The Quest for Power
How the Red Ryder BB Gun Really is the Great Equalizer

Bob Clark’s 1983 masterpiece A Christmas Story has long served as a traditional holiday movie spectacle. I remember watching it as many as three or four times in a row on Christmas Day, thanks to the marathon that TNT has programmed for the past several years. Like most people, I took what was being presented to me at face value. Until this last season, when I realized that Clark’s seemingly harmless, innocent family show was actually a very plausible social commentary on the struggle for social dominance in which the younger and older generations of 1980s America were involved.

Not only is the director simply showing how the current materialist ideals of Reaganomics era America are flawed, but Clark also uses the film as a call to action: To go back to the way things were before the “Me Society” ruled. One would expect Clark to suggest a progression in order to escape the current societal cesspool, but rather Clark suggests a regression, to go back to the way things were: A quaint, mundane existence in a typical industrialized town.

The director’s opinion is evident in every aspect of the film. From the plot, which centers around a young boy, Ralphie (Peter Billingsley)’s quest for a Red Ryder BB Gun; to the way the characters interact with one another, in stereotypical 1940s white American fashion; to the setting of a pleasantly dystopian Midwestern town and the very way the scenes are shot.

One of the hallmark techniques of the early age of cinema, (the DW Griffith era, for example) was the use of the iris camera shot, where the camera fades out of the frame to a black screen, focusing in on a subject in the camera’s field of view. Clark uses this same technique frequently in the film, one example being a focus on the seated Parker family as they begin enjoy their “Chinese Christmas Dinner.” Clark does his best to totally recreate the world through cinema, including every facet of 1940s life. From the Buicks and Fords parked in driveways and driving down the streets to the broadcasts of Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie on the family’s living room radio, the pleasures of a simpler time are clearly displayed. The filmmakers even enlist Mr. Christmas himself, Bing Crosby to further their cause, including various Christmastime staples such as Jingle Bells and White Christmas. The closing shot of the film is an exterior shot of the Parker home and car, covered aesthetically with snow with a stringed version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas playing gently in the background. The only scene missing from the mix is a frozen pond, covered with joyful ice skaters.

While the setting certainly helps the film’s purpose, it is not the most important element in the film. That credit is split between the dialogue and the plot. However, even here it is not an even split. Even though the plot and dialogue are irreversibly interconnected, the dialogue is the most important. However, plot is given weight due to the fact that it carries the dialogue and allows for the dialogue to exist in the first place. Things happen in the film upon which the characters reflect. A prime example of this scene after Ralphie beats up Scott Farkus, the token schoolyard bully (which is another example of the filmmakers’ recreation of their childhood). The film then cuts to the family’s kitchen, where the mother hears a muffled sob coming from underneath the sink. She opens the door to find Ralphie’s baby brother Randy in tears. When the mother asks him why he is crying, he explains that “Daddy’s gonna kill Ralphie,” after the father, played by Darrin McGavin, finds out what happened. The important of this line is greatly under-emphasized here and will be touched upon in greater detail later.

Now that the importance of the three elements has been explained, the film may now be excavated to display where the underlying commentary is rooted.

If A Christmas Story is a commentary that blasts the current economical and social standards of the early 80s, then everything that is included in the film provides evidence and support for the visual argument Clark and Shepard are trying to make. The filmmakers use the scenes and the dialogue exchanges as metaphors. The central metaphoric symbol is, of course, the “Red Ryder BB gun with a compass in the barrel and a thing that tells time.” The use of a gun, albeit a toy one, is an easy symbol to use for a representation of power. The plot of the movie details Ralphie’s journey to get the rifle as a Christmas present, by any means necessary. Ralphie tries several different methods: such as sticking an advertisement in his mother’s magazine; blurting out his wishes at the breakfast table; writing a theme paper on the subject for his class; and finally asking Santa Claus for the gift. His mother, father, teacher, and Santa Claus, acting as symbols of the ruling class, all deny him the gift, echoing “You’ll shoot your eye out!” This interaction between Ralphie and the adults, with the boy making a bid for a much desired toy is tantamount to the conflict between the younger generation, that is, the incumbent generation and the older ruling generation over the control of the economy and the government.

