Saturday, November 26, 2011

"Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" 1964



"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

We all know the story of Rudolph.  The poor little reindeer who is ridiculed and teased to the point that he needs to run away.  It is an allegory of being different and bullying,  The poor thing was born with a birth defect and even his father and mother are ashamed of him. 



Then there is that poor dentist elf who is forced to make toys instead of tending teeth. 



Don't elves need dental care? 

And Santa Claus seems to be condoning it all.  In retrospect this is a really sad movie.

Rudolph doesn't get to play any reindeer games.  This is my husband's favorite part, because the reindeer coach is wearing a whistle.



Not sure how he works it with hooves.

Rudolph and the dentist elf run away and end up on the island of misfit toys. 



These poor little freak toys have created their own little society, away from the world that rejected them.

They accept Rudolph and the dentist elf.  But there isn't a lot of dentistry for toys, so they decide to go back and meet a crazy miner looking for gold.  



His obsession gets them trapped by an Abominable Snowman.   The poor Abominable Snowman knows all about living alone and suffering ridicule. 



Rudolph and the denist elf get back to the North Pole to discover that there is big storm coming that might cancel Christmas.  Santa can't fly in all that fog.  Suddenly Rudolph's nose isn't such a bad thing anymore.  They can use him.



Then as the song proclaims, all the reindeer loved him.  There is no follow up when they don't need the headlight to guide them the next year.  I predict that Rudolph developed a substance abuse problem.  His best friend is a dentist, they have access to narcotics. 

Poor Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. 

This is very dark for Christmas. 

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