Thoughts in a Skitoliv World

Tis the season for giving, and receiving; for running around like a crazy person; for searching and searching for that one perfect gift for a special some one, and for all those things that make the Christmas season fantastic. Like many people, I have fond memories of another Christmas tradition, holiday TV specials. The show I would like to talk about today, "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer."

We all know the story, about a young reindeer who "had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows." The other reindeer put off by Rudolph’s physical abnormality, "used to laugh and call him names." The TV special brings the song to life through the magic of claymation. Upon further review, this could quite possibly be one of the worst things for a child to see. This show promotes the intolerance and humiliation of others, the exploitation of slave labor, the ridicule of those that want to be different and to use people when you need to.

You may ask, "What the hell are you talking about? Has the Skitoliv World finally lost it’s mind? Rudolph tells people not to make fun of others and to accept people for who they are!" That is where you are wrong. At the beginning of the show, Santa comes to see one of his reindeer, Donner and his wife,  give birth to another reindeer. We see the new Rudolph fawn and Santa is praising Donner for siring such a fine young reindeer; however, as soon as Rudolph’s nose glows, Santa himself leads the ridicule of this newborn. What kind of man is Santa to essentially tell Donner that he messed up, his reindeer DNA is corrupted, that they should probably be better of killing the newborn rather than letting it run around the north pole. This of course leads to Rudolph’s tragic childhood where he is ridiculed by everyone from his classmates to his "reindeer coach" who just insults him at every turn. If this movie was made today, it would take a tragic turn with Rudolph bringing a gun to his classes and killing the coach over the abuse he had been taking at his hands.

In the beginning of the film we are also introduced to a young elf named, Herbie. We are not told where the elves have come from or why they are bound to Santa to be his toy making slaves forever. (I am guessing they are cloned). As an elf, Herbie is expected to sit at his station and assemble toys for the rest of his life. Herbie questions why he needs to do this, because, get this, he wants to be a dentist. This of course is not taken well by the head elf. Yet another person that continually insults Herbie, essentially telling him he needs to leave the toy factory, therefore making him an outcast of the community (I am thinking something along the lines of the Amish and shunning).

The two main characters, Rudolph and Herbie decide that the best thing for them to do is leave Santa’s Compound. I can not think of a reason why they would stay, all that has happened to them is verbal abuse and being told they are defective, Rudolph’s own father refuses to acknowledge him. Now comes the real twist. Once these two troublemakers are gone, Santa’s compound is back to the normal run of things until a massive snow storm hits and Santa can not see well enough to pilot his sleigh. He then requests that Rudolph leads the sleigh so that he can see thanks to Rudy’s glowing nose.

This is what gets me, Santa and the others never did anything nice to Rudolph, openly mocking him, shunning him, and causing him to leave the only home he ever knew. Yet, now Santa needs him so all of a sudden, Santa is nice to him. Therefore teaching kids that it is OK to make fun of those who are different, until you need something from them. The duplicity of Santa is exposed. There is a double standard. As a kid you are taught to be nice to others or else Santa will not visit you, yet here is Santa treating a member of his family with scorn and contempt. If Santa was this jolly good guy, wouldn’t he have welcomed Rudolph despite his differences?

Thanks to Rudolph’s nose guiding the sleigh, and Herbie saving everyone from the Abominable Snowman, (who knew Abominable are afraid of pliers?) we are lead to believe that there is a happy ending. Absurd, do you think the other reindeer are now going to forget that Rudolph showed them up like that. I would bet they will now treat him like a brown-noser and a suck-up. Herbie, well, I figure he is allowed to be a dentist thanks to his Abominable Snowman muscle threatening everyone.

So dear readers, don’t let children watch this show, who knows what kind of ideas they are going to get.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 10:59 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.