“In today’s modern age, too many people have lost the true meaning of the spirit of Christmas,” says the narrator in the movie’s trailer. That opening line is an excellent metaphor in itself, and perhaps the one line that best describes the goals and aspirations of Clark’s film. “The spirit of Christmas” could easily be translated to “The American Dream.” The American Dream, as I understand it, is to have the opportunity to live your life to its fullest, and also to allow your neighbor to do the same, or even help him along the way. Clearly, the “Me Society” doesn’t share this same interpretation of the American Dream. As I’ve stated before, the typical Reaganite is too caught up in material gains to understand that social values and ethical integrity matter as well. The perfect example of this mentality in the film comes, as so many examples will, from the character of The Old Man. When McGavin’s character wins a “major award,” he is completely ecstatic, even maniacal. His eyes even shone, as the Ralphie voiceover (done by Jean Shepard) said about the father regarding his love of turkey “with a wild and ravenous light.” The Old Man disregards the very being of his family as he pries the lid off of the crate that contains his beloved award, flinging the packing straw, littering the room in the process, much to the dismay of the mother. Eventually, he finds the trophy: A plastic lamp in the shape of a female leg, complete with fishnet stocking. He immediately places his new acquisition in the middle of the front room window, so that everyone around him will be able to see, and hopefully admire it, much like those who were participants in the Reaganite culture were wont to do. After plugging in the lamp, McGavin utters the line, “It reminds me of the Fourth of July.” This is an example of the generation’s definition of freedom (or the classical idea that is centered around the American ‘Revolution’), and how they equate freedom with a material and rather insignificant (to the rest of us, at least) prize. The same idea is echoed again in the film, after the lamp mysteriously breaks, and the voiceover says “I could never be sure, but I thought that I could hear Taps being played… gently,” after The Old Man actually buries the lamp, there again giving entirely too much credit and putting too much value into a material, and obviously finite object.

Another theme is the generalization that adults, and as a result in this case, the ruling elite as a whole cannot be trusted. One instance for evidence is the subplot of Ralphie’s theme paper for his class. The film depicts Ralphie having a wild fantasy in which his teacher, dressed in an outfit eerily similar to one that a flapper of the 1920s would wear, is grading the themes. The costume is another way in which the setting and technical cinematography works to assist Clark in getting his point across, albeit very subtly. Ralphie imagines that his is the only decent paper which the teacher reads, and he is looking to her to help him in his quest to get the Red Ryder. Therefore, the reason that the woman is dressed in such a way is easy to point out: Ralphie is once again looking for the previous generation to rise again and usurp the power from the overbearing parental government.

However, in reality, no support for Ralphie’s cause is given by his teacher. She gives him a C+ on his theme, rather than the imagined A+++++. The clincher is the comment that she leaves at the end of the paper, which reveals for Ralphie that she is, unfortunately, just like all of the other adults: “You’ll shoot your eye out!”

One of the most memorable scenes in the film, and for me, one of the most memorable scenes in all of cinema is the fight scene between Ralphie and Scott Farkus. Several times in the early part of the film, Scott Farkus terrorizes Ralphie, Randy, and the other boys, twisting their arms and appearing before them in an alleyway. The last appearance of Farkus occurs after Ralphie receives the poor grade on his theme, and is walking home, downtrodden. The audience sees a snowball nail Ralphie in the face. The signature cackle of Farkus soon follows. However, as the narrator says, “A fuse blew” and Ralphie lunges at Farkus, knocking him to the ground and begins pounding his face and stomach. Shortly thereafter, a crowd of children gathers on the other side of the fence, and one of them exclaims, “Hey! It’s Ralphie!” while others shout “Kill him! Beat him up!”

