The Meaning of Christmas Spirit in “Elf” (2003)

Half the plot involves a man reuniting with his father—and his species—after being raised by Christmas elves. The other involves saving Christmas itself from the growing cynicism of humanity. And so like many of its genre, the film “Elf” connects Christmas spirit to the sorts of bonds that hold together families and communities, despite their inevitable tendencies towards conflict and dissolution. Indeed, there’s a sense in which Christmas elves are, in making gifts, hard at work maintaining the social fabric against the forces of individual selfishness. But in this story, the elf in question turns out to be a bumbling man-child—a holy fool of sorts—who helps re-enchant communal life by holding up its social deficits to a naive mirror. Wes & Erin discuss this 2003 classic, what it means to believe in Christmas, and how this is connected to the possibility of a genuine community. Upcoming Episodes: “Julius Caesar.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:19 Erin: or patreon.com/subtextpodcast. 0:32 Wes: Half the plot involves a man reuniting with his father and his species after being raised by Christmas elves. The other involves saving Christmas itself from the growing cynicism of humanity. And so, like many of its genre, the film Elf connects Christmas spirit to the sorts of bonds that hold together families and communities despite their inevitable tendencies towards conflict and dissolution. Indeed, there's a sense in which Christmas elves are, in making gifts, hard at work maintaining the social fabric against the forces of individual selfishness. But in this story, the elf in question turns out to be a bumbling man child, a holy fool of sorts, who helps re enchant communal life by holding up its social deficits to a naive mirror. Today we discuss this 2003 classic, what it means to believe in Christmas, and how this is connected to the possibility of a genuine community. This is Wes Alwan. This is Erin O'Luanaigh, and you're listening to Subtext. So, Erin, did you believe in Santa Claus growing up? 1:33 Erin: I did. I remember when I stopped believing. 1:36 Wes: How old were you? 1:37 Erin: I think I was maybe five. I asked my mom if Santa was real, and she said, what do you think? And that was when I knew. I think it was actually from watching so many Christmas movies in which kids don't believe. And there's actually an element of these movies that kind of gives it away for kids that are maybe too young to be watching them or not, you know, like the target audience, I think I was for many of them, but there are so many questioning children. So many, so much crisis of faith, crises of faith in these films. And I picked up on that. That's why I asked her. And then she said, what do you think? And I was like, if it's not an immediate yes, then I'm guessing it's a no. 2:22 Wes: Right? 2:23 Erin: How old are you? 2:24 Wes: I never believed in Santa Claus, actually. 2:28 Erin: That makes a lot of sense. 2:30 Wes: Really? Are you calling me a cynic? So Christmas was very, very exciting for me as a kid. Still, Santa Claus wasn't required. It felt very magical, anyway. And then it occurred to me. So, yeah, so what are we doing? Why are we deceiving children in this way? Why are we brainwashing them? To believe in something that they're going to eventually find out is not true. 2:57 Erin: Well, if that's what you took from 2:59 Wes: this movie, couldn't we just do it with all the lights and presents and the. Do we need a mythical fat man giving out the presents, going down the chimney, doing all these very implausible things that with just a little rationality you can figure out? Yeah, that's not happening. I don't even have a chimney. 3:25 Erin: That's right. I liked that element in the Santa Claus, which we'll have to cover next year. But that element where they explain. Is that the movie where they explain how Santa comes into houses without chimneys and he goes through the radiator? 3:37 Wes: I don't know that I've seen it. 3:38 Erin: The Tim Allen Santa Claus. You've not seen it? 3:41 Wes: No, I haven't. 3:42 Erin: Well, wow. 3:43 Wes: It's possible, but it would have been so long ago, but I don't remember. But I'm not a big Tim Allen fan, honestly. 3:49 Erin: Yeah, I can't say that I am either, but I think that came out when I was right at the age to watch it. 3:55 Wes: Do you still get the warm and fuzzy feeling from Christmas or. 3:59 Erin: Oh, of course. I love Christmas. I love Christmas. That's my favorite thing. I don't know if we're going to get. I'll be up front. I don't know if we're going to get more than half an hour out of this movie. Do you have a. Do you have a grand philosophical interpretation 4:15 Wes: of something you would. 4:18 Erin: I took a few years. 