Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: Accepting What Makes You Different

<v Speaker 1>Hi, So this is a little taste of popcorn psychology
<v Speaker 1>for the holiday season. We're going to be doing a
<v Speaker 1>mini episode today talking about rude Off, the Red Nose Reindeer,
<v Speaker 1>the classic claimation from the sixties. We're going to be
<v Speaker 1>talking about the theme of acceptance and the messages we
<v Speaker 1>give to others about who they are. So obviously a
<v Speaker 1>major theme of this Claimation Special is acceptance. Right away,
<v Speaker 1>we are introduced to Rudolph, who is a tiny little
<v Speaker 1>reindeer who is born with a big red nose, and
<v Speaker 1>right away we see his dad really be hard on
<v Speaker 1>him about it and really make him feel like something's
<v Speaker 1>wrong with him. And I think that's something we see
<v Speaker 1>across the whole special, all these characters that are being
<v Speaker 1>told by other people that something is wrong with them.
<v Speaker 2>Just because they're born a little different or something about
<v Speaker 2>them makes them unique.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because something I know just watching at this time
<v Speaker 1>is that it is all small stuff, like you saying,
<v Speaker 1>like they're all still pretty functional toys and elves and reindeer.
<v Speaker 1>There's just one detail about them that's slightly different than
<v Speaker 1>the norm, and they are made to believe that that
<v Speaker 1>slight difference is so intolerable that they have to exile
<v Speaker 1>themselves to.
<v Speaker 3>An island, which is pretty intense. Yeah, and mean spirited.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like I didn't I don't remember how mean
<v Speaker 1>this movie was, in especially Rudolph's dad to him about
<v Speaker 1>the fact that he just happens to have a red,
<v Speaker 1>blinking nose.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, And I feel like the dad doesn't even take
<v Speaker 4>hesitate before he asked Rudolph to cover it up, like
<v Speaker 4>there's no option of any other possibility of anything that
<v Speaker 4>could happen besides asking him to cover it up, Like
<v Speaker 4>he jumps to that automatically, which.
<v Speaker 2>Keeps Rudolph living in a space of shame and worry
<v Speaker 2>and anxiety that is impossible for him to function with.
<v Speaker 2>And as soon as he lets go a little bit
<v Speaker 2>and loosens up and plays like normal. After trying a
<v Speaker 2>couple failed options to cover up his blinking red nose
<v Speaker 2>and not be like all the other reindeer, it falls
<v Speaker 2>off and the other adult, yes, the coach immediately just
<v Speaker 2>casts him out.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Because when I think about this from what I watched
<v Speaker 1>as a kid, I think maybe because of the song,
<v Speaker 1>all the other reindeer let.
<v Speaker 3>Him play these games.
<v Speaker 1>I think I always assumed it was like more of
<v Speaker 1>his peers. But yeah, it's all the grown ups that
<v Speaker 1>are showing the children this is how you treat someone
<v Speaker 1>who's different, that you have to cast them out, that
<v Speaker 1>you have to point them out, that they don't belong here.
<v Speaker 1>And I found that to be really interesting because the
<v Speaker 1>only other reindeer that does show a lot of love
<v Speaker 1>towards him and acceptance is another child, the girl reindeer,
<v Speaker 1>the dough Clarius Clarius. Yeah, and that makes sense to
<v Speaker 1>me as that she's the more accepting one. Result the
<v Speaker 1>adults suck.
