Rudolph Were Trapped Theres No Way Out Its My Nose Again Its Ruined Us
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: A Social Commentary
Nosotros're a couple of misfits
We're a couple of misfits
What's the matter with misfits
That'south where nosotros fit in!
—Johnny Marks
On Tuesday, December 9, 2014, at 7:00 PM Central Standard Fourth dimension, I gave up. A thick clouded had blanketed Northward Texas the unabridged twenty-four hours, and by evening the clouds still hung low, all but blocking out even the strongest signals broadcast by the local television stations. The only networks I could tune in on my Hd antenna were in Spanish. I don't speak a lick of Spanish. So I gave up.
"It's okay," Mary assured. "We can lookout man it on DVD. It's the aforementioned thing."
I quit fussing with the Hard disk drive antenna and turned around. Slowly. "It's not the same matter," I muttered. "I want to spotter it the fashion information technology beginning came out. On the air." I didn't mention that when the NBC Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was kickoff broadcast on Dec 6, 1964, I wasn't fifty-fifty nine months old. And even if my parents had watched it on the old 19-inch console TV, information technology would have been in blackness-and-white, tuned in the old-fashioned way: by fussing with the foil-wrapped rabbit ears until the snow looked more similar flurries rather than a full-fledged blizzard, non a total blackout due to weak signal strength. Then much for improved applied science.
Wordlessly, with much banging of the video player and with an even greater gnashing of teeth, I slammed the DVD into the drawer and shut it. "We didn't have remotes back then," I murmured, hitting the PLAY button. "We had to turn a knob. On the TV." My anger speedily sloughed off, though, as the old newspapers dated Lord's day, December xiii, 1964 flashed onto the screen, alternate with blackness-and-white moving-picture show clips of cars stuck in human foot-deep snowfall. Ahhhhh, memories of childhood snowstorms and Christmases by began to warm my heart. I melted into the couch, my married woman and daughter snuggling against me. Mary was right, it was the same later on all.
Then there he was: Sam the snowman, swinging his black umbrella and chattering away. Sam the snowman, slip-sliding beyond the snowfall merely the way I remembered him, voiced by Burl Ives, a childhood staple whose music the teachers spun on the grade school record players. I laughed when he pointed out the Christmas seals. Mary didn't get the joke, but I remember those old stamps folks used to stick to the back of their Christmas cards to do good the American Lung Association's fight against lung illness. Ahhhhh, memories. …
A year ago, curled up with a glass of Christmas cheer, I watched Rudolph the Cherry-red-Nosed Reindeer with my family unit, and that's when it struck me: this Christmas special was more than than simply a cute story for kids—it was a reflection of good onetime American values in the early 1960s, at the superlative of the American Civil Rights movement. I realized every bit I watched that I was not merely enjoying the memory of Rudolphs past, but I was also looking through a window of 50 years of social change, particularly in the areas of diversity, inclusion, conformity, acceptance … and the definition of "normal."
In 1964, the Christmas special portrayed a thin Santa as not normal. "Whoever heard of a skinny Santa?" Mrs. Claus inquires of her workaholic husband. And after Donner's wife gives birth to Rudolph, she immediately recognizes his schnoz is a niggling, uh, unlike.
"He'south … he'due south got a shiny nose!" she points out to her husband. So, as any good mother influenced by the bucolic memories of the 1950s would do, she offers a practical solution. "Well, we'll simply have to overlook it." Overlook information technology indeed. Now that's the way to fix a perceived impediment.
"Now how can you overlook that?" Donner hollers. "His nose blinks like a blinkin' buoy!" And so to Santa he offers a more realistic assessment. "I'1000 sure it'll terminate equally before long as he grows up."
Santas' reply: "Well, let's hope so if he wants to make the sleigh team someday." Wow, Santa. Really?
Protecting his pride, Donner does what any caring father would do in response to the thinly-veiled threat of his son's potential unemployment due to a physical handicap. "Santa'south right, he'll never brand the sleigh squad," he tells his married woman. "Look a minute, I've got it. We'll hibernate Rudolph's nose!" Then subsequently slapping a cap made of mud over Rudolph's luminous proboscis, he assures his son, "Yous'll be a normal little buck but like everybody else." Aye, normal. Hiding backside a mud mask his entire life instead of accepting his uniqueness and celebrating his differences. When Rudolph subsequently complains to his dad well-nigh the mud being uncomfortable, Donner retorts, "There are more than important things than condolement—self-respect! Santa tin can't object to you at present." Really, Donner? Santa objected to his own elf choir, why not your son?
And Sam the snowman doesn't help much either. "Well, for the offset yr the Donners did a pretty fair job of hiding Rudolph'southward, uh, non-conformity." Stinkin' enabler. …
Speaking of not-conformity, what about poor Hermey, the elf with dreams and goals? In the globe of corporate sheeple, Hermey's aspiration to dentistry is a threat to company morale.
"What's eatin' y'all, boy?" the caput elf asks a daydreaming Hermey equally toys pile up at his station, waiting to be painted.
"Not happy in my work, I gauge," Hermey admits. "I but don't like to make toys."
But instead of celebrating this apparently bright and self-starting visionary, the head elf does his best to squash Hermey'south aspirations rather than recognizing his talents and supporting his desire to follow his calling. "Hermey doesn't like to make toys," the head elf shouts, publicly humiliating him and inciting the other elves to make fun of the poor lad.
"Well, sir, someday I'd like to be a dentist," Hermey insists. "I've been studying. It's fascinating, you know."
