Reindeer Noses

CVS had some leftover plush reindeer from Christmas for fifty cents today, so I picked up a couple for the girls. Naturally, we had to watch, as E put it, “Reindeer Nose” this afternoon. I looked forward to watching Rudolph every Christmas as a kid, but it’s been a few years since I’ve watched it. Once you remove the veneer of nostalgia, though, that is an awful movie.

The overall intended “moral” of Rudolph is one of acceptance, I suppose, but upon close inspection, that message is so clumsily and incompletely delivered that I found myself cringing through much of it today. It will serve as a good conversation starter on how not to behave as the kids get older. Even with the girls as young as they are now, I still found myself stepping in with comments about how inappropriate some of the behaviors are.

I do realize that films and books reflect society’s views at the time of publication and that these ideas evolve over time. The thing with Rudolph, though, is that the original story wasn’t about misfits. I have not read it yet, but the summaries I’ve read point to a story where Rudolph grows up in a loving home and is discovered by Santa Claus by chance. There are still some jokes made at his expense by others, but his parents are not ashamed of his red nose. The original author apparently had the right idea in mind when he wrote a story about a character who was born with an obvious difference, but this was lost when the song and movie came about.

Some of the obvious eye-rolling moments were general gender issues. The reindeer games, for example, serve to “make [bucks] out of” the male fawns and give them a chance to show off in front of the does. And don’t get me started on the scene after the abominable snow monster gets taken care of; the assertion that they must “get the women” home is a ridiculous nod to the idea that women are fragile, flighty things who cannot handle the pressures of the “real” world. Even if these ideas were generally accepted at the time the movie was made, I still find them annoying and condescending now in 2011. And honestly, when Yukon Cornelius goes over the edge with the Bumble, I wasn’t all that broken up about it. He makes the decision to harass the creature after it was subdued for no other reason than that he can; if he were a more gracious winner, he wouldn’t have found himself in that position.

Santa himself is not exactly an icon of goodness, either. He is crabby and curmudgeonly throughout most of the film. He gripes at Mrs. Claus, he is discourteous when the elves sing for him at the beginning, and he is unforgivably rude when he first sees Rudolph’s nose. This is not a “jolly old elf” by any means; this is a cranky old man who does not appear to like music, the differently abled, or his own wife.

The Island of Misfit Toys is just depressing. The Charlie-in-the-box is particularly sad. In addition to a reindeer with a birth defect and an elf with an offbeat career path, they have to throw in a character who gets picked on because of his name, like he had any say in the matter? The litany of flaws that make these toys misfits is bad enough, but then they are presented in a way that is supposed to make the audience laugh a little—so that our kids become part of the group that laughs at those who are different from the idea of “normal.” Really, the whole movie is presented this way—it is supposed to teach acceptance, but the differences are designed to elicit laughter from the audience so that we are laughing at the “misfits” along with the other characters who chase them off to begin with. I mean, laughing at someone because of his name? This actually happens, every day, on playgrounds across America, and it’s…not funny.

Rudolph’s father, Donner, presents the most depressing character of all, though. I find it unacceptable that Rudolph’s own parents don’t have his back in the movie. Got a kid who is different? Don’t encourage him to be himself or try to educate others—cover it up instead! At one point, when Rudolph goes for flying lessons, Donner says, “Remember: you’re my son,” as if Rudolph’s lineage is more important than Rudolph’s own identity. Yes, he does go out in search of Rudolph, but it should not take a child running away for his father to seek him out; his father should be on his side from the beginning. I think it would have been a better story if Donner had championed Rudolph’s nose instead of being ashamed of it.

Finally, I think the stated moral at the end of the story completely missed the mark. Burl Ives says, in his voiceover, “Maybe misfits have a place, too.” Or maybe, Sam the Snowman, they weren’t really misfits to begin with. That’s what I’d like my kids to learn from the movie. I don’t want them to learn that people who are different are misfits who have to find a way to make their differences work in ways that are acceptable to the mainstream. I’d rather they learn that people who are different are just…people. They aren’t weird or freaky or otherwise undesirable; they shouldn’t be chased out of town until they can make their difference useful; they aren’t deserving of their parents’ scorn for not being little clones of said parents; they shouldn’t be banished to some remote island where an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality takes over. Differences should be embraced, but we shouldn’t view them as a person’s primary characteristic. Imagine if we all had names like Rudolph’s that highlighted our differences or flaws, like Jen the Clumsy. What would your Rudolph-esque name be—and would you really want to be known by it?