Queering Santa’s Workshop: Gender, Difference, and Elfnicity in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
How does one account for the popularity of the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Clearly, this rather absurd tale of a ruddy-nosed quadruped speaks to us on some deep level, but what is it saying? and why are we listening?
As you will no doubt recall, Rudolph is “the most famous reindeer of all,” made famous not by his heroic nose-glowing sled-guiding as the story would have it but rather by the fictional account of that feat in a song called “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” first recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, a song that became so popular that, according to Wikipedia, it has now sold more copies than all the editions of the Bible ever published combined with the total record sales of the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and Madonna.
However, I should state from the outset that this essay is not concerned with the Gene Autry version of the story. Rather, my discussion will privilege the Rudolph story as presented in the 1964 claymation animated television special (the Burl Ives Rudolph, as a number of scholars call it). I recognize that such privileging of one text over another needs justification, and perhaps extensive footnoting, if not excessive use of parentheses, brackets, and colons [and be rest assured: I plan to use all three (3)].
I certainly would agree that the song deserves serious critical discussion, not only the famous Autry interpretation of the song, and particularly the performative elements of that interpretation [not to mention how Autry’s persona as a “singing cowboy” might have shaped the audience’s response (particularly if we consider the narrative within the context of the genre of the western) to that performance], but also the song itself as text, as ecriture, not just as a piece of music waiting to be performed but as an always already complete yet infinite piece (and, by “piece,” of course, I mean “whole”) rich and rewarding in itself before the first note is played. However, although the song pre-dates the animated special, I feel that the combination of visual and musical motifs make the television show the richest text for critical examination.
To refamiliairize ourselves with the basic “story” of Rudolph, we should note that Rudolph, from the beginning, is marked by his difference, by his red nose. As the text of the song states, “you could even say it glows.” The other reindeer do not have such noses, and although we might argue that in a more enlightened society, such a minor physical difference as a glowing red nose would be hardly more notable than, say, a sixth finger or an extra horn growing from the forehead, the culture of the North Pole is not so enlightened as our own.
As Rudolph himself asks, “just because my nose glows, why don’t I fit in?” And it’s a darn good question, but Rudolph’s difference is viewed as a deformity so extreme as to justify his exclusion “from all their reindeer games.”
Life at the North Pole (and we should note that the “pole” is just the first of many phallic signifiers in the masculinized culture of the, er, Pole) is dominated by several patriarchal figures: a grouchy Santa—the Father figure whose name gives meaning to the symbolic order he has founded at the North Phallus, er, Pole; the Head Elf, who essentially runs an elven sweatshop and inculcates the other elves into the dominant ideology (teaching them to sing, for example, “We are Santa’s Elves,” in which they cheerfully embrace their subaltern status: can the subaltern speak? we might ask instead, can the subaltern carry a tune?).
Then we have Donner, Rudolph’s uptight father, who hopes to attain approval from his symbolic father (Santa) by providing Old Saint Nick with another male “descendent,” a continuation of the patriarchal line; and Comet, the coach and testosterone-infused leader (“My job is to make bucks of you”) of the so-called “reindeer games” (and it should be noted that engaging in these games, according to Rudolph’s young companion, Fireball, will “make antlers grow”—all in keeping with the phallocentric culture of the North Pole).
All these patriarchs work to suppress difference. “You’ll be a normal buck just like everybody else,” insists Donner, recognizing that within the symbolic order of the North Pole Rudolph’s nose will signify a lack of masculine control and power. Thus he instructs Rudolph to hide his nose beneath a layer of mud and repress his difference.
Donner hopes Rudolph will be “a chip off the old antlers,” but he finds the red nose unmanly, a distraction from the visible sign of masculine status (antlers), and a symbol of his own failure to father a proper male and thus please his own symbolic father.
The suppression of Rudolph’s red nose is the suppression of what the patriarchs perceive as a feminine characteristic. The glowing red nose is in fact a symbol of the feminine jouissance that the patriarchs have renounced in order to join Santa’s symbolic order, is the very sign of the being they have exchanged in order to have meaning within that order. Rudolph’s red nose endangers patriarchy itself for it reminds the patriarchs of what they’ve lost, the “pure substance of enjoyment,” the dangerous irrepressible femininity (“you could even say it glows”) that they must guard against—within themselves and within others.
Because his red nose represents all those terrible / wonderful uncontrollable things that the patriarchs have excluded from their identities in order to focus exclusively on one type of marker of identity (antlers, poles, etc.), Rudolph, abject figure that he is, likewise must be excluded from the reindeer games that form the very fabric of Santa’s patriarchy.
Like the does, Rudolph can only watch as the bucks compete with each other for status, as playing “reindeer games” is merely a prelude to competing for Santa’s favor and being chosen to pull his sleigh. When Clarissa seeks to join with Mrs. Donner to hunt for Rudolph, they are both told, “This is man’s work,” and they are left behind while the men wander aimlessly and uselessly in search of the runaway reindeer (although Clarissa and Mrs. Donner ignore the male orders and demonstrate that does can wander just as aimlessly and uselessly as bucks).
Each subordinate group in Santa’s patriarchy has its own version of “reindeer games,” a system of practices and rituals through which the individual elf, reindeer, or toy is interpellated as the subject of Santa’s ideology.
