Subliminal Christmas Movie Messages

Every year I get extremely excited about the holidays. Towards the end of November, I start to get a little bit giddy about them, actually. I'm not the only one either. It's always been noticeable to me that around the time of Christmas, people are happier and good deeds seem to become more commonplace.

A big contributor to my ever-enhancing Christmas spirit are a number of classic Christmas movies. The first one to come to mind, obviously, is A Christmas Story, which is my favorite. Hands down. When it starts playing everyday on TBS, you know that Christmas is coming.

I could go on for days about that particular movie, but I've got no issues with it. It's kind of like how I could speak lovingly about Jessica Alba's looks for days on end, but I would rather take stabs at Drew Barrymore's acting abilities. There's just more to talk about.

Anyway, a couple of nights ago I was sitting in my apartment watching another one of my favorite Christmas movies. The old version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, the version in which the characters are made of clay or something and move around like they've been stricken with a horrible case of osteoporosis.

I hadn't seen the film for a couple of years, (I had been slacking. It'd been replaced in my life by watching the O.C. Chrismukkah episodes over and over again.) and was absolutely shocked when I watched it.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is an apalling movie. With the exclusion of Remember the Titans and American History X, it's got the most outwardly discriminatory plot line ever.

Now, I know the song outlines how Rudolph was an outcast and stuff, and the whole story was kind of a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" kind of deal, but the movie just takes it to an unneccessary level.

The movie begins in a cave where Rudolph has just been born. His parents notice (after an uncharacteristically long time, I thought, since a red blinking nose is pretty fucking noticeable) that he's got a very uncommon deformity. His dad is immediately pissed about it. I found this odd, but just figured he was a little unsettled that his son had a blinking nose, and that he might end up gay or something. His dad came off as pretty alpha-male, even though he hung out with dudes named Dancer and Prancer and had the ability to fly.

Things really got weird whenever Santa came in, though. Here's this guy that is supposed to be the face of charity and a deity to children telling a guy that his kid has no chance of succeeding in anything because he has a red nose. To put this into human perspective, it'd be like Vince Lombardi coming into your home two minutes after your birth and telling your father that you'll never start at quarterback or do anything significant because you have a cleft chin.

Santa threatened that Rudolph would never make the sleigh-team if he didn't grow out of having a red nose. I was mortified.

So, as so many do when their offspring are different, the parents tried to hide Rudolph's nose. And, as so often happens, a girl got him to reveal his different attributes (on accident, this time).

Rudolph's girl (I can't recall her name for the life of me) says that he's cute, so then he starts flying around, and he does a better job than any of the other kids. After this he's rubbing antlers or something with his friend, Fireball, and his black nose cover comes off, revealing his bright and shiny red nose to everyone. He is immediately shunned by everyone. Sidenote: This is arguably one of the most subtlely weird parts of the movie. Fireball is the first person to persecute Rudolph about his nose which is strange. First of all Fireball is a terrible terrible name, and you'd think he'd get made fun of a lot for that. Even worse, the reindeer dubbed Fireball has a patch of blonde hair on top of his head between his antlers. That's just as weird among reindeer as having a fucking red nose!

So after all of this, Santa has to come up to Rudolph's parents and be a huge dick again. He talks about how Rudolph could've been a great member of the sleigh team, but now that is nothing but a dream since he's got one little deformity (which I haven't stated before, I don't even think it is a deformity. A red nose is pretty cool if you think about it, though I guess I wouldn't want one).

Most of you know how the story goes. Rudolph ventures out on his own, bonds with some other misfits (on that island, and he hangs out with the elf that wants to be a dentist) who are really not that bad but have been shunned by society.

Then, finally, the guy that's been shit on by reindeer society for his entire life helps to save his family and his broad with the help of the elf-dentist and (my favorite character) Yukon Cornelius. They do all of this in insane conditions. They must outsmart a tenacious abominable snow man and escape back to Santa's neighborhood. All of this happens during a snow storm that is threatening to cancel Christmas.

Then, when Rudolph returns, Santa--who has been a colossal asshole this entire story--asks him to guide his sleigh because of his red nose. The red nose that he has been ridiculed over since the day he was born.

Now, if you take it at face value, this seems like an okay concept. The loser gets to save the day and also get the girl, and he gains everyone's respect and admiration. Rudolph opts to be the "bigger man" and save Christmas, helping Santa and his minions to avoid criticism from children the world around.

But, I urge you to look at it from another standpoint. This film sends out a bad message to kids. It basically tells them that it's fine and dandy to take shit from people, and then when you have a chance to impress them and gain their admiration, you should jump at it.

It's like getting a swirly once a week from the class bully but then gaining his admiration when you break the nerdy kids glasses at recess when you frogsplash him from the monkey bars, instead of befriending the nerd and refusing to do what everyone else feels is right.

If I'd have been Rudolph, I would have said, "Fuck you people."

Because really, in that terribly vain fictional world he was living in, getting the toys out promptly on Christmas Eve should've been the least of their worries.