As Farkus is an older boy, he represents the bridge between the ruling class and the would-be rulers. It is no coincidence that the fight seen takes place in an alleyway, between Ralphie’s school and his home. Ralphie, after he and his generation have been kicked around for the majority of the film, begins to rise up and challenge his authority figures.

However, the fear instilled by the ruling class is so great, that even after Ralphie begins to challenge them, there are still those who fear the repercussions of his doing so. As was mentioned in the beginning of this essay, the line spoken by Randy, “Daddy’s gonna kill Ralphie,” has great importance in the film’s goal of being a movie about societal and political change. In most societies around the world, the father is depicted as the ruler of the household and the family. Randy knows that The Old Man, representing the Reagan-era status quo would not take kindly to hearing that someone of the younger generation is trying to take control of the state away from him. However, the fact that McGavin’s character obviously does not kill Ralphie draws to the light the fact that the father might himself be beginning to question his place in the social system.

In the early minutes of the film, Ralphie’s father is reading the morning paper at the breakfast table, and he mentions the fact that one of his neighbors is going to see the Green Bay/Chicago football game. Football has long been one of the most popular forms of male entertainment. Thusly, many fathers insist on getting their young sons at least one football as a present during their formative years. In the scope of the film, this could be taken as a way for the older members of the ruling class to bequeath the powers that come with being the rulers to the heirs, while still keeping the ideals of the old empire intact. This is the reason why Ralphie writes in his theme: “I don’t think that a football is a very good Christmas present.” Instead, he believes that “Everybody should have a Red Ryder BB gun.” Through this scene, the point is made that while having a football would give the new generation control, it would not be the change that is desired, or, according to the filmmakers, needed. This change could only be brought by Ralphie’s “Old Blue.”

If your parents won’t buy you what you want for Christmas, there is only one thing to do, in Ralphie’s mind: Ask Santa. When Ralphie goes to the department store to visit Santa, he is placed in another metaphoric situation. Santa Claus sits high above the rest of the store on a mountain with stairs on one side and a giant slide on the other. Climbing the staircase in this scene represents the ascention of the younger class into the position, the seat, of power. After waiting for what seems like an eternity, Ralphie is finally allowed to see Santa. However, once he has the opportunity to ask for the Red Ryder, he freezes up, and cannot finish the task that he waited so anxiously to complete. A cause for this could be the fact that Clark wanted to show that the older generation still had tremendous power over the younger, and although the members of younger generation might win little battles, it is incredibly difficult for them to win the war. In a cruel twist of fate, Santa Claus asks Ralphie if he would like a football. Blindly, Ralphie nods his head in dazed agreement, and he is sent down the slide, back down to the position that he had just temporarily risen from. Even though Ralphie stops himself from going down the slide, and asks Santa Claus for the rifle, it is too late, and he is answered with the unfortunately familiar “You’ll shoot your eye out.”

Even though his mother, his teacher, and Santa Claus all denied him what he feels is something next to his birthright (and it should be, given the fact that the rifle is the ultimate symbol of power), Ralphie’s plight does not go unheard. In fact, the very person who comes to Ralphie’s rescue and allows for him to grab hold of the power that he so badly desires is the one person who, given his status in the film, should be the very last person to assist him: The Old Man. After the family finishes opening their Christmas gifts, The Old Man asks Ralphie if he got everything he wanted. The answer is obviously no. However, Ralphie’s father points to an unnoticed present propped behind a desk. Ralphie immediately retrieves it, to find the marvelous face of Red Ryder staring at him. He has finally been given the power that he wants in the way that he wants it. The Old Man’s reasoning behind giving into his son’s wishes is simply, “I had one when I was eight years old.”

Though it took him a long time, McGavin’s character finally realized that he cannot be in control forever, and he must make it possible for the younger generation to rule. Even though it may not be the way he himself is ruling now, he is reminded that the way things were when he was a boy might have actually been better than they are today, and entrusts in his son the duty to return to the glory days where the American dream wasn’t just a number of zeros on a paycheck.