seasonal questions...

[lagilman]

Why was Santa such a bigot, to tell Rudolph he couldn't be on the sleigh team when he was just a wee foal, because his nose glowed? Where was affirmative action when Rudy needed it?

(oh great. Now I'm feeling an urge to do a Fractured Fairytales version of modermizing Rudolph...)


And anyone other than me suspect, based on this protrayal, that Mrs. Claus was just a beard, and Santa and Herbie the dentist-elf were getting it on back in the toy workshop?


Yes, Rudolph's on tv tonight. God, watching this is just... it's got such a homosexual (not-quite-sub)text. Really.

I mean, come on. Rudolph's dad tells him to 'cover up' so he'll be able to play with the other kids, and get a decent job. The boys pick on him and the girls giggle when his 'nose cover' falls off during the reindeer games. He has to go on the road with another (rather delicate, with great hair) misfit (and encounter a great burly he-man who takes them under his wing) in order to find the strength to come back and be proud of who he was...

Uh-huh.


What? I am NOT procrastinating work. I'm...indulging in historical social research via the textual deconstruction of a media icon. Yeah, that's it.

Comments

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

My personal theory is that Santa is a degenerate aspect of Chronos, and he's actually naked -- all that red is from eating the flesh of his children, and the white...well, let's just draw the curtain of good taste over this comment now.

[paleologa.livejournal.com]

Right. Next you must do some "research" on Frosty, who went on a wild and weird Humbert Humbert trip to the North Pole with that little earmuffed girl.

The magic hat made him do it!

[lagilman]

don't forget the rabbit. Fertility in the snow, coming to life in a schoolyard when children held hands around him, and then melting all over the place when things heated up...

oh for god's sake, don't encourage me. I have line editing to do!

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha I had the SAME reaction when I watched Rudolph last year! It's so blatant!

[janni.livejournal.com]

I have more issues with why girls can apparently only stand around watching reindeer games, and not actually play them.

[lagilman]

Oh, the entire "wimmenfolk are good for nothing but rescuing" thread had us spluttering in outrage, but that's such overtly useless text it's boring in terms of procrasti, er, deconstruction.


(obvous and stupid discrimination just annoys or confuses -- it's the more subtle forms of 'girrrrrls shouldn't/can't' that I consider dangerous.)

[vyazka.livejournal.com]

...

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

It's a buddy flick, of course...

totally bored at work and shifting thru friends of friends pages

[wanderbyy.livejournal.com]

Granted I haven't watched it in several years but I was under the impression that it was Santa that gave him the chance to be on the team and told the others to STFU about it? o.o

Re: totally bored at work and shifting thru friends of friends pages

[lagilman]

Only after he decided that he had a need for Rudolph (when the weather was so bad he almost had to cancel Christmas). In the first scene with Santa, wen Rudolph was born, R's dad said "it will go away" (regarding the nose) and Santa replied "well, I hope so, if he has any hope of joining my sleigh team!"


(or words to that effect; it was a few hours ago, now)

And the rest of the reindeer are little toadies "Then all the reindeer loved him." as the song goes; not becaue he was a great and loyal fellow, but becayse Santa asked im to lead the sleigh so Christmas could happen after all. That always bothered me, about this story. Bunch of little red-nosers...

[lagilman]

It probably surprises very few people that our brains run along the same twisted track...

Oh Santa, you dispointed me so.

[wanderbyy.livejournal.com]

It's true, they sucked. But then hey, people DO suck a lot so that just makes it realistic. Maybe that was the point, to reveal their sucky meanness to the kids who watch it and tell them to not be so sucky to other people. Although I do think the 'then' probably does refer more to the fact that he was hero and not as sucky as them.

Can you tell that I've been up for waaay too long? =P

sucky people suck

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

Robert Devereaux's novel Santa Steps Out deals with a very similar theme to what you wrote here, though I think in that one Santa turned out to be Pan.