Does ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ Promote Bullying? [VIDEO]
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is a classic story of overcoming prejudice and proving that everyone is special, right? Maybe not.
At least one guy believes that "Rudolph" is the story of INSTITUTIONAL BULLYING. In fact, he thinks it CONDONES and even PROMOTES bullying.
His name is George Giuliani, and he's an author and special education professor. Yesterday on the Fox News show "Fox and Friends", George said that the actions of Comet, the reindeer coach...and even Santa himself...constitute bullying.
He says, "What they're doing to him is to say that Comet is the coach, and Comet is saying to the children, don't ever play with this reindeer ever again. And he tells him to go home and he bullies him and he mocks him. That should never happen."
Giuliani is attempting to correct that error with a new book called "No More Bullies at the North Pole", which re-tells the Rudolph story.
Here's the plot as he described it: "Santa has 10 policies that are very unfair, and Mrs. Claus sets out to correct those policies, and what you just saw, where Rudolph is being treated very very badly, and that should never happen."
You can see video of Giuliani's appearance on "Fox and Friends" below. WARNING!!! It's pretty annoying, because they brought in some really bad comedian to try to be a counterpoint to Giuliani.
Obviously, we're taking things WAY too seriously when we dissect "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" like this. But I have to admit that even from a young age, some things about this show stuck out to me.
I mean, Rudolph is shunned not just by the other kids his age, but by his COACH and by Santa himself. Just because he's a little bit different.
I understand the other kids doing it. We've all had to face something like that in our lives. But imagine if YOUR child came home and told you that his teacher and his principal were participating in the bullying, too?
Would you tell your kid to just toughen up and deal with it? NO. You'd go right to the school district and demand that they be fired.
Although in this case, even Rudolph's DAD kind of shuns him and makes him HIDE his nose.
So what's the moral here? How does Rudolph overcome all of this and gain the love and acceptance of everyone around him? It basically only happens when Santa figures out a way to USE him. Then suddenly, he's great.
And Santa never even apologizes or says, "You know, Rudolph, I was a real jerk." Nope. He basically just says, "Dude, you're suddenly useful! Isn't that great for you?"
As Giuliani points out, Rudolph had to prove he had some kind of exceptional talent or purpose in order to earn everyone's love and approval. Is that really a good moral for a children's show?
Obviously, this analysis is a little extreme. But do you buy any of it? Are there any other children's specials or movies that you think send the WRONG message? Discuss.
There's also this: Friday on the Fox Business Network, there was a discussion about "The Muppets", and how it promotes Hollywood's liberal agenda because the villain is an evil oil baron. Check out video here.