Inspired by the recent overexposure to A Christmas Story again on TV, I can’t help but wonder:
Why did Aunt Clara only make a pink bunny suit for Ralphie? No aunt gives a hideous Christmas present to just one kid in the family.
Toadbriar,
As he was opening her gift, Ralphie, as narrator, says that “Aunt Clara, for years, labored under the delusion that I was not only perpetually 4 years old, but also a girl.” By singling himself out in that quotation, I gather that Aunt Clara knew that Randy had a Y chromosome. Again guessing, Aunt Clara either apparently knew bunny suits were inappropriate for boys who were older than 4 years old or didn’t know how to make anything embarassing for them. I’ve known people who would sew clothing for just one gender; maybe Aunt Clara is one of them.
She probably sent Randy his beloved zepplin.
Maybe she figured in a few years, Randy would end up with it anyway, through the magic of hand-me-downs.
Do you have any idea how long it takes to make one of those bunny costumes. Of course the oldest kid got it. That’s the way it always is.
Of course, I’m speaking from the perspective of the youngest of seven children.
Here’s another puzzling question: why are there two black students in Ralphie’s class in 1940s Illinois?
Those weren’t black students, just kids forced to wear the adorable “Black Child” costume their aunts made for them.
According to this map at Wikipedia Illinois had outlawed educational segregation prior to Brown. How much prior I don’t know but since Brown was initiated in 1951 and decided in 1954 it’s not unreasonable to think that there might be a couple of black kids in Ralphie’s class.
Nit pick: It was Indiana, not Illinois.
The zeppelin was a shout-out to the book, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, of which the Christmas of the Red Ryder BB Gun only forms a chapter. Ralph bought the zeppelin for Randy; he also bought the can of Simonize for his Old Man. I highly recommend the book, BTW, it’s lots of fun.
After seeing the pink bunny suit, Randy probably had sense enough to hide whatever monstrosity Aunt Clara sent him under a pile of torn wrapping paper before his mother saw it. I always thought that Randy was a sly one.
It’s all related to a comment the narrator makes at the same time: Aunt Clara thinks he’s a girl.
The basis for this scene is Jean Shepherd’s first name. Throughout his life he was frequently assumed to be female on the basis of the spelling of Jean. (Shepherd’s friend Shel Silverstein reportedly wrote the song “A Girl Named Sue” on the basis of Jean’s experience.) Although I have no evidence for this, it’s not unlikely that Shepherd actually had a distant relative who thought he was a girl and sent him inappropriate presents.
FYI, Shepherd was named for his father, who had been named after Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.
I highly recommend Excelsior, You Fathead!, a new biography of Shepherd by Eugene Bergmann.
Thank you for the insight, dopers! Of course the reminder that the author is named Jean helps. Growing up Canada-adjacent and watching lots of hockey, I mentally pronounced it the french way, not the same way as if it were a girl’s name.
I always took the comment about Aunt Clara thinking he’s a girl to be more of a commentary on Aunt Clara’s tastes and misguided sense of what might be appropriate and welcome giftwise for a kid (of apparently indeterminate gender)
“That is a really cool zeppelin,” Husband and I always assert when we watch the movie.
OT, but I love ze francais version, whereas the feminine version always makes me think of some overweight housewife who’s into cutesy things like Precious Moments and Thomas Kinkaid. …and yes, I thought that even before “A Room of Jean’s Own” 