<v Speaker 2>The adults are all focused on conformity, yes, and uniformity
<v Speaker 2>and teaching the kids that if you don't fit in
<v Speaker 2>exactly and do everything perfect, and you won't be accepted.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And there definitely is a through line of anxiety in
<v Speaker 1>this movie as well. I was asking HANNAHI we were
<v Speaker 1>watching it, like, is Santa some sort of like godlike
<v Speaker 1>tyrant amongst the reindeer and the elves and the toys,
<v Speaker 1>because I think a lot of what we see with
<v Speaker 1>Rudolph's dad and with the head elf the one is
<v Speaker 1>really mean to Hermie, is that there seems to be
<v Speaker 1>a lot of anxiety about conformity to please Santa. That
<v Speaker 1>there's a lot of fear that we see, especially with
<v Speaker 1>Rudolph's sad of like you, Oh my god, you can't
<v Speaker 1>be different. If Santa sees you like that, or Santa
<v Speaker 1>knows that you want to be a dentist, that something
<v Speaker 1>really horrible is going to happen. So it is also
<v Speaker 1>an interesting allegory, I guess, I don't know if that's
<v Speaker 1>the right word for how a lot of times adults
<v Speaker 1>will try to shove their kids into conformity and uniformity
<v Speaker 1>out of anxiety about how the powers that be, whether
<v Speaker 1>that's society or whatever their God, will punish them for
<v Speaker 1>being different and.
<v Speaker 2>How they'll lose their place that they've worked for in
<v Speaker 2>society that meant something to them. Rudolph's dad wants Rudolph
<v Speaker 2>to be able to join Santa's slay.
<v Speaker 4>Team, and because I think that's the only job there is,
<v Speaker 4>it seems like fat from a scarcity mindset.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, And he wants him to be
<v Speaker 5>and want what he wanted, and it ignores any opportunity
<v Speaker 5>for Rudolph to shine in his own way.
<v Speaker 2>And the same thing happens to Hermie that he has
<v Speaker 2>to be an elf like all the other ELFs and
<v Speaker 2>do all the other elf things. But he just wants
<v Speaker 2>to be a dentist. Being a toymaker means nothing to him.
<v Speaker 3>He hates it. He's not good at it.
<v Speaker 2>And people who aren't good at something naturally won't work
<v Speaker 2>very hard to do something that they're not interested in
<v Speaker 2>and don't feel confident in themselves about. You give people
<v Speaker 2>things to do that they're good at, and they will shine.
<v Speaker 2>If you try to make them work at something they're
<v Speaker 2>never good at and aren't interested in, they'll only give
<v Speaker 2>you see effort.
<v Speaker 1>That's a good point as well. And then people are like,
<v Speaker 1>why aren't they working harder at this thing? And it's like,
<v Speaker 1>because that's not their actual passion or natural ability. And
<v Speaker 1>what I assume is the moral of this movie is
<v Speaker 1>that if you allow people to actually get comfortable with
<v Speaker 1>what makes them different, there can be a lot of
<v Speaker 1>ingenuity and evolve being of things and like change that
<v Speaker 1>is actually good. I mean, that's the point of this right,
<v Speaker 1>that Rudolph's red nose is actually something that will help
<v Speaker 1>them in a pinch versus hurt them. Correct And with
<v Speaker 1>Hermie as well, he says he kind of shades them
<v Speaker 1>and he's like the North Poldings identives because you all
<v Speaker 1>your guys teeth is bad.
<v Speaker 3>Bad because all they eat is sugar.
<v Speaker 4>That's true, also true, also true, many so many cavities.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, think about what we learned about from Elf.
<v Speaker 2>They have the four major food groups at the North
<v Speaker 2>Pole candy, cane, candy, corn cotton candy like maple syrup.
<v Speaker 4>It's syrup, yeah, make syrup is the last one.
<v Speaker 3>So their teeth are falling out. I think harmonies correct
<v Speaker 3>that they need a dentist.
<v Speaker 2>And as Rudolph proved, it tends to get dark at night,
<v Speaker 2>and you can, you know, fly when it's cloudy and
<v Speaker 2>still complete your mission. But if you have only people
<v Speaker 2>with boring noses that don't light up, well, no missions
<v Speaker 2>can be completed when you have a little a bit
<v Speaker 2>of weather.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Because what you can take from this and nothing else
<v Speaker 1>is that if we are only prioritizing conformity, you will
<v Speaker 1>not evolve, You will stay stagnant, and it will actually
<v Speaker 1>probably hold you back more than anything. And so allowing
<v Speaker 1>these characters to actually be themselves allows for change to occur.
