Movies Everybody Loves That I Hate – Episode 16: “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer”

• Today’s Movie: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Year of Release: 1964
• Stars: Billie Mae Richards, Burl Ives, Larry D. Mann
• Director: Larry Roemer

This movie is not on my list of essential films.

NOTE: This installment of Movies Everybody Loves That I Hate is not being done as part of a blog-a-thon.  Instead, this is a monthly event hosted by MovieRob called Genre Grandeur.  The way it works is every month MovieRob chooses a film blogger to pick a topic and a movie to write about, then also picks a movie for MovieRob to review.  At the end of the month, MovieRob posts the reviews of all the participants.

For December of 2022, the honor of being the “guest picker” went to  James of Blogging By Cinemalight The topic is “Films With Santa Claus or Santa Claus impersonators.”

But there’s another twist. Last month, I was nominated for The Pick My Movie Tag by 18 Cinema Lane. She picked an installment of this series for me, and for the folks I’m gong to nominate, I would like to hear their tales of movies they can’t stand.

Having said that, my five nominees are:

• 18 Cinema Lane
• The Wonderful World of Cinema
• RealWeegieMidget Reviews
• Taking Up Room
• walkingoffthechessboard

It’s really that simple. Just pick any movie that drives you batty and write about it whenever you feel inspired. Just follow the rules below.

The Tag’s Rules

• Nominate one or more people to review the film or films of your choice. Or you can request they review something from a certain year, genre, or star. Everyone can review the same thing, or you can request each person cover something different. As long as it’s something they haven’t written about yet, you’re good.
• Nominees are allowed to request a different pick for whatever reason no more than five times. Stuff happens. We all know it.
• Nominees must thank the person who nominated them and provide a link their blog.
• Nominees may nominate others to keep the tag going. Picking the person who nominated them is allowed, or they can nominate someone else. Maybe both.
• All participants need to include these rules in their post, whether they’re nominees or picking nominees.
• All participants should use the “Pick My Movie” banner or something similar in their posts.
• Have fun!

1) “Cancel Culture” is all over this movie.

Let’s get the “Alanis Morrissete” irony out of the way right off the bat. Sure, I hate this movies as the title would suggest, but not for the same reasons all the “social justice” asswipes always attack this crapfest. Frankly, there’s so much stuff packed into this movie to keep every journalism major pounding their “save the world” keyboard for endless Christmases to come.

There’s an old saying about “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Not in this case, because those “social justice” types can suck 10 pounds of infected reindeer shit through a straw as far as I’m concerned. There all about the “low-hanging fruit. Is there misogyny in this movie. Yeah, Donder is a male chauvinist reindeer. Is there bullying? Sure…who cares? There’s plenty of shit far more disturbing about this movie. For example…

2) Santa Claus is running a slave-labor camp.

In 1964, not everything was made in China yet. But where do you think the Chinese modeled their forced-labor camps on? It wasn’t the Nazis, because at least Santa isn’t exterminating anybody. But be it German Nazis, Chinese communists, or Santa Claus, they all used a model based on forcing labor out of people held in isolated locations where they control the only modes of transportation?

There might be places more remote than the North Pole, but not many. In any Christmas movie, do you ever see any way in or our of the North Pole that isn’t completely controlled by Santa Claus? In other words, Santa’s Workshop is a sweatshop from which there is no escape.

Think of it this way. Throughout this film, do you ever see an elf cemetery? That’s because we all know the anybody who doesn’t make their toy quota ends up as reindeer feed.

3) The “head elf” is the overseer.

This is a bit of a tangent, but follow me…it matters here. I used to be a big Samuel L. Jackson fan until I saw an interview where he tried to sell the idea that he didn’t know the “Stephen” character in Django Unchained was a really bad guy. So…you didn’t read the script and blocked out months of filming. Ummm…OK. Never piss on my foot and tell me it’s raining.

