathetic person as a father, would likely have gotten him involved. It’s not Buddy’s fault, of course. He means well, but Walter has no way of knowing that.
Despite Buddy’s strangeness, Walter sees through the person in him and decides to trust him with his family. Walter is so forgiving that, aside from a joke about Buddy liking snow, he doesn’t even flinch when Buddy starts destroying his house.
Her solution to Buddy’s destruction is not to throw him out, but to find a way to care for him. He asks his wife to stay home with him and watch over him. When she can’t, Walter Hobbs takes his adult son to work.
Walter sticks a friend in the mail room
Buddy Elf is an unemployed adult with no place to live and no prospects. He needs a job, so Walter Hobbs uses his company’s influence to find him one.
Buddy has no work history or experience, which means he is not qualified to work anywhere other than the mailroom. Walter finds him a job there.
In a way, it’s a success. Buddy has a good time in the mail room, he makes new ones friends and receives a salary. However, he also embarrasses his father by getting drunk and dancing on tables.
Walter doesn’t overreact. He puts his head down and continues to live life as best he can.
Walter shouts to my friend
Walter’s job is on the line, and he knows it. He’s been fighting his way through a thankless career in an industry he clearly isn’t cut out for for years, and it’s starting to take its toll.
Walter’s employees are useless and lazy, but he has a solution. At great expense, he brings in a talented writer to give them the pitch they need to write a successful book.
Buddy, who would have been busy working in the mailroom and earning his own paycheck if he hadn’t been drunk, bursts in at the worst possible moment. Then, for no reason Walter can see, he starts insulting Walter’s guest. It quickly goes beyond shouting and becomes a full-blown physical confrontation. All Walter can do is stand and watch in horror.
Walter’s presentation meeting is now ruined, his son was involved in an assault on company property, and it all happened in front of his employees. Add yet another workplace humiliation to his reputation.
It was only then, after days of disgrace, abuse and horror at the hands of a grown man he barely knew, that Walter Hobbs finally became angry. He yells at Buddy to get out, then after Buddy leaves, he tries to find a way to save his reputation and career.
Walter Hobbs works on Christmas Eve
Okay, but what about his disinterest in Christmas? Things really fall apart when Walter leaves for work on Christmas Eve.
Except Walter never wanted to be there at all. When his boss tells him he has to work on Christmas Eve, Walter immediately objects. He tries to refuse, but his boss threatens to fire him. Her choice is to go to work or take the gamble of finding another job to feed her child. No one wants to be unemployed at Christmas, so he did his job. This isn’t grumpy behavior, it’s being a responsible adult.
That’s when his youngest bursts in, declaiming that Buddy Elf has run away. Although he was humiliated in front of his boss, Walter remains stable. He defends his son when his boss speaks rudely to him.
Meanwhile, Buddy Elf is a grown man. A grown man who proved he could take care of himself by literally walking from the North Pole to New York. He walks around New York again, this is the fifth or sixth time he’s done so in the film, and there’s no reason to think he’s in any danger.
The kid eats too much and Walter knows it. He also understands that his son is worried, so he tells him that he will take care of it and calmly asks him to wait outside until he can finish. His son refuses to obey his father and starts yelling at him, adding yet another professional humiliation to his resume.
Any other parent would have kicked their son out of the room and punished him for a year after this tirade, but Walter, compassionate, relents. He realizes that his family doesn’t seem to care about him or his job, and after weeks and weeks of being humiliated and degraded by them, he gives up trying to make a living and quits.
The real villains of Elf
Walter Hobbs is not a bad guy. He’s an introvert who doesn’t share his emotions, but that doesn’t make him a bad person.
Walter Hobbs is abused and humiliated, yelled at and touched inappropriately by a grown man in pantyhose who decides to give him an unwanted tickle. Walter never collapses. He stays the course and continues his soldiers. He has a minor outburst after weeks of abuse and immediately tries to make amends.
Elf is full of terrible people. Miles Finch is a delusional egomaniac. Walter’s editorial team is made up of lazy courtiers. His secretary is a kitten-killing psychopath. His boss is an idiot.
And then there’s Santa, who knew all along who Buddy’s father was, but he dropped him off to be raised by an elf instead of telling Walter Hobbs that he had a son. Adding insult to injury, Santa puts Walter on the naughty list and spends a few decades allowing the Elves to trick Buddy into thinking he’s one of them while putting pieces of coal under Walter’s tree every year.
There are bad guys in Elf. Walter Hobbs is not one of them.