<v Speaker 1>That does make people nervous sometimes because, as we know,
<v Speaker 1>human beings when things are different, a lot of times
<v Speaker 1>their first reaction can be fear and anxiety and stifling
<v Speaker 1>the difference. And yeah, it was really cool to see
<v Speaker 1>this example of actually your differences can be what makes
<v Speaker 1>you shine.
<v Speaker 4>No pen intended for mister Rudel.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, And I think burl Ives being the snowman
<v Speaker 2>is of particular interest to this story. And I wonder
<v Speaker 2>beyond him singing lots of Christmas songs and getting famous
<v Speaker 2>for it, burl Ives went to Eastern Illinois where I went.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, Oh, I didn't know that.
<v Speaker 2>Burl Ives definitely went to Eastern Illinois and he was
<v Speaker 2>a football player and ended up he was going to
<v Speaker 2>school for education, I believe, and he got himself kicked
<v Speaker 2>out of Eastern Illinois.
<v Speaker 3>Too cool pretty much.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, snowman, that's bananas.
<v Speaker 3>Someone asked him if he wanted to build a snowman,
<v Speaker 3>and he.
<v Speaker 4>Said hell yeah, and they're like, get out of here.
<v Speaker 3>That's exactly a little girl. Do you want to build
<v Speaker 3>a snowman? He said, no, I want to be a snowman.
<v Speaker 2>But he he was more interested in playing folk songs
<v Speaker 2>and guitar and doing what made him unique. He's from
<v Speaker 2>a little central Illinois town, and he would have never
<v Speaker 2>been encouraged to be a folk musician that traveled the
<v Speaker 2>world and did the unsafe thing and lived a life
<v Speaker 2>like he did where he ended up famous. And now
<v Speaker 2>we're still talking about his portrayal as a snowman.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, sixty years later. Yeah, that's very true.
<v Speaker 4>I was thinking about how wild it was that we're
<v Speaker 4>still watching these films, and I wonder what makes it
<v Speaker 4>so feel so comforting still. I don't know if it's
<v Speaker 4>just the nostalgia of it or if it's something else,
<v Speaker 4>you know.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's honestly that it's still a universal story
<v Speaker 2>because every kid can remember that age of that junior high,
<v Speaker 2>fourth fifth grade kind of time period, the puberty time
<v Speaker 2>period where people are actually starting to develop differences as
<v Speaker 2>opposed to all seeing each other as the same. And
<v Speaker 2>it's through those differences that they start to separate and
<v Speaker 2>find who they are going to be and actualize. And
<v Speaker 2>it's people that are encouraged to develop themselves or just
<v Speaker 2>have that stubbornness of will that they're just not going
<v Speaker 2>to be contained and off they go and do things
<v Speaker 2>their way.
<v Speaker 3>But those are the people who are interesting. Those are.
<v Speaker 1>We talking about all these other reindeer, like we're talking.
<v Speaker 2>About Rudolf, Nope, Donner and Blitzener's side characters that I
<v Speaker 2>get mixed.
<v Speaker 1>Up when I sing that song.
<v Speaker 3>So there you go, right.
<v Speaker 2>So typically in our episodes, we each cover what treatments
<v Speaker 2>we think might be valuable for one of the characters
<v Speaker 2>we see in the movies, and we each cover a
<v Speaker 2>different angle between me doing individual and usually trauma focused,
<v Speaker 2>Brittany doing a child focused section in Hannah talking about
<v Speaker 2>typically a marriage and family. So normally we cover those,
<v Speaker 2>but since this is a short episode here is normally
<v Speaker 2>going quite a bit longer and going.
