The Dumbo effect

I watched the traditional old Rankin-Bass "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" for probably the 35th or 40th time in my life last night.

One of the things that strikes me: there seems to have been an era (or perhaps it was just Rankin-Bass, the producers of the special) that used what I think of as "the Dumbo storyline" for a lot of their plots.

Essentially: a character has some trait that makes them different. They are teased for the trait. They run away/turn bitter/whatever. Then it turns out that trait is actually USEFUL and they are welcomed back, in some cases saving the day.

It's funny how you can look at Rudolph with two sets of eyes: the cynical adult, or the adult who is more accepting.

I first realized some of the things in the special that were not quite....I don't know, not quite in keeping with Love and Tolerance. The biggest thing being Santa's reaction to calf Rudolph. (Or, as one of my college friends said, when we all watched the special together in the dorm: "No! Santa is supposed to love EVERYONE!" and I do think that makes the whole think ring a little false. Well, maybe Santa's boots were a little tight that day or something)

Also, of course, there's the fact that the special was made in the early 60s (the whole idea about "protecting the women" though of course Rudolph's mom and Clarice decide on their own that that's bunk, and they go out looking for him).

But the biggest thing - Rudolph comes back and totally forgives his former rejectors or tormentors when it turns out his glowing nose means Christmas ISN'T cancelled, after all.

And I suppose, if you look at this cynically, you really want Rudolph to look at them and go "Cram it with walnuts, ugly!" and stalk off to his cave. And yeah, there is a human desire that wants revenge, wants to see those who have wronged you suffer.

But in a non-cynical way - Rudolph is the bigger man (reindeer?) here. Perhaps he realizes: this is not about Fireball or the stupid coach reindeer or even Santa's comments about him. This is about Christmas, and about all the kids who will be disappointed, and also about the Misfit Toys. And so he agrees to help. And really, I like to think in the end, by being the bigger man, Rudolph is the winner here - he's better than those who made fun of him because instead of just adding to the ugliness of the world, he is willing to drop what happened.

It's interesting, because though this storyline is basically cribbed from Walt Disney's Dumbo, Dumbo reacts somewhat differently: "YOU MADE FUN OF ME. I CAN FLY NOW. I AM GOING TO SPRAY YOU WITH WATER AND MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH AT YOU. DOESN'T FEEL VERY GOOD NOW, DOES IT?"

And initially, when I thought of it: Dumbo's reaction is maybe healthier. Because I have tended to fall into Rudolph mode much of my life: "You made fun of me for being an egghead, but now you want someone to read over your essay and tell you what grammatical mistakes you made? I'll do it....DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?"

And yeah, in a few cases that seemed to work - I did something for someone and they seemed to like me as a result, which got me in the not-very-productive (well, for me) mindset of "If I can do (whatever thankless or hard task), maybe people will like me" and its converse of "If I refuse to do this thing, I will be seen as Not A Team Player and people won't like me" and that winds up with me doing an awful lot of stuff I'd rather not do, or doing hard things for unappreciative people, because in some twisted way I think it will win me friends.

It's better to take the attitude of Rudolph and Hermy in their song - to go off with like minded people and "be misfits together." Actually, some of my good friendships have kind of resulted from that thing.

Then again - as I said, Rudolph takes the more forgiving stance, and he also realizes (or so I think - it's never articulated in the special) that This Is Not About You and he does what needs to be done because other people, people who never hurt him, who didn't know him and might even love him if they did, would be hurt.

In a way, I think the whole "it's not about you" idea is what I think of as "A Lesson in Adulthood." As in, if you're genuinely an adult, sometimes you look at the cruddy situation you are in, and you go, "I have to be the bigger person here" and you just gird up your loins and do whatever needs to be done despite the laughing, or dismissal, or criticism, or whatever. It stinks, it's not fun, you usually don't get people either thanking you or going "Wow, I was wrong" after you do whatever Impossible Thing they were telling you was Impossible. But you do it, because it needs to be done.

I remind myself lots of times in things that it's not about me. It doesn't make dealing with unfair criticism or people laughing at you much easier but it does give you more motivation to do what needs to be done.

There are tons of Rankin-Bass Christmas specials; I suspect there was one a year. Several of them take the theme of "character is rejected by others for some nonconformity" but things go differently with each one:

In Nestor, the Christmas Donkey - which is one of the specials that more overtly references the real reason we celebrate Christmas - Nestor is thrown out of his stable because of his freakishly long ears. His mother actually *sacrifices herself* in a snowstorm (which I don't think happen in the Holy Land, but whatever) to protect him - an incredibly heavy thing for a kids' special but I think Gen-Xers (and Baby Boomers before them) were treated less as wilting flowers by program producers than current kids are. (And yes, on rewatching it as an adult or near-adult, I have on occasion teared up at that scene). Nestor more or less presses on, and when he CAN be of service - in this case to a kind couple who is trying to get to Bethlehem, and whoa, the wife is heavily pregnant and it's hard for her to walk - he is absolutely willing to help. (And as the story goes - saves them, because he can hear things others cannot and safely guides them out of a sandstorm). So there's less bitterness there, as I remember, except for Nestor losing his mom. The idea is more, "You may think you're weird, but you never know how important that weirdness may be to the fate of the world"

Little Drummer Boy is another story that riffs on the idea of the Nativity, the drummer boy in the title is embittered against people because (as I remember) bandits killed his parents. So his only friends are a couple of animals, and when those animals are taken he becomes even more embittered. Eventually, he finds his way to the Stable - and the moment of redemption happens. I guess there it's more an idea of "God can undo the wrong that humans have done," perhaps.

There was also a "New Year's" special with the Baby New Year (and they cagily avoid referring to WHAT year, though I think somewhere in the special the phrase "Nineteen-wonderful" is used - perhaps they never realized that come the millennium, it would still be being shown). Baby New Year has big ears (shades of Dumbo) and gets laughed at....so he runs away. Rudolph is sent to find him, considering that Rudolph kind of has experience in this area (in the timeline of Rankin-Bass world, this one happens where Rudolph is a young adult - after he has been accepted). Eventually Rudolph convinces BNY that "they're laughing with you, not at you" (uh-huh) and the baby reluctantly agrees to come back. Because, again, he's got a job to do, whether or not people are laughing at him (Wow, that's a Lesson in Adulthood right there, again).

I don't know. Would these specials - could they - be made today? I know a lot of the networks (except for those owned by religious broadcasters) tend to shy away from things that explicitly reference Christ's birth, and some recent Christmas specials don't seem to even mention Christmas. And I wonder if some of the "heavier" ideas wouldn't fly in an age where there are anti-bullying programs in place (though I question how well they work) in schools.

I once opined that I didn't know if the Dumbo Narrative was used so often because it was an easy template to write a story around (but it is), or if it's that it's something that's kind of universal: lots of people think they are weird in some way, lots of kids have the experience of being teased for being different, lots of people wind up as "misfits." 

I don't know what the most-recently-made Christmas special is and how it stacks up against the old ones. Part of it is that those recent things are so often promoted as "Destined to Become a Classic," which, no, it doesn't work that way - things become a classic because they are good and/or they tap into some kind of mood of the era (or perhaps universal mood). You can't decree something a "classic" and have it be so. Also, a lot of these older specials, I remember watching them as a kid. Especially the ones that haven't been ubiquitous (like Rudolph kind of is), I can recapture a little bit of my feeling of being a kid - that time when there was magic still in the world and things seemed more possible than they do now, and when getting the very toy you wanted most was the biggest and greatest thing and would make you happy FOREVER! - and of course, with a special made in 2015 or whenever, I don't have those same memories.