4:19 Wes: I did a little work on this. I did some research into. 4:23 Erin: You did. 4:25 Wes: I did some research into elves, actually. And then I thought, well, he's human. What the fuck am I doing? Like, he's not even a real elf. Why do I care? I was curious about how the history of the mythology. I didn't get too much into it. And then how that evolved into there being Christmas elves, which, you know, it turns out not to be that interesting. Someone put it in the story and Santa was called a jolly elf at one point, you know, in a story. And then he had these little helper elves. I liked the beginning of this movie where they sort of run through a few different elements of. Well, I don't know if it's. You would call it elf mythology, but one of them is. One is straight out of the Brothers Grimm, right? The cobbler goes to sleep and then the elves make the shoes. And I didn't reread the fairy tale. I remember reading it as a kid and enjoying it. A lot. And actually, it was just a few years ago. I think I reread every Grimm fairy tale, but I don't remember any of the other details. Like why wasn't the cobbler making his own shoes? Do you remember? 5:27 Erin: No, I have not read that, I think, since I was a kid. Yeah, yeah. 5:31 Wes: But in the film, the elves, as the narrator is describing all of this, you get little vignettes. And so in this one, the elves call the guy a lazy bum, which I thought was very interesting in light of all the other little riffs that they do on the industriousness of the elves as compared to human beings. And, you know. Right. So Buddy is. He's only making 85 Etch A Sketches in the required time. Who knows? I don't remember if they said what that time is, if that's at every day, whereas the quota is 1000. Or the fact that the elves are happy being at work constantly. And as soon as Christmas is over, they celebrate. And you think it's the time for them to relax, but they just begin working again for. For the next Christmas. So that interested me, this idea of potentially as helpers, but something that offsets the fact. So they sort of become embodiments of industriousness and complement us to the extent that we lack it. If you go backwards in the mythology, they're a little bit more sinister elves. Right. And they could help or they could hurt, but they could be causes of sickness. And it's not really until, I think, the 18th and 19th century, they get. Well, actually, no, as early as Renaissance, and the Renaissance with Shakespeare, for instance, where they kind of get conflated with fairies. And so they might be mischievous, but not necessarily evil. Right. And then you get this evolution into what we see in Grimm and then what we see with Christmas. So they are sort of an ad hoc. A very ad hoc addition to a very ad hoc tradition, this Christmas pagan tradition that's been fused with Christianity. 7:14 Erin: I think in Tolkien, he makes this a little bit more explicit, but it's almost like they're angels. 7:20 Wes: Yeah. 7:20 Erin: You know, there's an angelic quality where they're. They're there to sort of prop up humanity. For Christmas elves, it's just on the one day, I suppose. But, yeah, there's something like they spend their whole lives, like guardian angels or something, sort of taking care of, looking after humans. And I think in Tolkien, this, the extent. I don't know if there's. If there's a vast trove of secondary literature about the 2003 elf. But all I did was look at the IMDb trivia page, which actually I had to give up. There are so many hundreds of entries on the IMDb trivia page for Elf. But it was fascinating, and I reread the Roger Ebert review to see what he had to say, and not surprisingly, he loved it. But the IMDb trivia page mentioned that Jon Favreau put in so many Lord of the Rings references throughout the movie, which I thought I had picked up on at one point. I can't remember the exact point, but I had no idea the extent to which the two were overlapping. You know, even the. The shot of Buddy crossing the mountains, you know, the snowy mountaintop. Apparently that was footage from Lord of the Rings that I don't know. Yeah. Like, it didn't. It didn't go into detail. So maybe. And maybe it wasn't even correct, because I know these things can be added by users. So I don't even know how it looked very realistic. It didn't look like that was digitally added, that Buddy was digitally added in. So I don't know if that's even true. But it certainly looks like the snowy mountaintop that they're all going across in Fellowship. 8:43 Wes: Yeah. And Tolkien is working off a, you know, I guess a Nordic or Icelandic tradition in which elves can be these. Well, they're angelic, as you said. At a certain point in the history, they become something more and more angelic. And in any case, they always are mediators between humanity and another. Right. Supernatural world. 9:05 Erin: That's right. 9:06 Wes: And a supernatural world that's more pagan, more associated with nature as opposed to. Right. A monotheistic, transcendent deity. 9:16 Erin: There's a reading of this film in which Walter is the protagonist and Will Ferrell, fulfilling the function of an elf in the film is kind of the Clarence who comes down to George Bailey. 9:29 Wes: I was going to make that comparison to Clarence. Yeah. 9:32 Erin: Even though he goes through his own crisis. There's the scene on the bridge that Buddy. It's clearly shot to reference It's Wonderful Life, the bridge scene where he's kind of giving up, and that's when he sees Santa's sleigh descending on Central Park. Oh, it was the Ringwraiths. That was it. It was the Central park rangers as the Ringwraiths. That was. 9:52 Wes: Oh, yes, yes, of course. 