<v Speaker 3>Deep depth, deep dive, if you will.
<v Speaker 2>Today we're gonna cover something really short that we see
<v Speaker 2>someone in Rudolph and Hermie who feels so bad about themselves.
<v Speaker 2>They've been taught throughout their whole life that there's something
<v Speaker 2>so wrong with them that if it gets exposed, they
<v Speaker 2>deserve to run away, and even run away from safety
<v Speaker 2>of friends. When you're lost in the wilderness, Rudolph leaves
<v Speaker 2>his friends on the island of Misfit Toys because he's
<v Speaker 2>afraid his nose will.
<v Speaker 3>Get them hurt.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, in real life, things don't wrap up in a
<v Speaker 2>neat little bow that everybody says, I'm sorry, and then
<v Speaker 2>everything's all good now because we were so scared you
<v Speaker 2>ran away. No, there's gonna be some stuff that needs
<v Speaker 2>to be work with. So on three, what is it
<v Speaker 2>that they will all need?
<v Speaker 3>One? Two three therapy? Yes, sir.
<v Speaker 2>For a deeper dive than that, check out some of
<v Speaker 2>our other episodes. We've covered one hundred and fifty movies
<v Speaker 2>to this point, so there are lots of examples of this.
<v Speaker 2>But the other section we always cover is final thoughts.
<v Speaker 2>We always offer a brief rundown of what we thought
<v Speaker 2>about the movie, what we like about it but we
<v Speaker 2>didn't like. Hannah usually tells us she hates it or
<v Speaker 2>never watches it again, or she loves it and watches
<v Speaker 2>it a thousand times.
<v Speaker 1>Well, on that note, Hannah, I got to watch this
<v Speaker 1>with you, and you knew every single word to this movie,
<v Speaker 1>so I'm assuming you will watch.
<v Speaker 4>It again and that you like it. That is correct.
<v Speaker 4>I do enjoy these old classic films, and I do
<v Speaker 4>watch them every year. I think mostly because it just
<v Speaker 4>reminds me of a time when they felt really magical
<v Speaker 4>and really comforting.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I love this movie or this special. I guess
<v Speaker 1>playmation like stop motion, so like I love Coraline, I
<v Speaker 1>love them before Christmas. I love that style of filmmaking.
<v Speaker 1>So of course, maybe it springs from watching these movies
<v Speaker 1>as a kid who knows, so I will definitely watch
<v Speaker 1>this movie a bunch. I have little nieces and nephews now,
<v Speaker 1>so it's always really fun watching these movies with them now.
<v Speaker 3>And it does.
<v Speaker 1>Even though it could be very easily be creepy these movies,
<v Speaker 1>they do somehow stay in that tight pocket of actually
<v Speaker 1>being endearing.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know how, but agreed, I think they do.
<v Speaker 2>I think these movies will continue to be watched by
<v Speaker 2>kids because I think they managed to just hit on
<v Speaker 2>a universality of childhood. I think everybody at some point
<v Speaker 2>realizes there's something that makes them different and that isn't bad.
<v Speaker 2>It's something that makes them special, makes them unique. And
<v Speaker 2>when people grow up with adults who are able to
<v Speaker 2>provide them encouragement to fit within the general rules but
<v Speaker 2>be yourself, that they really shine. And I feel like
<v Speaker 2>this movie continues to provide a little bit of light
<v Speaker 2>in the darkness of life for kids who are struggling
<v Speaker 2>with figuring out who they are and realizing maybe there
<v Speaker 2>is a way for me to do things my way
<v Speaker 2>and be.
<v Speaker 4>Right all right.
<v Speaker 1>So if you enjoy this, you can find us on
<v Speaker 1>every platform. You listen to podcasts pretty much. You can
<v Speaker 1>find us a Popcorn Psychology, and you can find us
<v Speaker 1>on most social media forms platforms at popcorn Psychology. Merry Christmas,