In today's cartoons, we've replaced the weaponry and wanton violence with nonsensical, unfunny plots aimed more at hypnotizing or possibly brainwashing viewers, and persistently bad art styles that look like brain vomit from particularly bad acid trip. The homicidal cats and smart-ass rabbits of my childhood have been replaced with such characters as a potentially homosexual talking sponge and his obviously mentally retarded starfish life-partner. But that's a topic for another blog post. The cartoon I want to talk about today is the old Christmas classic stop-animation style "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."
Watching this old movie has been a Christmas tradition in my parents' house since we were little, and that style of animation was still relevant. Every year that I watch it, however, it seems to be just a little bit... darker, I guess.
The movie technically begins with a rambling introduction from a talking snowman character who turns out to be largely unimportant to the rest of the film, but really begins in a little cave where Rudolph has just been born. Donner and his otherwise nameless baby mama, I guess, have just discovered that their child's nose is something akin to the siren light from a 1950's police car, complete with flashing red light action. They're so appalled by this bizarre deformity that they completely disregard the fact that while they're oggling it, Rudolph says "mama" and "papa" presumably for the first time. As they discuss the difficulty of overlooking something so horrendous, Santa Claus walks in to see the baby. His reaction essentially amounts to "You'd better hope he outgrows that, because I don't accept freaks on my reindeer team." Then he sings a little song and leaves, and Donner decides to take action. He slaps some mud over Rudolph's nose so he'll be a "normal little buck just like everyone else." Once the mud is covering Rudolph's nose and he can bear to look at his son again, he pulls him in for some affection. "Come here, son. Now that your god-awful facial deformity is covered, I can love you again."
Meanwhile, over in Santa's workshop, we're introduced to Herbie the elf. Herbie the elf doesn't like to make toys, and evidently, this is a crime in elf culture. In fact, when he reveals this fact to his slave driv- eh, overseer, the other elves around him sneer evilly at him and chant that he should be ashamed of himself for wanting to be different. Don't believe me? Look it up, the whole movie's on YouTube. Instead, he explains, he wants to be a dentist. For this, he's mocked by his peers and his overseer person and forced to work through his break (which, considering that the elves are pretty much slave laborers, I don't imagine they get many of) all for wanting to do something different.
So let's recap. So far, we've established that if you are different, you will be mocked by your peers, can be fired from your job, deserve no respect from your parents, and Santa Claus hates you. And we aren't even ten minutes into the film yet.
Fast forwarding again (approximately twenty seconds, because it doesn't take long to find more blatant discrimination and hate in this movie) and we find Donner forcing a nose cap thing on Rudolph. Rudolph doesn't like it and complains that it isn't comfortable (and presumably forces him to breathe through his mouth, which is really attractive), and Donner basically tells him to shut the hell up and wear it because unless his horrendous malformed nose is disguised, he won't be able to have self-respect, and Santa will continue to hate him. Meanwhile, the elf choir performs an original song and dance routine for an impatient Santa Claus who spends the entire duration of the recital facepalming and slouching impatiently in his chair. When it's finally over, he dismisses the whole affair with a mumbled "Well, it needs work," before rushing out the door, presumably to go piss on someone else's hopes and dreams. The elf overlord, however, takes this as an opportunity to inform the elves that they were all terrible, and then storms off to find Herbie so he can inform him of exactly how useless he is, and how he'll never fit in. Probably because elves in this world have something against fabulous hair.
Back at the Rudolph-focused side of the plot, Coach Comet shows up to teach the little reindeer how to fly. With some adorable encouragement from his new friend Clarice, Rudolph manages to out-fly all the other reindeer, and right in front of Santa. Seems like a pretty nice turn for this story, right? Well, we can't have that now, can we? In a celebratory bit of horseplay, Rudolph's new friend Fireball knocks his nose-cover off his face. Immediately, Rudolph becomes the reindeer equivalent of Quasimodo, and scares his only friend away. To make matters worse, the other reindeer start mocking him calling him names. But Santa's right there. Surely he'll intervene and save the poor underdog, right? Actually, he tells Rudolph's father that he should be ashamed for bringing such an abomination into this world, and not having the decency to smother it before it inflicted itself on the rest of reindeer kind. Santa storms off, and Comet blows his whistle to restore order and send the little deer back to practice. Except Rudolph, who he sends home. But not before announcing to the rest of the group, and I quote, "From now on, gang, we won't let Rudolph join in any reindeer games, right?" To put this in perspective, that's like if the weird kid in school pissed his pants in Gym class, and the coach decided to make an example of him by hanging him from his ankle with the climbing rope and instructing the rest of the class to beat him like a whiffle bat piñata. And then the principal comes in and calls him a fag before leaving him to his fate. Oh, and Santa Claus hates him.
I don't really feel the need to go through the entire movie because you've probably got the point by now, so I'll skip to the triumphant return of Rudolph to Christmas Town. The narrator gives a brief little bit about how maybe people shouldn't have been so hard on the misfits. Herbie gets to open a dentist office, and Santa promises to help out the Isle of Misfit Toys (another lengthy adventure in life lessons about how you'll be rejected and abandoned for being different). It isn't because they feel bad about it, though. It's because the "misfits" have proven themselves to be useful in some kind of way, so they're tolerated now. This includes Rudolph, who's only allowed to join the reindeer team because his glimmering nose cancer will allow Santa to navigate a storm.
Hooray! The freaks found a way to be useful, Santa learned to abuse Rudolph's deformity instead of mocking him for it, and everybody lived happily ever after. Except that until this point, the movie has clearly been setting itself up for the part where everyone learns a lesson. Except nobody ever does. While Rudolph and his melancholy band of misfits find their proverbial bells to ring (that's another hunchback of Notre Dame reference, folks) the movie COMPLETELY FORGETS TO CONDEMN the fact that everyone's been abusing these people the ENTIRE MOVIE. Sure, they find a place to fit in and some half-assed apologies are given, but nowhere does it punish or condemn the behavior from earlier in the film.
So there you have it, folks. The lessons taught by the old Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer film are that if you're born a freak, or possibly a homosexual elf with fabulous hair, your miserable existence will be spent getting kicked in the teeth by life, people will mock you, your parents should be ashamed and Santa Claus will hate you, but it's okay in the end. Because somebody will find a way to abuse your deformities for their own personal gain.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
-The Sarcastic Soul-
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