9:54 Erin: The moment that it triggered that connection to Lord of the Rings. And then I saw on the trivia page that that was quite deliberate. 10:00 Wes: Right, right. You brought up Clarence, who I think is sort of adjacent to this, there's this holy fool theme, right? So you see it in various movies, like being there, even Charlie Chaplin's Tramp. It's all over literature. Myshkin in Dostoevsky's the Idiot, Alyosha to some extent, and then film again. Forrest Gump, you know. And it's something that has deep roots in Christianity, of course, right? Mystic fools and prophets and things like that. And. And also in ancient Greece, right, The cynics who sort of ignore social conventions. So whether you're ignoring social conventions, I mean, the fool is oblivious to all these social conventions. So that sets up this interesting satire on society as we know it. Because it's too cynical, it's too self aware, in a sense. It's so self aware that it loses sight of itself. Its self awareness becomes too cynical. 10:57 Erin: When I was thinking about what we were going to talk about today on my notepad, the only thing that I had in the upper right hand corner, which is where I write themes that I'd like to talk about on the podcast, the only two words I had were cynicism and sugar. And I thought that looks like the world's most depressing breakfast cereal or something. Cynicism, sugar. But then luckily I did. I went for a walk and had a chance to sort of cogitate a little more about this. And. And I did think about certain religious connections in the film. I wanna address what you. What you've already said about work. It occurred to me how much the film is about work. And that also then made me think about. Of course I'm gonna think about this faith in works and the idea of the religious conversion as being sort of essential to the Christmas movie. So I mean, in a way that's kind of every movie. You could argue that whatever sort of growth the protagonist undergoes maybe is a religious conversion. But because this belief in Santa thing, a common trope in these Christmas movies, and usually a cynical parent has to undergo some faith conversion over the course of the film, or maybe a cynical kid or something. That seems like a stand in, of course, for a belief in some sort of larger religion. Larger than the belief in Santa Claus, if there is such a religion. But we could take either one of those things and I think it'll lead us back to the other eventually. 12:20 Wes: So work and faith, are you saying? 12:22 Erin: Yeah, the connection maybe between creativity and work is one which is. Which really interested me. And maybe that would kind of lead us into faith as well, this creative idea. Because as you mentioned, there's a huge emphasis on work from the Very beginning of the film. And the elves, I don't know if they comply with union guidelines about working hours and stuff like that. I mean, there seems to be a great deal of creativity in what they do or sort of implied creativity, or they're extremely resourceful, even as there's a. An assembly line quality and a literal churning things out because you're 1,900 something behind the pace. And something about their work, which maybe in Elfland and in the North Pole seems a little bit rote to us. It translates as creativity in the human world somehow. And the elves seem very satisfied with it. This is their whole purpose. And they're really happy to make all this stuff. And they're really happy to start working again. As soon as Santa comes back from delivering all the presents, they're happy to start all over again. So I have all this energy. And so maybe creativity is slightly the wrong word. But their sort of Venn diagram, say, of this work and creativity or energy or something is sort of perfect circle. Whereas the atmosphere in New York City seems to be one of creative depletion. And that is a theme that's revisited again and again in all the New York scenes. You know that Walter, our first introduction to him, besides taking the books away from that nun, is. You know, that he signed off on a children's book that's missing two pages. May. Somebody would watch that and say he's abandoning his own inner child or something like that. But to me, he's just not doing a good job at his work. His head writers want to bring in another writer to save the publishing house to create this new. So the writers can't even do their job. They're sort of tapped or depleted creatively. Gimbels is kind of. We get the idea that it's sort of a sad place to work. Except for Buddy and his judging the toyland up. The supervisor assumes that Gimbels has sent someone in from corporate because it's too good. It's a little too good, I think he says. I even saw it in the world's best cup of coffee in that diner. That's sort of overly energetic and cliched marketing for what's ultimately a poor product. There's something missing. There's some spark that's gone. And Buddy imports that from the North Pole. 14:53 Wes: Well, just to back up a little bit, the reason why I asked you about whether you believed in Santa Claus is because I thought it was very interesting that in these films, right, at a. At a literal level, the thing that people are Being converted to believe is obviously something that