Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 427

7 serious problems with the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer television special

As well as the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer television special holds up after 50 years (I still adore it), there are admittedly some serious problems with the special in relation to modern day norms that I noticed while watching the special with my family last night.

1.  Yukon Cornelius carries a gun and a knife throughout the episode.

While I think that the gun (and probably the knife) are poor choices for a children’s television special, the savvy viewer is also left wondering why Yukon Cornelius doesn’t simply shoot the Abominable Snow Monster that is about to devour his friends.

2.  There is massive, pervasive, long-term, adult-sponsored bullying of Rudolph by Santa Claus, Comet and his many reindeer friends.

3.  Rudolph’s father, Donner, at various points in the special rejects his son based upon his physical appearance and inflicts serious psychological abuse upon him.

4. Donner’s relationship to his wife is overtly misogynistic. She barely speaks throughout the special, is told by her husband to stay home rather than engaging in “man’s work” and doesn’t have a say in the naming of her son. 

5.  Although female and male reindeer grow equal sized antlers in real life, the female reindeer in the special are capable of only growing tiny nubs instead of full sided antlers, which strikes me as fairly sexist and consistent with the misogyny that is pervasive throughout the special. 

 

6.  The female rag doll on the Island of Misfit Toys has no discernible misfit problem, leaving the viewer to wonder why she is on the island at all.

Incidentally, the problem was revealed in 2007 (43 years after it’s original broadcast) on NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! when the producer of the special, Arthur Rankin, said Dolly’s problem was psychological, caused by being abandoned by her mistress and suffering depression from feeling unloved.

Even if this were true, it doesn’t exactly fit a children’s holiday special.

7.  Our hero’s solution to the Abominable Snow Monster of the North is to concuss him with a boulder and rip his teeth out of his mouth with a pair of pliers while he is unconscious, thereby eliminating his ability to eat small, woodland creatures. 

In a more enlightened age, perhaps the Abominable Snow Monster could have been angry because of a aching cavity or periodontal disease, and once taken care of by Hermey, the elf who wants to be a dentist, he reverts to a more kind and gentle nature.

This would be more humane, more aligned to Hermey’s desire to help people through dentistry and considerably more child-friendly than yanking out the monster’s teeth while he is unconscious.

 

Saying yes to Santa Claus and everything else

I dressed up as Santa Claus yesterday in order to entertain a room full of children at a neighborhood Christmas party. A colleague hosts the party each year, and about two dozen children fill her living room to sing Christmas carols and meet Santa.

Her originally-scheduled Santa was unavailable for the morning, so I offered to fill the suit “only if absolutely no one else was willing.”

In the words of a friend, “You’re going to make a terrible Santa. You’re not old, you’re not jolly and you’re too sarcastic.”

These were my concerns as well.

Though I have some acting experience (and in children’s theater, no less), I was typically cast as ogres, evil kings and angry old men. The director of a show once had to tell me to tone down my ogre performance because several frightened children had to leave the theater in tears.

I wasn’t sure if I had jolly old Saint Nick in me.

To perform the role of Santa Claus well enough to convince a room full of little children that I was real, in front of a parents who wanted their children to believe that I was real, made me more than a little nervous.

 

By the time Saturday arrived, I was actually scared.

This is why I said yes when asked to perform the role.

I say yes whenever possible, but I especially say yes when the request is outside my comfort zone or seems completely impossible.

These are the best times to say yes.

Saying yes under these conditions has changed my life. Thanks to my strict adherence to this rule, I am now a storyteller, a wedding DJ, a minister, a professional speaker, a playwright and a life coach, just to name a few.

In each of these instances, someone asked me to do something that made me uncomfortable or something that I had absolutely no business doing, and the results were extraordinary.

My life is full and complicated and interesting and harried and diverse and joyous because of my willingness to say yes.

In the end, saying yes to Santa was amazing.

