Of Ice and Men
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic. Each week, I post my Sunday Bizarro comic, then a short essay, then the Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics, which I turned over to a colleague, Wayno, in January of 2018. Wayno does a weekly blog post, too, and I highly recommend it.
OF ICE AND MEN
Today’s Sunday cartoon about the snowman in the life raft (above) brings to mind for me the American holiday TV classic from the 1960s, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Have you seen it lately? I don’t mean has it been on in the background in an attempt to distract the grandkids’ long enough to refill your scotch and sneak out to the garage for a hit of pot, I mean have you really watched it and paid attention? I did recently and I found it almost as horrifying as any Marjorie Taylor Greene tweet chosen at random.
The theme of that particular version of Rudolph’s story is two-by-four-across-the-bridge-of-your-nose obvious: a child deemed “imperfect” by society finds a place for himself through struggle and heartbreak.
Okay, fine. That’s the kind of stuff we’re used to seeing in childhood mythology, but the way they handled it in 1964 was a little different than we might today.
First, the moment that Rudolph’s parents find out that his nose glows—which is literally minutes after he is born—they are visibly disgusted and worried. His mother is barely finished chewing through the umbilical cord when his father is already trying to devise a way to hide his “defect” under a clump of mud. Baby Rudolph doesn’t like it but they basically tell him to shut up and breathe through his mouth.
Moments later—the amniotic fluid on his fur not even dry yet—Santa drops by the delivery room to congratulate the happy new parents, discovers the disguise attempt, and he, too, is visibly disgusted, both by the fawn’s hideous deformity and by his parent’s attempt to get away with pretending he is normal.
Who are these assholes and why do we associate them with Christmas?
Later in his childhood, Rudolph attempts to join the rest of the deer “children” who live in Christmastown to play games and learn to fly. Predictably, his mud nose falls off and he is again the victim of inexplicably cruel scorn. Sure, you expect that from a few bullying kids but the adults pile on as though this is their favorite sport. The adult reindeer coach—Comet, one of Santa’s regular team—who is supposed to teach the young bucks to fly, is even more vicious than the kids and is actually the one to make it official policy to not let Rudolph “join in any of their reindeer games”. Then they all laugh and walk away.
Okay, granted, that kind of cruelty from a gym coach is not all that uncommon but still, it seems that every adult in Christmastown is an unfeeling prick. Further evidence can be found over at the elf compound where they’re building toys. One elf isn’t all that jazzed about making toys that some bratty kid is going to get tired of and forget about in 24 hours or less, and instead, he wants to study hard for several years and provide a life-saving medical service to the rest of the elves, the reindeer, and the Clauses themselves. Is he lauded as the trailblazing hero he clearly is? Is he encouraged? Is he even thanked? Guess again.
No, he, too is ridiculed for the unforgivable crime of being different. What makes this even more reprehensible is that the character is also quite clearly gay.
In those days, gay characters were not depicted on TV unless they were in a jail cell and referred to as “perverts,” and even that was played down and got very little screen time. The creators of this nightmare before Nightmare Before Christmas never come out and say he is gay, of course (they would not have been allowed to even if they’d wanted to) but they knew that many American viewers would recognize what stereotype they were kicking. More importantly, they probably knew that the majority of straight persons from the era wouldn’t have disapproved anyway.
And so this character who is smaller and slighter than the other elves, wears an overly-large hat, has big, effeminate hair and facial features, and speaks with a sissy’s lilt wants to be a dentist and so he is humiliated by the adult elf and run out of town. The downtrodden elf boy, “Hermey,” (a name that could get you beaten up by homophobes in the early sixties) and Rudolph get together and go on their hero’s journey until such time when they come back to Christmastown ready to save the community; Hermey protects them from the Abominable Snowman by pulling all of his teeth (!) and Rudolph famously keeps Christmas from being canceled by guiding Santa’s sleigh. And everyone lives happily ever after.
To my mind, there are several valuable moral lessons to be taken from this childhood classic. First, don’t worry if people find you odious because you’re not perfect like the rest of us, you may discover you have a superpower like being able to fly at night without headlights that enables you to become of some use to the rest of us after all. Another is that no matter how objectionable you are as a person, if you can find a way to contribute to the lives of all the cretins who’ve oppressed and victimized you, perhaps you will find happiness. And finally, if you’re an adult who is getting along just fine in mainstream society, it is perfectly acceptable to abuse and ridicule those who aren’t, and your cruelty might even lead them to learn a valuable lesson. Also, one last moral in this value-packed Christmas classic: Only males are important. Females, even with magical powers of flight, are not worth teaching to fly, make toys, or pull teeth as long as there are others to do it who have penises.
Believe me, I’m not one to want to censor anyone for fear someone may get their feelings hurt, far from it. But C’MON! This script reads like it was penned by Sean Hannity’s writers. It couldn’t be more offensive to more minorities if it had been tweeted at 4 in the morning by the Cheeto Mussolini himself.
Anyway, as promised, here’s why my Sunday cartoon above reminded me of that show. The snowman is different from the others but because they are modern, progressive, compassionate people, they made room for him on the raft and have said not one disparaging word about his highly unattractive body shape, his lifeless eyes and jet-black teeth, or his salad-ingredient nose. But, now that it’s a matter of life or death, they’re ready to sacrifice the freak for their own benefit. No problem. Even the brightest of us have a dark side and it usually comes out when the rescue ship is late.
That said, I’ll probably watch Rudolph again next year because it reminds me of my childhood and how incredibly little they apparently understood about child psychology back then. How did I escape with any self-esteem at all? Next year, instead of “happy holidays," I invite you to join me in saying, “Don’t let the bastards grind you down!”
And now I hope you’ll join me in chuckling at Wayno’s Bizarro cartoons from the week!…
This is his only option until Pfizer releases “Nose-agra”. (That’s meant to be a pun on Viagra. My aplogies to the pun-sensitive.)
Something about these guys makes me want to punch them.
Those “onesies” they’re wearing make their bodies look even creepier somehow.
No matter what you say about this one, you run into internal logic problems. So I’ll say nothing.
One should never depend on vaudevillian technology in a real emergency.
And you, Jazz Pickles, will be thanked for attending our little seminar and for sticking around until we snap our fingers and awaken you. Don’t forget to sneak a peek at Wayno’s blog post this week and if you like what we’re doing and want to help us keep doing it without charging for it, please consider some of the links below.
Until next week, keep your feet in the clouds and get your eyes out of my salad.
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