we none of us believe. It's supposed to be this big magical moment when Santa Claus shows up in real life as if it's like the return of Christ or something like that. But you know, how are we supposed to get much feeling out of that when it's something none of us believe in? So I thought that was very interesting. In the end, of course it is about spirit. I think, as you were getting at, part of that is about creativity, but it's more about spirit in general. So in the movie it's specifically Christmas spirit, which depends on whether or not you believe in Santa Claus. And then probably more broadly about whether you're more generous or more cynical. And there's a lot of other associated qualities which I would just think of as maybe spirit in general. Part of the lack of spirit is about the day to day cynicism that develops because our social relations are so necessarily false. So that's what the world, you know, the world's best cup of coffee. We simply lie all the time. You know, you can call them white lies, right. So we don't think that the putting the world's best cup of coffee on a sign. We would never think, oh, that's ridiculous. Even though it is ridiculous at a literal level. It's not only a lie, it's just a crazy lie. This is the place of the world's best cup of coffee. So when you insert a character, that environment who does take everything literally and also in a childlike way expects people to be honest, it's kind of hilarious, right? On the one hand his naivete is funny, but on the other hand it's funny that we're so dishonest in these ways in our social interactions. 16:41 Erin: Yeah, that makes me think too of the theme of decline in the film. So there's the creative depletion in New York, but there's also the idea which we get from, from Santa, which I should say, you know, I don't know if you need Christmas spiritual of this movie or just 70s TV spirit, because I'm just happy to see Bob Newhart and Ed Asner. You know, I want to believe in Ed Asner, Lou Grant, the world's best boss. Of course he can. Of course he can inspire the troops. You know, there's this idea that there used to be an abundance of Christmas spirit, now there isn't. We get a little bit of this 60s kind of flavor with James Caan's relationship with Susan Wells and giving up Buddy for adoption and something being Lost there culturally. Because I was thinking about the fact that we could just argue that Will Ferrell is someone from the past. You know, reminded me of the movie Blast from the Past with Brendan Fraser, where he comes out of the bunker after 30 years. And, you know, I don't think I've seen it. Okay. It's literally. It's just a twist on a time travel movie. It's this idea of an idealized past where everybody had Christmas spirit, believed in things. You know, it was the forties or something like. And in a way, it's as though Will Ferrell's character is not from the North Pole. He's just from an idealized American past before some sort of rupture, the kind of rupture that the movie sort of gestures in the direction of with the James Caan thing, you know, with the backstory there, before some sort of rupture happened. And, you know, whatever. Vietnam and the entrance of this kind of mass cynicism and the decline of whatever mom and pop stores and apple pies cooling on windowsills or whatever. Whatever the. The, you know, the symbol of this. Right. So that seems to be an element there as well, that there was a time where maybe that sign, world's best cup of coffee was true. And Will Ferrell is taking that. Or Buddy, I should say, is taking that at face value in a way that somebody who got out of a time machine might take it at face value that it's not just this childlike thing, but a sort of collective innocence that he seems to represent there. 18:50 Wes: Yeah. I like this idea of an idealized past because it points to the fact that the impulse is to reform ourselves in the sense of becoming less cynical and doing all the things associated with that. And I think it probably means as well, Right. Being closer to one's family. So Walter, for instance, being a better dad and a better member of his family. And that's certainly. You know, that's certainly the thing. I mentioned Christmas being kind of magical. When I was a kid, I felt closeness to my family was a big part of it. And I had, like, five siblings. I had this desire, this hope that we would all live together forever. Little did I know how. Be careful what you wish for, but not that it happened. I guess it. 19:34 Erin: My case is the be careful what you wish for. 19:37 Wes: Right. Right. You learn as you get older that the idealized versions of these relationships go away and the real ones are much more complicated. And, of course, the idealized versions of the past that we have are not real. But I Think part of this is important because also too just the location. New York City plays this role, or at least it did at the time. And it plays this role a lot in 80s movies, I think, where it's sort of the gruff exterior with a heart of gold type of place, where New York is dog eat dog and it's a place of people are going to make it and make money and all these things. But you get this interesting combination in New York of incredible aspiration