As nervous as I was upon arriving at the home, the moment I entered that room and saw those children, all of my nervousness melted away. I sat in a chair beside a Christmas tree in front of a pile of wide-eyed boys and girls and sang songs with them. I laughed with a hearty “Ho! Ho! Ho!” I passed out gifts and sat with children on my lap as their parents snapped photos. The children stared, waved, laughed and in a couple cases cried. They said “Thank you” and wished me a merry Christmas They asked where Rudolph was and offered to help on Christmas Eve.

Two of them whispered, “I love you, Santa” into my ear.

Would I play Santa again if asked?

Absolutely. Every day if I could. It was great.

I said yes to Santa, and I will never forget it.

After I left the house, I drove through the McDonald’s drive-thru, still in costume and causing quite a stir. Employees piled into the drive-thru booth to see Santa behind the wheel of his aging Subaru Outback. A couple of them told me what they wanted for Christmas.

“Rent money” and “new tires for my ride.”

I admittedly felt a little sacrilegious sitting in a parking lot in the Santa suit, eating an Egg McMuffin and listening to Mary Roach’s Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex through headphones jammed beneath my white, curly wig, but even Santa has to eat.

Babes with books

Just imagine how much better it will be when they can actually read.

I hope.

   

Airlines around the world are kicking themselves for not thinking of this first.

Megyn Kelly of “the very powerful” Fox News is an expert on Santa Claus according to Megyn Kelly. She’s also despicable, at least based upon her non-apology.

“For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white.”

Wow.

Though the Santa Claus who I grew up with was white, I have seen more than enough African-American Santas to know that his race is malleable depending upon culture.

Regardless of his country of origin and the race of the first Saint Nicholas,  Santa is a make-believe character.

Do we really think that the Haitian version of Santa Claus needs to be white?

Of course, these stupid words (along with the assertion that Jesus was also white) come from a white, affluent, blonde women who is speaking for four other white, presumably affluent people on the issue of race and Santa Claus.

Only on Fox News could you find four white people debate the opinion of an African American writer and her feelings towards a white Santa.

Fox couldn’t find one African American to weigh in on the matter?

Not one?

When I see journalism like this, I always remind myself of these facts:

The median age of the Fox News viewer is over 65.
Over the past five years, Fox’s average number of viewers has fallen from 557,000 to 379,000.
Fox News is speaking to an elderly demographic.
Fox New is running out of viewers because they are dying.
Fox News will soon be irrelevant. 

Megyn Kelly has since issued a not-apology in which she claimed that her remarks in this “light-hearted segment” were “tongue in cheek, and that the entire segment on her “very powerful news network” was done in the spirit of humor and was not meant to be serious at all.

I actually think her not-apology is more offensive than her initial statement. It’s like the high school bully who calls you names for a week and then claims that he was just joking when the teacher overhears his remarks.

A vision of the future?

Can’t you see them in another five or ten years, sitting beside one another, reading books or doing homework together?

Or is this wishful thinking?

Stop the madness. Allow cell phone jamming technology inside movie theaters.

Software company Toluna QuickSurveys polled 2,000 adults from across the United States, asking them in an online questionnaire about less than savory behaviors. Included in the results was this:

Nearly 60% leave their cell phone on at the movie theater. Females were more likely than men to neglect the off button, at 75% compared to less than 40% for men.

I’m not surprised.

Cell phones have become a scourge of movie theaters. Idiots who can’t stay off their phones for two hours have ruined the movie going experience for many. 

People suck when it comes to their phones.

There is a solution:

Legalize the use of cell phone jamming technology in movie theaters in order to stop these morons from their infantile behavior.

Other than a few lunatics who would claim that they need their cell phones available at all times in case of an emergency (what did these people do 15 years ago when they didn’t own a cell phone?), is there any downside to jamming cellular signals while inside a movie theater?

I don’t think so.

The technology exists. It’s simple to deploy. Why not use it?

Why would anyone ever oppose this idea?

I know of at least one movie theater that has no reception inside one of its theaters simply because of where it’s located within the building, but people continue to fill those seats without complaint (and probably rejoice the freedom from these morons on their phones).

