Those other reindeer sure are mean

[CalMeacham]

Just a quick note for thosde of you who know Rudolph through the song, or the song and the Rankin-Bass special alone – in the original book (which preceded the song), and in the 1940s Fleischer/Famous Studios cartoon made from it (betcha didn’t know about that one) Rudolph is not a member of the family of Santa’s reindeer!

Santa is out delivering the presents around the world and having difficulty in that snowstorm, and he gets to Rudloph’s house (Rudolph’s family unaccountably lives in a middle-class human-type house) and notices the glow from Rudolph’s nose. He wakes the reindeer kid up and asks him to help out. Rudolph is thus a stranger to the classic team of eight. A ringer. Apparently any reindeer can fly if they put their minds to it, or Santa sprinkles them with pixie dust, or whatever.

So the mean reindeer that wouldn’t let him join in the games weren’t Santa’s team or their families. At least until Rank and Base made that 1960s animation.

[Khadaji]

The Story of Rudolf

May, drawing in part on the tale of The Ugly Duckling and his own background (he was a often taunted as a child for being shy, small, and slight), settled on the idea of an underdog ostracized by the reindeer community because of his physical abnormality: a glowing red nose.

[Lord_Ashtar]

@Eva Luna

If you’re looking for a children’s story about racism, check out Dr. Seuss’ The Sneetches, though I just learned that some think of it as an allegory for antisemitism.

Wow, I never thought of it as antisemitism before. I guess I can see it, but I think it’s kind of a stretch.

[LouisB]

All these years I thought it was just a cute little song that made Gene Autry richer than he already was. I just don’t stop to think things through.

[Linty_Fresh]

@BrainGlutton

Hans Christian Andersen might have intended the story as a metaphor for his belief in the legend that he was actually the king’s bastard.

A meeting of the metaphors:
Hello there, duck, have you seen my adulterous, soon-to-be-castrated husband?
Uhh, no, Your Majesty, have you seen my swan-fucking wife?

I remember reading the Sneetches for the first time in grade school. I took it as a morality tale against racism in general, not for anti-semitism (especially since the sneetches with the stars were the privileged ones, IIRC.