Just Do It Over (12)—Rudolph Redux

A year ago on Round and Square (26 December 2011)—Fieldnotes From History: Melancholy Anthropology
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Just Do It Over"

[a] Seeing red RF

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

Egalité 1                    Egalité 2                    Egalité 3

Well, what a long, strange day it's been. It began with Patsy Cline, continued with Chinese food and a movie, and is wrapping up with just a little bit more reflection upon life, liberty, and maybe even the pursuit of a little jocundity. This will be brief. If you have read the last two posts, perhaps you still think that all of this red-nosed ostracism is just hypothetical, just an innocent little story. 

Wanna bet? I say it is insidious, and weakens the very bonds of commensality.

I know that you have seen it already (it has about as many hits as the surprised kitty video). Still, I couldn't help but post a relatively recent, real-life Rudolph story. If you haven't read the two previous posts, you don't know how serious I am about this (it's jocund でわない). 

You also may not have considered how "common" this kind of story is.* Take another look at Susan Boyle's Rudolph moment from 2009.

[b] Passing 'em by RF

Rudolph's Got Talent 7:10

Yup. They laughed and called Susan names, then laughed some more. If you watch the audience reaction closely, they couldn't believe what they were seeing—how such an outlier could even think to join "the club." Elaine Paige? Please (we hear them cry). That'll never happen (we hear them chuckle).

Nobody was laughing by the end of the third line. Piers Morgan might have said "you had me at 'I'..."

               And...then all the reindeer loved her, and they shouted out with glee, 
               Susan Boyle from Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland, you'll go down 
               in history.

You can decide for yourself whether it is a happy story from here on. You can probably guess how I feel. A net worth of £22 million is nothing at which to sneeze, but still I weep for poor, petty, shallow humankind. 

Good for Susan (and Rudolph).

Very, very bad for us.

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

Egalité 1                    Egalité 2                    Egalité 3

[c] Hardly petty RF

*Homecoming Queen, Michigan 
  Homecoming Queen, Ole Miss (hopeful signs, at least) 
  I plan to add to this list throughout the coming months.

Exilic Response (3)—Les Misérables

A year ago on Round and Square (25 December 2011)—Hurtin' Country: Country-Western Holiday
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Exilic Response" 

[a] Power RF

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

Egalité 1                    Egalité 2                    Egalité 3

Well what a long, strange day it's been. It began with Patsy Cline, continued with Chinese food and a movie, and is wrapping up with just a little bit more reflection upon life, liberty, holiday, and Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer. If you recall yesterday's post, I was hoppin' mad about the Entertainment Tonight-Meets-People magazine superficiality of the 1939 Montgomery Ward catalog song that has raised Rudolph as a cultural hero, even as it showed the pettiness of shallow, fawning, go-with-the-crowd and don't-rock-the-boat reindeer flatterers and peep-like hangers-on.

I was not amused.

[b] Opening RF

On the other hand, I slept well, woke to a beautiful Christmas morning, and prepared for a trip to Chinatown with Pat for what has become an annual family event. I had hoped to pick up my yearly stock of Hong Kong-style (港式) almanacs before the movie, but the gift store only had the slender little Taiwan versions. It was really my only disappointment of the day. The food was great, we topped it off with a nice Christmas-blend from "Asterism-bake (星巴克), and then headed for the movies. The line snaked, long and dense, through the whole front of the theater and all of the way back to the escalator. It was opening day, and we were ready for the ceremonial first pitch of the Les Misérables season.

We had hardly settled into our seats (and watched twenty minutes of previews) when whack, thwap, it had begun. By the time Jean Valjean had recovered the flag on Javert's orders, Valjean and little Rudolph cohered in my imagination as one. Powerful, misunderstood loners—each found ways to make life better for his fellows. Through the very grace of stuff (the stories differ a good deal on this theological point), they rose above their exilic pain to aid mankind.

They were bigger than the smallness around them, and I am still pondering their lessons.

As for the film itself, I am probably the only person in the Western Hemisphere not to have seen a stage production of Les Misérables. I have read the novel several times, though, so I was hardly unprepared for the story of love, loss, retribution, revenge, despair, hope, and intrigue. I knew what was coming, braced myself for the emotional kick of Fantine's plight and the sad trip to the forest taken by little Colette (er, Cosette).* I knew of Javert's indefatigable pursuit, Marius's family challenges, and the squalid conditions among convicts in post-Napoleonic France. I knew what to expect.
*If you have seen the film, you will understand.

[c] Place des Martyrs RF

And, still, I cried like a baby.

John Boehner has nothing on me when it comes to tears. I have often thought that it was a good thing that I never won an Olympic medal, because I would be the guy standing on the podium, weeping uncontrollably, even as the cameras from NBC zoomed in to milk the emotion down to the last, salty drop.

And yet it occurred to me that my emotions were of a peculiar kind during Les Misérables. Sure, Fantine's ordeal made me sorta sad (as we say back home), and life on the run for JVJ could be stark and worrisome. Nonetheless, my eyes were dry throughout most of the movie, as death, love, illness, and anxiety swirled, foamed, and hung in the emotional haze above me. I was doing fine.

Until I saw the barricades.  

Until 5-6 June 1832. Until the little Rudolphs stood up against the big, mean, and terrible ferocity of the in-crowd. Yes, I am a(n) historian, and I realize that I do some violence to the record of the past in this account. Alas, I am also human (hear me roar), and that little Christmas ditty that bothered me the day before now began to spin its way into the lyrical threads of a resonant—and also sung—movie. From the windows, down fell the furniture. From the corner by the Rue de la Chanverrerie, up went the barricades. This is the stuff of legend, and the Hugoian fervor wrapped its emotional blanket tightly around me. Yet even through death on the barricades, I remained stoic as I cheered inwardly for the cause, failed though it was in the moment. Through it all, I held my fragile emotions together.

[d] Night lights RF

I finally lost all composure at the end, as the voiceless began to rise and sing.

You see, I'm a sucker for egalité. 

And that brings me back to Rudolph on this merry Christmas night. There is hope for the people, reindeer with red noses, and social outcasts everywhere when the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums.

It is a story of exilic response—of rising up and doing something about being left out in the cold. It is a story of finding a voice for the voiceless.

And it is also the story of Rudolph the June Rebellion Reindeer.

At least for me.

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

Egalité 1                    Egalité 2                    Egalité 3

[e] June voices RF

 

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