Many auditoriums in my school district possess a similar lack of reception.

What’s the difference between a theater with no cellular service because of unintended construction specifications and a theater that jams cellular service for the enjoyment of those who want to attend the movie?

With some easy-to-purchase equipment, movie theaters could disable cellular technology completely, preventing idiots from texting, making phone calls, accessing social media platforms and more.

Seriously, why hasn’t this happened already?

About to purchase a book from Amazon? Don’t. Do this instead.

I posted something similar to this (but with only 140 characters) on Twitter yesterday after doing almost exactly what I describe here.

I suggest you do the same.

About to purchase a book from Amazon?

Stop.

Do this instead. Sincerely.

Pick up the phone and call a bookstore. It could be a bookstore nearby, but anywhere in the world will do.

Introduce yourself to the bookseller who answers the phone. Tell the bookseller that you were about to order a book from Amazon but have reconsidered. Ask for help ordering the book from his or her store instead.

Since you have an actual book expert on the phone, talk about some of your favorite books and ask for a book recommendation as well.

Order that book, too. And maybe another. A birthday is always on the horizon. Take care of the gift right now by ordering a book.

Ask if it would be alright to schedule another phone call with the bookseller in about a month in order to get another recommendation and order more books.

Make a new friend. Seriously. Booksellers are some of the most generous, knowledgeable, helpful and sweet people in the world, and they are just a phone call away.

Ordering from a bookstore keeps these wonderful employed and keeps bookstores around the world open for business.

This is not a silly, pie-in the-sky idea. You may spend ten minutes instead of 30 seconds ordering your book, but it will be ten minutes very well spent.

Podcast launch is imminent. Ask your awkward, possibly inappropriate, socially unaware and cringe worthy questions now!

The equipment is sitting on the table, ready to go. The hosts (Elysha and I) are ready with lots to say. The producer is ready to… produce.

Only a minor glitch (an inexplicable, intermittent hum) kept us from recording our first podcast, Author Out Loud, last week.

Hopefully that technical hurdle will be overcome next week and we will record our first episode. We will probably record about three before we actually make them available to download, just to be sure that we have the technical side under control. 

Author Out Loud, at least as we currently envision it, will be a podcast about the life of an author. It will include discussion about writing, storytelling, books, the publishing industry and the day-to-day life of an author. Our goal is to provide writers and readers with a peek into the career of an author. My vision is to provide writers and readers with insight into the daily challenges and triumphs of an author and answer the kind of questions that I always always wanted to ask authors before publishing my first book.

Eventually. we will have other authors, editors, agents, booksellers and storytellers on the show as guests to share their perspective as well. 

My wife will cohost for a few reasons:

People tend to like her more than me.
She’s funny, intelligent and entertaining.
Two people talking is almost always better than one person rambling.
She is intertwined in my writing career and will serve as both the outsider who can ask questions as well as the expert who knows nearly as much as I do.
I think it will be interesting to hear from the perspective of the spouse of an author.
I tend to be a little obtuse at times, failing to realize when something is interesting, unusual or provocative or boring. She will be the person who tells me when to say more and when to shut up. 

We will also answer questions from listeners, and for the past week, I have been collecting questions from future listeners via Twitter. If you would like to add your question to the list, please feel free to comment here, send me an email or contact me through social media. All questions are welcomed. No subject is taboo. I’ve already received question related to my finances, my relationship with my editor, my favorite and least favorite books and my day-to-day writing schedule.

One person asked me if I regretted having children. I loved this question.

So no question is out of bounds, and we will do our best to answer each and every one. Please, ask away.

We look forward to hearing from you, and we look forward to having a podcast for you to download soon!

Dinner and dancing in the dining room

I’ve often said that my favorite thing in the world is to watch my wife dance, and this is still true. There is nothing I love more.

But she has some competition now, from two unlikely sources. For what these two lack in style, they certainly make up with enthusiasm.