Last night, instead of finishing up the Christmas decorating,
Pam and I settled down on the sofa to watch Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer,
and I must say that this once delightful Christmas tradition hasn’t aged well.
With the advent of modern psychoanalysis and the emergence of political
correctness, it’s a miracle that Rudolph is still on the air. Is it any wonder
that my generation is so screwed up, what with 30 million of us watching this
show every year? Consider:
1. When
Santa visits Donner’s cave upon Rudolph’s birth he is only concerned with his
future usefulness as an unpaid sleigh-puller. Worker exploitation.
2. At
reindeer practice, the Coach is a tyrannical autocrat who upon discovery of
Rudolph’s deformity unceremoniously banishes
him from the team with the full support of a herd of laughing, mocking reindeer
trainees, despite the fact that Rudolph was the only one who could actually fly. Classic bullying.
3. Then
there’s Hermie, the dentist wannabe,
a self-declared misfit, who dreams
only of extracting people’s teeth without anesthesia. Hermie’s slave-driving
boss is having none of it and berates Hermie at every opportunity in front of
the other elves. The message is clear…individual dreams must be sacrificed on
the altar of the common good of the company. Corporatism.
4. Don’t
even get me started on Yukon Cornelius, possibly the most inept businessman in
the history of Hollywood what with his geologically doomed prospecting business at the North Pole. This idiot actually thinks
that by simply heaving his pick axe into the air, it might actually fall onto
the ice and find gold.
5. Then
there are the many misogynistic missives flying through the dialogue. When
Donner decides to go out looking for Rudolph, (months after his disappearance),
he dismisses the wife who wants to come with him with the classic, “This is man’s
work, dear.”