and desire to do important things, to do big things, which is really inspiring. And it's inspiring for me, just even when I'm in the city, it's an inspiring place. And then the undercurrent of cynicism that goes with that. So it's an interesting contradiction and a great location for a film like this because in some sense, what's happening right when the spirit is restored, when people believe in Santa again, you're kind of having your cake and eating it too. You're getting all this aspirational stuff, which the city already, in a sense, has. But you're cutting out the more competitive and maybe more narcissistic element of that. So the part of work, just getting back to this work theme which involves love, or love of what you're doing, and creativity is preserved in the part that's just competitive and about narcissism. Like with the Miles character. Right. The great children's author who's full of himself. Standish. Is that his name? 21:11 Erin: Miles Finch. 21:13 Wes: Finch. 21:14 Erin: Different Miles. We just had Thanksgiving. Miles Standish is a pilgrim. 21:21 Wes: Right. That's crazy. That is crazy. Yeah. The unconscious is a weird thing. All right, so what's his name again? I can't even think of. 21:30 Erin: Miles Finch. 21:31 Wes: The real name. Miles Finch. Yeah, that's what I wanted to say. In line with your ideas about work. New York is a place of work and a place of creative work and great aspirations. And we. Part of the desire seems to be to give full voice to the parts of work that involve love and generosity and again, loving what you do. And then to de emphasize the parts that are more about self interest. 21:55 Erin: I like that. This characterization of the undercurrent of cynicism seems to have taken over the whole city. Right. With this creativity crisis that they're having. And it seems that Buddy is capable of seeing the city anew. It's almost like everybody has watched too many movies that take place in New York and they've become desensitized to the magic of the place and, you know, sort of symbolized in his Little snow globe, which. 22:21 Wes: Right. And the Empire State Building. I wanted to bring that up. Right. Yeah. This just sort of iconic symbol of emblem of ambition and aspiration. 22:30 Erin: That's right. Yeah. For me, it's the Chrysler Building. I always thought the Empire State Building was sort of ruined by being too blocky on the bottom. 22:36 Wes: Yeah. 22:38 Erin: But I still love it. I still love it. But, yeah, the snow globe, which you might think is just the kind of cheap trinket that you would get in New York. That would almost be too cliche or something to get a snow globe. Unless you're the kind of person who collects that sort of thing. But that's what he's about. Seeing the place anew. Seeing the. Rather than letting the cynicism be dominant, Letting the aspiration and the magic and the wonder of the city be dominant. And so getting excited about the elevator buttons that light up or the revolving doors or the Christmas trees, which, you know, everybody seems to be just walking by except for Buddy, who's really appreciating them, and then gets to see the Rockefeller center tree. So, yeah, I like that a lot. 23:15 Wes: I think the other aspect here, it's about family, as I mentioned, and about community. And that's something that. Right. The urban environment seems to undermine, as opposed to. Right. Smaller villages or communities. I think when you think of elves, you think of. And fairies, you think of these more rustic environments. Right. They're associated with nature, and they come from nature. And in a way, you might see it as representative of what the city excludes ultimately. So as it undermines community, it's unlivable for the spirit world. 23:48 Erin: I'd love to make more of this if we can, because I think there's something we could say about the fact that Walter doesn't even know he has this son. And in a way, that's sort of emblematic of an urban environment. Everybody is sort of estranged from each other, or strangers are living half on top of each other in this way that. I love the fact that this. That Gimbel's, you know, sort of imagined as being, I guess, in the vicinity of Macy's and therefore kind of close to the Empire State Building. That you don't quite know why Walter would be walking by the Gimbel store window on his way to the Empire State Building. But regardless, maybe he would. But, yeah, you know, he sees Buddy asleep in the window. So there's this coincidence element of everybody, like, being kind of thrown together. I might have mentioned this in our Rear Window episode. I'm not sure if I did, but I used to see there was a time where whenever I would go into the city, I would run into people that I knew. And there was a billboard that was right over the escalator in Grand Central in a place that I would always use this particular escalator because of where my train usually this was at a time when I was taking the train into New York three, four times a week. And the billboard said, 8 million people in this city. And you have to run into that guy or something. Something like that. You know, like the billboard was commenting on this phenomenon of somehow of everybody being half on top of you and having strangers