Does 'Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer' Promote Bullying? (VIDEO)

The holiday season is here, and with it comes the reappearance of classics like "It's A Wonderful Life," "Miracle on 34th Street," and the 1964 film "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Before you warm up a mug of hot chocolate and set up camp on the couch, take a minute to look at the questions posed by Fox & Friends anchors about the stop-motion classic, Mediaite reports.

"Comet is saying to children, don't ever play with this reindeer again," George Giuliani, professor of special education at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, said in the debate. "And he tells him to go home and he bullies him and mocks him, and the other kids start mocking him. Can you imagine if your child's teacher said to the class 'Don't ever play with this child again'?"

Bullying in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"? Giuliani seems to think so, and his argument according to Mediaite, comes in the end of the movie between Santa Claus and the reindeer himself.

"Santa Claus is saying, 'You cannot be on my team because you have a disability.' Now, at the end, [Rudolph] helps Santa Claus get through the snowstorm. Because he has done something extraordinary, he is finally accepted."

After much back-and-forth, host Gretchen Carlson put an end to things, exclaiming "It's a cartoon!"

On Friday, conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly took another aim at the holiday season by criticizing Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee for erecting a "holiday tree," calling it "amazingly dumb."

The news organization also claimed to be "winning the war on Christmas" in a Fox Nation bog post, citing Walgreens as proof:

"Walgreens is the latest store to return to explicit references to Christmas, switching its position a day after some Christian groups threatened to boycott over its generic holiday wording.

The American Family Association and the Liberty Counsel—Christian groups that maintain lists of “naughty” and “nice” retailers based on which stores reference Christmas—applauded Walgreens’ switch, along with several other big stores who are coming off the naughty list for the first time in years."

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Comments

[jack Winn]

04:27 PM on 01/16/2012

This is the sort of silliness that gets academics laughed at. 1st & obviously, can we get an estimate of how many people have modeled their lives & values after the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer?

Then, we have a lot of people puzzled about how it might *promote* bullying, when most of us seem to think the opposite. Perhaps our brains are not sufficiently oxygen-starved.

Doesn't every PhD course have a 15 minute orientation about, "don't be a tool"?

[jinsin]

04:05 AM on 12/13/2011

I always thought the moral of the story was that each and every one of us is special in some particular way.
Finding that particular something can be a difficult journey for some; full of adverse circumstances and ignorance but the important thing is that we believe in ourselves.

[special38x2]

11:25 AM on 12/11/2011

Did this professor finish the end of the story? Fire him, he's overpaid for his input...

[special38x2]

11:20 AM on 12/11/2011

If anything I think it helps people be more sensitive of it - Rudolph was the hero of the story, overcame the obstacles, and gained respect in the end....

[Chestnut horse]

10:27 PM on 12/09/2011

Next, they will call Frosty the Snowman porn because he is not wearing pants.

[special38x2]

11:21 AM on 12/11/2011

Truly laughing :) But what a scary thought!

[foresure]

03:05 PM on 12/09/2011

If you want to know who or what promotes "bullying"

It is the teachers. Having been deprived of all legitimate authority in the classroom, have been completly convinced that they have absolutely no power in the school, and having been informed that anything, and everything they say in the classroom, "will be held against them"

They resort to bullying to gain complaiance.

But, of course if they are "friends" with the good students, nobody will complain.

The teachers are the role models for the bullies.

[firststatemate]

02:32 PM on 12/09/2011

Bullies don't love their targets after they torture them. Listen to the lyrics, then get a life!

[stopnlisten]

01:25 PM on 12/09/2011

It doesn't promote it. It exposes it. Good teachable moment for any parent on their toes.

[firststatemate]

02:29 PM on 12/09/2011

Amen!

[wacado]

10:25 PM on 12/07/2011

There are people out there that have too much time on their hands and will find fault in just about anything. Why don't we stop talking, watching TV and movies, reading news, etc? Everyone is so offended these day. Take a prozac!! It is just a cartoon.

[firststatemate]

02:30 PM on 12/09/2011

Dynamite comment!

[wacado]

03:28 PM on 12/09/2011

Love the Pug Pic

[BrendaNYC]

02:00 PM on 12/07/2011

Rudolph teaches children that what makes us different is our special talents. There is strength in uniqueness. Once Rudolph discovered how to use his talent, all the other reindeer loved him. That is the message of the story. It is a fable which illuminates how bullies (if reindeer can be bullies) are ill-informed, and the bullied (if Rudolph was in fact bullied) needs to always be true to him or herself. www.HereSheIsBoys.com

[El Chingaso]

01:44 PM on 12/07/2011

Professor Giuliani, you have w-a-y too much time on your hands, fella.

[SeaBlood]

12:47 PM on 12/07/2011

Before condemning all of the other reindeer, let's get one thing straight!. Rudolph's red nose was caused by a deadly skin fungus that reindeer get if they get close to one with a red nose. Would you have the whole herd get wiped out to save an afflicted individual ( who might die anyway) I say this: let reindeer them spend billions of reindeer tax dollars to do research in the prevention and cure of Rednosedness.

[foresure]

03:06 PM on 12/09/2011

Hey, but what adult cannot remember be degraded and humiliated as a student. I was an "honor student' and was on the wrong end of that a number of times.

[SeaBlood]

03:59 PM on 12/09/2011

Actually, my post was meant to be a colbert-style joke. I, too, was picked-on in school.

[SF TKF]

11:26 AM on 12/07/2011

Did they watch the same cartoon I did? It’s about believing in yourself and about those who are different overcoming and being triumphant. The bullies lose and have to own up to the fact that they were wrong.

[wacado]

10:26 PM on 12/07/2011

THe version you are writing of is the one I watched too.

[slappymagoo]

10:41 AM on 12/07/2011

By the end of the story, the bullies learn that Rudolph has value, and learn A Very Valuable Lesson. The take away is supposed to be "Everyone has worth, even if YOU don't see it, so be nice to everyone." To say Rudolph "promotes" bullying would be like saying "Psycho" promotes murdering blondes taking trips. I know that'd give Nancy Grace a "small O" at least, but it doesn't make it true.

[Conuly]

11:53 AM on 12/07/2011

That's what the message is supposed to be, but the one I always saw was "It's okay to bully kids, because they'll be so pathetically needy they'll fall all over themselves to help you for the merest chance of recognition and an end to the abuse. So go for it, it won't hurt you at all!"

God, I hate that song and special.

[am10]

10:24 AM on 12/07/2011

I think it shows how mean and hurtful bullying can be, no? And I can't believe I'm bothering with replying.