So, for years I’ve been proclaiming “Baby It’s Cold Outside” to be the creepiest Christmas song. When you take away the lovely voice of Dean Martin or the cuteness of Elf, you get a song about a girl on a date who wants to leave. She’s making every excuse she can to leave. “My mother will start to worry.” Meanwhile, the man in the song is continuously trying to get her to just have another drink. All the while he’s telling her how pretty she is. The lyrics include “the answer is no”. (Anyone else get a “no means no” feeling from that line.)
Take the lyrics and attach them to a pretty girl and a creepy guy who keeps edging closer and closer (“mind if I move in closer”), making awkward comments about her hair. Then she says the line “hey what’s in this drink?”. I can absolutely imagine a stalker saying “how could you do this thing to me”.
With that in mind, do you still think it’s a romantic song? Yeah, me neither. Under the cut I’ll discuss the song I realize this year is not being used appropriately: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Everyone knows Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. And everyone knows the call outs “like a lightbulb”, etc. But let’s analyze it a bit closer (and more cynically).
In the story, Rudolph is frequently picked on or completely ignored by the other reindeer because he’s different. Thus we are supposed to walk away with the message of “there’s nothing wrong with being different” because in the end everything works out for dear/deer Rudolph. BUT DOES IT?
What actually happens is that Santa realizes after presumably years of allowing this behavior to exist, that he can no longer do his job without the help of Rudolph. So he goes and he asks Rudolph to “guide his sleigh tonight”. Here’s actual lesson number 1: humility. Rudolph does not go “heck no, you’ve been ignoring me all these years”. Nope, he agrees to help. Rudolph could have made Santa and all the other reindeer pay for mistreating him. He could have become the king of the north poll, demanding that they bow to him because he can do something they can’t, but he doesn’t. He humbly agrees. This accompanies lesson #2: people will attempt to use you for your unique talents.
Then in the story, “all the other reindeer loved him”. Yes, that’s right, once the very thing that they made fun of Rudolph for turns out to be their saving grace, they are suddenly his best friend. Lesson #3: lesser people will attach to the coattails (or white tails in this instance) of more successful people. Side lesson: people you once mistreated may be the very person you need later in your life.
So it’s not QUITE the feel good song that people treat it as (just as Baby It’s Cold Outside isn’t QUITE the romantic song it’s supposed to be). Rudolph teaches some good real world truths. People are different, which often makes them better equipped than their peers. There are less mature people in this world who seek to elevate themselves by shady means.
I wish the song had some extra verse where the other reindeer start to explore their own unique abilities and how that could help out the team. Or how their mistreatment of Rudolph inspired them to become more of a team. Something other than “you’re our new best friend because you saved us all!”