Annals of Ostracism (5)—Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

A year ago on Round and Square (24 December 2011)—Fieldnotes From History: Insecurity and Culture
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Annals of Ostracism"

[a] Bugged RF

This is the first post in a three-part series about holiday music and freedom. Click below for the other posts.

Egalité 1                    Egalité 2                    Egalité 3

 

Something has been bugging me, and I plan to get it off my chest today. It has everything to do with the happy holiday season, and the joy in the air as we open doors for strangers and let them go in front of us in shopping lines. They do the same for us, and the circle of reciprocal goodness whirrs round-and-round. It is a happy time, and all is right with the world, even as I hear the same old holiday songs repeated endlessly in that big, musical elevator in which we all travel during the month of December. We hear Silent Night and the Dreidel Song, White Christmas, and Kwanzaa is Here. Good stuff.

[b] Your elk is not wanted here RF

Except when I hear "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
My whole mood turns sour when that tune plays. 

Ever since third-grade, when I started listening closely to lyrics, I have loathed that song. Although I couldn't express it this way back then, it brought out the insidious superficiality of a courtier society, along with a staccato of peevish insularity in a self-satisfied community of people who looked and thought and behaved alike. 

It represented everything I despised about the schoolyard and the petty little likes and dislikes which I thought, back then, were limited to the lives of children who had not yet been fully enculturated. I couldn't wait to be an adult (I thought at the time), because surely they would not be hoodwinked by superficial things such as popularity. Surely they were focused on the more lasting and important things in life. Children had only to grow up to join a world in which reindeer society would appreciate diversity and welcome the growth that would come to their group by integrating a wide variety of horns, hooves, and hides.

If you haven't thought about the lyrics recently, you may wonder what I mean—why I am being so harsh on a little holiday song. Let's take a listen. It all starts out happily enough, with a kind of historiographical retrospective focusing upon Rudolph's peculiarly luminous qualities. 

[c] Bright RF

Then it turns ugly and venomous, as the majority ostracizes little bright-boy.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (2:15)

I mean, for Santa's sake, they didn't even let him play in any of their reindeer games. Worse yet, they mocked him for physical differences.  

Need I go on? Well, take a closer look:

                    Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

                    Robert L. May (1939)

                     You know Dasher and Dancer
                     And Prancer and Vixen,
                     Comet and Cupid
                     And Donner and Blitzen.

                     But do you recall
                     The most famous reindeer of all?
                     Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
                     Had a very shiny nose
                     And if you ever saw it
                     You would even say it glows

                     All of the other reindeer
                     Used to laugh and call him names
                     They never let poor Rudolph
                     Join in any reindeer games

                     Then one foggy Christmas eve
                     Santa came to say
                     Rudolph with your nose so bright
                     Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?

                     Then all the reindeer loved him
                     And they shouted out with glee
                     Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
                     You'll go down in history!

[d] Mean kids RF

 

So there you have it. The country-club reindeer won't let the talented kid from the wrong side of the tracks play in their games. Hearing these lyrics many years ago—and really thinking about them—was only the second most surprising thing for me. The first was this. I eventually learned that adults were every bit as shallow as children. Worse yet, they had clout and resources to back up their dislikes. Worst of all, they had developed—over the course of many centuries—strategies for succeeding at popularity while lacking all sorts of depth, skill, and knowledge.

I'll leave it there for today, but we'll return to this tomorrow. Yes, it will be Christmas Day, but our Rudolphian theme resonates beautifully with the Christmas opening of Les Misérables. In our home, we will check stockings, make phone calls, and listen to Patsy Cline's lost Christmas song before heading off to Chinatown for Mongolian Barbeque and three hours of Victor Hugo onscreen. Through it all, I will be humming to myself the following words:

Liberté, egalité, fraternité...ou la mort.

Vive le Rudolph!

This is the first post in a three-part series about holiday music and freedom. Click below for the other posts.

Egalité 1                    Egalité 2                    Egalité 3

[e] Différence RF