The point here is Santa’s “head elf” is the prototypical slave overseer. He’s Santa’s meek subservient boot-licker in the presence of the big guy, but when alone with the elves he rules with an iron fist. Just look at what he does to Hermey, the only elf who has a soul and aspires to something more than being chained to a workbench making toys. To be honest, I always thought Hermey got off easy, considering the “head elf” would have made a perfect Samuel L. Jackson character in a Quentin Taranino movie. Can’t you just picture him asking Hermey for some of his drink to wash down this tasty burger right before hit hits him the head with a hammer and drops him down the elf hole?

3) Can we talk about Santa’s eating disorder?

Every kid in the Christian world has a vision of Santa Claus as a jolly fat guy. Well, we’ve just discussed that he’s a veritable slave-driver, so that’s not so jolly. But at the beginning of this movie, he’s not even fat. Along the way, Santa packs it on in such a manner that you know there’s some sort of “binge and purge” action going on. How else does his weight jump up and down faster than Oprah Winfrey on a trampoline?

4) Speaking of fluctuating size…

Somebody needs to explain Bumble to me. The Abominable Snow Monster of the North changes size through the movie…and not just by a little bit. I’ve never understood how he starts out dwarfing an entire mountain range and ends up about the size of an NBA center.

And don’t even get me started on where there are mountains; the North Pole is in the middle of a goddamn ocean.

Not to mention, Bumble is pretty horseshit as far as monsters go. Any monster worth his salt would have killed and consumed at least one reindeer, especially if it were Donder, who is a huge dick anyway. All he does is throw rocks at Rudolph, and doesn’t even kill him. He doesn’t even break his light-bulb nose. Complete monster fail.

Also…don’t get me started on that whole fucked-up thing about Bumble becoming catatonic after Hermey the amateur dentist yanks out his teeth.

5) Speaking of monster fails…

Excuse me while I take a ripping bong hit so I can even attempt to get my brain around the psychedelic nature of King Moonracer. First of all, a winged lion is a monster through and through. But like Bumble, he’s also a special kind of useless. Think about it, a lion with wings should be able to zoom through the sky and tear the throat of a dick-breath like Donder. But no, all he does is populate the Island of Misfit Toys. Besides, how am I supposed to take a monster seriously whose name sounds like if 80’s pro wrestling had a hippie character?

6) The type-casting of Burl Ives.

A recurring feature in this series is noting a phenomenon I call “reverse typecasting.” This happens when when you see an actor who played a role in something which became part of this country’s cultural fabric, and even when you see them in something made before their face became associated with an iconic character, that’s all you can see.  

In this case, it’s more about hearing. Every time I hear the voice of Burl Ives as “Sam the Snowman” my mind pictures Ives as Rufus Hannassey, the main bad guy from the 1958 classic western The Big Country. Then I see “Sam the Snowman” gunning down Chuck Connors.

Then I really wonder why he couldn’t have shot Donder.

7) Even Gene Autry hated this movie.

Well, he didn’t really hate the movie, but he certainly did not want to record the song the spawned it. But at least he was well-rewarded for overcoming his opposition; that song made a major contribution to the fortune which allowed Autry to become the original owner of baseball’s Los Angeles Angels.

8 ) The elephant reindeer in the room.

I know I’ve already said screw the “social justice” jerk-offs, but there’s one part of this I just can’t ignore. Anybody with a functioning cerebral cortex can tell this movie has a huge, and not so thinly-disguised statement on the stupidity of racism. But I’ve always thought why disguise it at all? Why not go all the way?

We already have the evil, white slave-owner in Santa Claus. We already have the overseer in the “head elf.” All we have to do is make all the elves and the reindeer black, but Rudolph is the light-skinned one who all the darker-skinned ones accuse of “passing.” Then we make Donder a “Martin Luther King, Jr.” type who organizes an uprising against Santa, and gets shot in the head for his troubles.

Ok, I’ll be honest. I really just want to see Donder get killed.

Conclusion:

There’s so much wrong with this movie; I’ve really only scratched the surface here. But that’s where you can add your two cents in the “comments” section or in our poll. I’m not one the buy into a lot of the bilge which comes from the “Cancel Culture,” but they aren’t wrong. They just missed a lot of what’s really happening here.

Just as long as somebody has a deer rifle and doesn’t miss Donder. Seriously.

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You can see all the movies I hate here.

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