"No, listen, you," the caput elf yells. "Yous're an elf, and elves brand toys. Now go to work!" And later Hermey figures out a way to fit in, past fixing doll teeth, the head elf launches a rocket aimed directly at Hermey'due south dwindling cache of cocky-esteem. "You'll never fit in!" he roars. "A dentist! Good grief!"
The bulletin: if y'all ever want to succeed, you must conform. There's no room for beingness unlike. Instead of celebrating uniqueness, the community must shun differences and insist on conformity. Put on your accommodate and necktie and march to the tune of the company band. You will exist happy because nosotros tell y'all to be happy. Any questions?
After, after Rudolph's romance-inspired outset takeoff, his disguise is knocked off, revealing his non-conformity, his true identity. The reindeer start to phone call him names. "They're so prejudice!" Mary shouted at the Television set. But it'south a reflection of the prevailing temper of the early on '60'due south.
"End calling me names!" Rudolph shouts at the other deer.
As Rudolph tries to defend himself, Santa approaches Donner. "You should be aback of yourself," he chastises Rudolph'south male parent. "What a compassion. He had a nice takeoff, too."
As Santa goes for Donner'southward jugular, Comet, the reindeer games motorbus, grabs the attention of the young bucks. "All right, all correct at present, yearlings, back to do." But to Rudolph he says, "Oh no, not you. Y'all better get dwelling house with your folks. From now on, gang, we won't let Rudolph join in whatever reindeer games, right?"
The gang replies with a resounding affidavit of their bigoted autobus's instruction.
As Clarice, the young doe, tries to soothe Rudolph's bruised ego, her dad steps in and drives the concluding stake through Rudolph'due south scarred middle: "Now there's one matter I desire to make very plain: No doe of mine is going to be meet with a cherry-nosed reindeer." Wonder if Clarice'due south dad was named Jim. Crow.
After Hermey and Rudolph team up and make up one's mind to be "contained together," Hermey's anger issues over conflicted expectations versus his calling are clearly demonstrated during their singing of "We're a Couple of Misfits."
Why am I such a misfit?
I am not just a nitwit.
They can't burn down me, I quit!
Seems I don't fit in.
While singing this verse, Hermey hauls off and punches a snow effigy of the head elf in the nose, destroying his confront. Bet that felt practiced, eh, Hermey?
Later the misfits run across Yukon Cornelius, a prospector obsessed with coin, as reflected in Sam'south rendition of Silverish and Gold:
Silver and gilded
Silver and gold
Anybody wishes
For silver and gold.
How practise you measure its worth?
Simply past the pleasure
It gives hither on earth.
Okay, okay, isn't this supposed to be a Christmas special? What the heck? What did the Apostle Paul write to Timothy near money? "For the love of coin is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy half-dozen:10a NKJV). Sam, Sam, Sam. … Tsk, tsk.
In the meantime Rudolph has become obsessed with his luminous snout, managing to make his nose the root of all kinds of evil. "Nosotros're trapped," he declares as the Bumble has pushed their backs against the proverbial wall. "There'due south no way out. Information technology'due south my nose again. It'due south ruined usa." No, Rudolph, I don't think it's your nose that'southward ruined y'all. I think information technology's your negative, obsessive thinking!
"Poor Rudolph realizes that he can't endanger his friends' lives anymore," Sam the snowman points out as Rudolph plans to go out The Island of Misfit Toys, leaving his companions behind. "So, that night, he decides to strike out on his own." So off he goes again, running away from his problems. Until last yr I'd never realized what a truly messed-upward cast of characters this Christmas special features—it's a veritable smorgasbord of psychological screwballs! Even Santa Claus.
Every bit I mentioned earlier, Santa had asserted prejudice against Rudolph, practically guaranteeing futurity unemployment unless his non-conformity was kept in check. When Rudolph the Prodigal Reindeer finally shows back up at his family'south cave, Santa points at him and blames him for their absence. And what's Santa worried about? "Christmas Eve is only ii days off, and without your father I'll never be able to get my sleigh off the basis." Okay, kickoff, why doesn't Santa accept a backup plan? He himself reveals that the Donner family has been gone for months—that should have given him enough of fourth dimension to railroad train upwards a replacement reindeer to get his sleigh off the ground. It's known as redundant capability. Embrace it. 2nd, he'due south more worried most the inability to deliver Christmas than the lives of the Donner family. Seems Santa has a bit of OCD and misplaced priorities to add to his passive aggressiveness.
After Rudolph, Yukon Cornelius and Hermey rescue the Donner's from becoming the Bumble'south Christmas dinner, Yukon Cornelius and his canis familiaris squad push the monster over a cliff. Sam the snowman, of course, provides his commentary: "Well, they are all very sad at the loss of their friends, but they realize that the best thing to do is to get the women dorsum to Christmas Boondocks. So they get in dorsum, and when everybody hears their story, they start to realize, maybe, they were a little difficult on the misfits. Maybe misfits have a place, too. Even Santa realizes that maybe he was incorrect."
Really? A trivial hard? Why did they take to prove their worth? And why are they yet beingness chosen "misfits?" Of course, when Santa finally "sees the light" and asks him that famous line, "Rudolph with your olfactory organ and so bright, won't y'all guide my sleigh tonight?" and so and only then do the other reindeer honey him. No unconditional love in Christmas Town that night, eh?
And so the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ends, a tale I hope to enjoy for another fifty years. Considering, after all, isn't this story actually almost all of usa workaholic, passive aggressive, judgmental, OCD performance approving addicts who only want to live out our dreams?
Merry Christmas, ya'll! And to all a good nighttime.
Copyright ©2014 by David C. Hughes
Source: https://davidchugheswriter.com/2014/12/24/rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-a-social-commentary/
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