Thanks, Weirdo
The Christmas Special Everyone Loves Turns 60.
We wrapped up what I like to call “Consumption Week.” It began with Thanksgiving when we consumed a lot of food. Then there is Black Friday, the single biggest day to consume whatever you want. American Express got into the spirit of consuming and came up with Small Business Saturday. Then we had Cyber Monday, then Giving Tuesday, and holy moly, enough already.
The post-Thanksgiving period also brings us an increased onslaught of Christmas-themed movies. The Hallmark channel itself pumps out movies with the same premise. A Christmas Story is constantly on, but I stopped watching because it’s just annoying, and I swore Ralphie died years ago.1
The list of Christmas movies is never-ending. There’s A Charlie Brown Christmas, Just Friends2, and Love Actually. I would argue that Die Hard is a Christmas movie because Christmas movies take place over Christmas.3
But nothing tops the original Christmas movie, Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer, which first aired sixty years ago today, December 6, 1964.
Rudolph, the television special based on the song, which was based on a poem, has become a Christmas staple. It used to be aired once a year, but now it appears somewhere almost every day.
And while we just finished an election where Election Geniuses are telling you what the Democratic Party needs to do to win over the white noncollege degree-holding ordinary Americans4, we miss the glaring issues Rudolph presents to us.
I get the misunderstanding, though. Christmas movies are misinterpreted all the time. The Grinch? Ebenezer Scrooge? These are two redemptive characters; the only reason we know their stories is how they changed their ways. Do you think Charles Dickens would have sold millions of copies about Scrooge if he just kept screwing Bob and Tiny Tim over and over?
Of course not.
Ryan Reynolds plays a famous music producer5 who returns to his childhood home during Christmas with his world-famous pop star client, whom he dislikes, only to find that the love of his life still looks exactly the same. Yet, we are to believe that Ryan used to weigh 300 bills.6
Christmas movies challenge our imaginations. But like Scrooge, who became a good guy, and Ryan, who became less of a guy, there are hidden meanings we tend to overlook.
Now, let’s take Rudolph. We only know of his existence because he has some wildly misunderstood body composition, one that doesn’t fit nicely within the reindeer community, who probably judge everyone on their way to the reindeer church.
To the Reindeer of the North Pole (RNP), reindeer don’t have noses that light up like a warning symbol. Somehow, they can fly, but noses that light up? Forget about it.
When his parents discover his uniqueness, Rudolph’s father shoves mud into his son’s face. When that doesn’t work, he sticks a fake nose, hoping to hide the real one.
What message is that to send to children?
All Rudolph wants to do is fit in. The RNP has its special games, called Reindeer Games, but not to be confused with the Christmas movie Reindeer Games, starring Ben Affleck.7 When Rudolph tries to join in and make friends, he meets a lady he likes. When she tells him he’s cute, Rudolph loses his mind and starts flying around; the fake nose falls off, his real nose goes bonkers, and everyone knows the secret he is hiding.
Completely caught off guard and confused, the RNP calls Rudolph names and laughs at him. Forgetting the commandments they learned in Reindeer Church about loving all reindeer. To these church-going reindeer, not all reindeer are made in reindeer God’s image.
Things are even worse.
Rudolph’s dad is Donner, and his mom is Mrs. Donner. This shows you how the patriarchy works in multiple universities, where reindeer fly, speak in English, and still have the gall to make fun of each other while not giving Momma reindeer their own names. I bet Donner told his wife Rudolph got his “defect” from her side of the family.
However, the biggest misunderstanding of the Rudolph story is that the entire framing is based on the biggest capitalist of all time – Santa Claus.
Backed by Global Corporations that wanted their products in homes worldwide, they installed Santa Claus into their shell company, which brings gifts to those who believe in his existence. Christ might be the reason for the season, but Santa is the reason we have things that make us happy.
Santa runs the capitalist machine that is the North Pole. He has Christmas elves, the cheap labor force of a marginalized group who cannot get jobs outside of Christmas and can only produce toys. One of them wants to be a dentist, but he is shunned. Sound familiar? Like America in 2024, at The North Pole, they call educated people “elite.”
Somehow, Santa isn’t elite despite being well compensated with his monopoly on the gift-giving industry. No doubt Santa can afford the finest transportation money can buy, but instead, he forces animals to overachieve and fly him all over the place. Those Christmas elves pack up his sleigh, and all Santa has to do is review the naughty and nice list and show up at people’s homes, where he stuffs his face with their bakery.
Meanwhile, a shunned Rudolph is forced to make friends with the shunned wanna-be dentist Elve, and both of them meet up with a guy whose only reason for being there is he wants to find silver and gold.
Of course, they run into a white monster who wants to eat them. Somehow, our three outcasts end up on an island of toys nobody wants because they don’t fit the narrative of what toys should be. They even go so far as to call them misfits.
Your kids consume this propaganda every year!
Rudolph, Dentist Elf, and Gold Digger make it back to the North Pole, where lazy ass Claus decides he can’t make the Christmas run this year because there is too much fog, and his flying reindeer can’t see through it.8
I guess they never had this problem before or developed a contingency. Were there years when Christmas didn’t happen? Maybe Mrs. Claus knows the details, but she is probably told to keep her yapper shut.
While Claus was still collecting his paycheck, Christmas run or not, Rudolph’s nose went bonkers, and something in Claus’s thick head sticks – I can use this weirdo to achieve my goals!
I mean, what sort of message is that? Let alone a Christmas message? Your unique gifts are only recognized if they benefit someone more powerful than you.
Everyone loves Rudolph now because his blaring red nose can cut through the fog. But what happened the year after that when there likely was no fog? Did they park Rudolph at home? Makes you wonder.
So, maybe turn on Just Friends and watch a real-life situation where you only find love if you become skinny and hot. Skip Rudolph and its messages that educated people are awful, conform to everything, and your usefulness is only as good as what you can produce.
Merry Christmas.
Anonymous and I are still in Portugal, where I imagine she has completed many spy tasks under cover of this non-spy conference we are attending.
Lisbon is a beautiful city. It is also filled with many bottles of wine, which we have consumed regularly here. Also, everything seems to be uphill here. Last night for dinner, Anonymous had me walking three miles uphill to eat and drink wine. It was great to drink gallons of wine and try to walk uphill. Try it sometime.
We fly back home on Monday. But don’t worry, I will have a Maundy Monday Newsletter for you. Until then, I hope you have a nice weekend filled with wine and recovery.
Okay,
Chris
It’s not true. Peter Billingsley is still alive.
The Best Christmas Movie of All Time. I will fight you on this.
That makes sense, right?
Which they haven’t done since 1950, but whatever.
Named Chris
I’m telling you, I will fight you on this. Just Friends, best Christmas movie, ever.
A terrible Christmas movie
Don’t forget they can see in the dark with no issues.
You are brilliant.
Peter Billingsley is also one of the elf supervisors in “Elf”