half on top of you, but also that you could be next to on a subway, someone who you might have some sort of connection with and never know it because of the anonymity of that. So there's a closeness and yet emotional estrangement at the same time. And then the surprise when that's when you actually do see someone who you, in fact, recognize. And how uncanny that can be, specifically in the city environment where you're passing hundreds of faces which are anonymous to you in any given moment. And I wonder if there's something to be said about the flip side of that. Like the North Pole environment. I was thinking about the fact that everybody has names that are just like Ming Ming and Choo Choo. And there's a certain. You know, they all have the double names and they all. Because they're all the same height and. Except for Buddy, obviously, because they're all the same height and they're all the same. They have these elfin features. They all look like they're part of one family. But then there's also a kind of anonymity in that as well. Like, there are a few distinguishing features among them. I don't know whether that's a mirror of the urban environment in New York. If that's a sort of topsy turvy element, if it's pulled inside out, where you have an environment that's crowded but everybody looks like you, as opposed to a diverse, crowded environment. I'm not sure what to say about that, but I just want to bring it up because it seems relevant and it seems related to this idea of having a son you don't know about in the same city as you. He traveled to get there. But, you know, that kind of principle. 26:39 Wes: Yeah. It's interesting. You mentioned how, in a way, Walter is also the protagonist. Right? Buddy's the protagonist. Walter is the protagonist. On the one hand, Buddy is a kind of angelic figure like Clarence and helping Walter change, or like the spirits in A Christmas Carol with Scrooge or any other sort of mentor figure or catalyst figure. Although often there it's an interesting spin on that to make that person the holy fool. So Buddy gets his own problem that has to be solved because it seems like he's. He doesn't have any problems really. If you can enjoy pop tarts and candy on spaghetti, I don't think you need much else in life. Yeah, I guess. I guess the. The. His problem is twofold, right? Yeah. He finds himself in a. In a community. In it. Well, is it a real community? Right. It's a place of spirit, but it's a place of. If there's kind of a source of spirit in the world, that's the source. Maybe, but maybe it's too pure. Right. It's a place where people just love to do assembly line work, for instance. They've got the spirit, but it means they're willing to work 24 hours a day in the factory. And so it turns what would otherwise be a dystopian environment. And that's what the satire of the movie is playing with, right? This idea of these industrious helper elves being essentially depressed wage slaves or something like that. Well, without even a wage. 28:08 Erin: So just regular slaves. 28:10 Wes: So. So, right. So in other words, there's. There's something potentially superficial about that environment. You know, any idealized or mythological environment is necessarily superficial in one way or another, I think. So Buddy's problem, I think is. Is threefold, right? He finds out that he doesn't belong to that community because he's not of the right race or species. I don't know, which is an interesting way to put it. But. So, so he doesn't belong. But he also doesn't belong in the sense that he's human and an other world. It's a non human world, which is. Right. Something much more important than a racial distinction. Because the human world has this important relationship to the non human world, to the spiritual world. It needs that source, right? It needs that injection from this other world just to be the human world. The human world needs the alien in order to be what it is in this interesting way. But you can't just be off in that alien world fully and expect to belong to it. So Buddy doesn't have a community in the fullest sense up in the North Pole. He has to come back down to Earth, so to speak, to humanity to get that. And at the same time, it's gonna mean finding A father figure within that world. Not just an infinitely benign Bob Newhart type of father, but a real father. 29:32 Erin: Yeah. That's good. That helps me to understand what's kind of weirdly similar about the North Pole and New York City. Because in the North Pole, of course, he stands out. He's six, three, or however tall he is. And, yeah, not of the same species or whatever we can say. 29:49 Wes: And he's Will Ferrell, which just adds a lot. 29:51 Erin: And he's Will Ferrell. 29:52 Wes: Craziness to him. 29:53 Erin: Exactly. And then, you know, and then in New York, he also doesn't fit in. So there are these two communities in which the elves are united by their love of assembly line work and their spirit, et cetera. And then the New York community is reunited by anonymity and cynicism. And that is also a world in which he does not. He's not a natural fit, though. He adapts and also gets it to adapt to him. I mean, there's a way that he's read immediately in the film. I mean, this is also the great thing about New York is that he could be walking down the street in this elf costume and people don't really look at him. But then he's instantly read in the Empire State Building as being a Christmas gram, you know, so there's a way in which she doesn't actually attract all that much attention. 