Hadn't thought about it in a long time but put on the classic Rudolph animated movie for my kids. So what's the moral of this story? If you have some weird physical deformity everyone is going to dislike you and mock you until you can prove useful to them? Even his parents and Santa are out on him in the beginning.
What about the elves working in Santa's workshop? I'll bet there's child labor there. The place ought to be raided but it's too damn cold.
I think the real story of Rudolph is that even those who are different than “normal” have value and we should seek to find it, but maybe that’s just me
Rudolph is about the value of diversity, and the counterproductiveness of marginalizing the different
What if we found out that Santa beats his wife? He would probably be found to have immunity for any crimes committed while he's Santa Claus.
It’s like a cartoon version of Rainman. Just a pain in Charlie Babbitt’s ass until he takes him to Vegas.
lol. Biased summaries part 3: The little mermaid is a story about a girl who is valued for her looks and not for her voice and eventually has to conform to the mainstream land world to be accepted and fulfilled. Sometimes a story is just meant to be entertaining.
What about Hansel and Gretel? I don't remember the details, but isn't that a fairy tale about a woman who eats children, and she gets burned up? And the moral is? Don't eat children, it'll give you heartburn?
I’m glad you asked. The real story of Rudolph and the consequences for the abuses heaped upon him by Santa’s crime syndicate:
Didn't the woke mob already cancel Christmas?! Now y'all are coming for Rudolph and Frosty? Friggin' Frosty?!
True, but until they do, they're mocked. He couldn't even play in the reindeer games! Sadly, that's common.
The story of Rudolph dates back to 1939 when the author of the original story, Robert L May a catalogue / copy writer for Montgomery Ward, a defunct department store and competitor of Sears to write a story for a free promotional book to be handed out to children that Christmas season. The limited edition paper book was wildly popular and more than 2 million copies were distributed. May was a bit of an "outcast" and that likely influenced his creation of Rudolph. May's daughter, Barbara May Lewis was 5 years old when her dad wrote the story. She was interviewed by NPR in 2013 and gave details about her father and the origins of the story. BARBARA MAY LEWIS: Rudolph was born when I was five, so I'm his big sister. GREENE: That's Barbara May Lewis. She says sister because it was her father, Robert L. May, who introduced the world to Rudolph when she was just a little girl. Robert was a bit of an outcast, just like Rudolph. He skipped a grade or two and so was younger and smaller than his classmates. He was a nerdy kid who saw himself as a loser. LEWIS: It was his opinion of himself that gave rise to Rudolph, I think, so all the better. GREENE: Robert L. May always wanted to write the great American novel. As life would have it, he wound up being a catalog writer at Montgomery Ward in Chicago. The department store used to give away free books to kids each Christmas, and May thought Rudolph would be a great character in one. His daughter remembers her dad laboring over words, many of which would never make it into the song we now know. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Wikipedia While May was pondering how best to craft a Christmas story about a reindeer, while staring out his office window in downtown Chicago, a thick fog from Lake Michigan blocked his view—giving him a flash of inspiration. "Suddenly I had it!" he recalled. "A nose! A bright red nose that would shine through fog like a spotlight."[15] The cultural significance of a red nose has changed since the story's publication. In 1930s popular culture, a bright red nose was closely associated with chronic alcoholism and drunkards, so the story idea was initially rejected. May asked his illustrator friend at Montgomery Ward, Denver Gillen, to draw "cute reindeer", using zoo deer as models. The alert, bouncy character Gillen developed convinced management to support the idea.[16] ___________ In a TV show about the origins and evolution of The Santa Claus myth meme it was revealed May was not paid anything extra for his creation but continued to work as a copy writer for Monkey Wards, who retained rights to Rudolph. Years later May asked for the rights and they were given to him. He and his brother-in-law, a songwriter composed the familiar song but had trouble finding a famous singer to record it for distribution until Gene Autry agreed. It was a smash hit in 1949.