Akin to “reindeer games” is “elf practice,” where the elves, among other things, practice “ear wiggling.” However, the very idea of “elf practice” points to the circular reasoning of ideology. Elfnicity is supposedly natural to one’s being as an elf, so why would an elf need to practice being an elf? In practicing what is supposedly innate, one becomes the elf that he already is. Like gender, elfnicity is a cultural construction rather than a product of nature. Otherwise, nature would take its course and both “elf practice” and “reindeer games” would be unnecessary, but Santa’s patriarchal order needs Elves and Bucks, and he must make them by suppressing and excluding other identities—and thus the cruel rituals of “elf practice” and “reindeer games” as a means of reproducing those identities and winnowing out the “misfits.”
We might articulate in abstract form the structure of Santa’s symbolic order by means of a schema from Jacque Lacan’s Encore.
The arrows in this schema, as Slavoj Zizek observes in Looking Awry, mark “the process of symbolization of the imaginary,” with the three objects on the sides of the triangle operating as “nothing but the three ways to maintain a kind of distance toward the traumatic central abyss,” the absence of meaning that always threatens to erode the symbolic systems we create to cover over that abyss (135).
As Zizek writes, the “object small a is thus the ‘hole in the real’ that sets symbolization in motion; the capital phi, the ‘imaginarization of the real,’ is a certain image that materializes nauseous enjoyment; and, finally S(A), the signifier of the lack in the big Other (the symbolic order), of its inconsistency. . . . The abyss in the middle (the balloon encircling the letter J—jouissance) is of course the whirlpool of enjoyment threatening to swallow us all” (135).
Applied to the social order at the North Pole, we might adapt Lacan’s schema thus:
Of course, the “whirlpool of enjoyment” at the center of the narrative (without it, there’d be no story) is Rudolph’s red nose, the jouissance that threatens to swallow us all—at least, that’s the way Santa and his patriarchs respond to Rudolph’s glowing difference. For the capital phi we substitute the abominable snowman, whose “nauseous enjoyment” is exemplified by his salivating mouth; for the S(A), we substitute S(A)nta, who is the signifier of his own lack. He institutes tyrannical oversight and a blustery management style to conceal his own inefficiency and inability to perform his duties without a vast force of elves and reindeer—who do all the actual labor while he broods and complains. S(A)nta’s lack necessitates the creation of the hierarchical social structure that he erects to conceal that very lack.
As Rudolph’s story is an allegory of gender difference, his friend Herbie’s story is one of sexual difference. Although one might interpret Rudolph’s red nose as a sign of queer subjectivity, Rudolph is precociously heterosexual (and bonded with Clarissa shortly after entering puberty). Herbie, on the other hand, bonds exclusively with other males, not only Rudolph but also Yukon Cornelius. But Herbie’s queerness extends far beyond a preference for male companionship. Not in the least bit interested in closeting his identity, Herbie skips elf practice, hates being an elf, disparages making toys, and makes no secret of his unacceptable desire to become a dentist.
Herbie also expresses his sense of difference through his physical appearance. While all the other male elves are completely bald, this misfit elf has blonde wavy hair (much like the female elves) and red full lips (whereas the other male elves seem to have found a way to constrain such expressive lippiness in favor of thin black lines for mouths; perhaps they have surgically altered their lips to remove any sign of feminine voluptuousness, or perhaps part of the cruelty of elf practice involves body-altering exercises to produce lip-thinning).
Herbie is a Lacanian hero in that he refuses to cede his desire (to be a dentist) to the desire of the big Other (that he be a proper thin-lipped hairless toymaking elf). He refuses to integrate into North Pole society on its terms, and, whereas Rudolph is excluded from the games he wants to join, Herbie has no interest in joining Santa’s games and practices, and he refuses to take up the subject position that the symbolic order demands that he occupy, refuses to subject himself to the Name of the Father [aka, S(A)nta], and leaves the North Pole to seek out a place more accepting of dentistry.
Oddly enough, the most seemingly masculine character in the television show, Yukon Cornelius, with his whip, gun, and facial hair, may provide the most important model of an alternate identity for the young misfits. He has not subjected himself to S(A)nta’s Law; he respects the otherness of the other, accepting both Herbie’s dentistry ambitions and Rudolph’s nose. He provides community, companionship, and nurturing (feminine qualities, all of which are notably absent or present only in highly masculinized forms at the North Pole). Although he does defeat the abominable snowman (with the help of Herbie), he does not kill the beast but tames it, in effect encouraging the snowman to abandon its violent hypermasculine ways in favor of a more feminized, less abominable, snowpersonish identity.
Yukon Cornelius has learned the value of both masculinity and femininity, and, by the end of the episode, S(A)nta seems to learn something about the value of difference as well. However, only when feminine difference offers an important way—becomes the only way—that patriarchy can carry out its functions does the patriarch recognize the value of Rudolph’s difference. Only then does S(A)nta state those famous lines: “Rudolph, with your nose so bright / Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight.” We should note, finally, that it is only when Rudolph is accepted into the patriarchy, when he subjects himself to the Name of the Father by answering S(A)nta’s hail, that he is told, “you’ll go down in history.”