30:36 Wes: Remarkably, there's lots of people in costumes on the streets of New York. 30:39 Erin: That's right. You could be. Be whatever type of person you are, as long as you're cynical and keep to yourself. 30:46 Wes: Freak flag. Yeah. There should have been a nightclub scene or something. 30:52 Erin: Right, Right. 30:53 Wes: He comes all the way to New York and he meets this manic pixie girl. 30:56 Erin: Well, she's not in this film, but. Yeah. 30:59 Wes: You don't think she is. 31:00 Erin: She's pixie, like, I suppose, but she's not the. She's not the typical manic pixie dream girl. 31:06 Wes: I don't know where the manic pixie girl is. 31:07 Erin: I think. You don't? No. No offense. The. The. The trope is, you know, the muse who's this dreamy, you know, gets the guy to loosen up and connect him to his creative side. And the word manic in the title, as well as she's full of energy and Vim. 31:28 Wes: Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking she's kind of quirky and. Yeah, right. So he's not the cynic. So he can't. 31:35 Erin: Her Persona is. She's a sort of deflated version of herself in this film. Yeah. 31:39 Wes: Right, right. There's the manic one, right, Buddy? Yeah. It's not like he's gonna be brought out of his shell, but yeah, she's a facilitator. So she's elf. Like, maybe the word pixie is what I'm focusing on, but there is an actual elf like quality to her. She's small and she dresses up as an elf department store. I just think they're taking that too seriously. 32:00 Erin: Well, she has elfin features. You know, she has big eyes, elfin features, sort of heart shaped face. 32:06 Wes: And she's quite. What is the word? Chill. 32:09 Erin: Are elves chill? 32:11 Wes: No, but I'm thinking she stands out from the crowd. 32:16 Erin: She sings. 32:16 Wes: She sings. And that's an important part of the movie where she gets over her fear singing in public and facilitates singing with 32:24 Erin: crowd, which is what being an elf is all about. 32:26 Wes: Christmas cheer and Christmas spirit and get the sleigh running again. Let me just put it this way. She's an important mediator. And Buddy's adaptation to that environment, although I'm putting a question mark after that, is she. This is the way I was thinking of it. But does he need her in the film at all or is she just extra? 32:44 Erin: I think that in these Christmas movies, which are about belief, which is most Christmas movies, the person who's not being believed needs at least one ally. Right. Michael sort of fulfills that function. But Jovie, I think, needs to. I think it's important that he's propped up by more than one person. And, you know, it's funny because she's an elf, but she. I guess she sort of integrates the North Pole and New York perfectly in her person because she's also this personification of this cynical place with a heart of gold. Like, she's actually very mushy on the inside. And that's the appeal. That's why she's attracted to whatever it is that Buddy is offering her. A chance to not be cynical. That desire is very, very close to the surface in her, though. It doesn't seem to be. 33:28 Wes: I mean, she comes across as solemn and her water's been turned off and she's working a job that she doesn't particularly enjoy. 33:36 Erin: She can't make those six inches. We both went there right away. 33:41 Wes: Yeah. You really? Okay. It's impossible. I love that scene. 33:44 Erin: Inches. I love that guy. He's great. 33:48 Wes: Yeah. 33:49 Erin: Code word is Santa's got a brand new bag. 33:52 Wes: Yeah. Yeah. I just love the randomness of the whole. Yeah, you gotta cut the ribbons this way. It's impossible. So I guess am I trying to think of her as the mediator's mediator, in a way. But now you have me questioning whether she's really playing that role at all, any role in integrating him into this world, because. Right. So from one perspective, it's just a romantic subplot that every movie needs to have, or most movies need to have, especially comedy. But is it tacked on, or does it thematically line up in some interesting way? And I might just be working, trying too hard here. 34:30 Erin: So if the idea is that everybody needs every. Santa needs someone to believe in them in the movie when nobody believes that they're Santa or nobody believes that they're really an elf, if they need at least one person to verify their legitimacy or to prop them up a little bit. You know, I'm being a little tongue in cheek here, but maybe the idea is that New York has so many people in it that need to be converted that we need at least two people for this particular film. This film needs more. More people propping it up to believe in Buddy. And the more I think about the community element of New York, the more I think that this is really a theme in the film. It's trying to actually turn New York, over the course of the film into a small town, in a way. And the fact that Buddy would have these converts along the way and work on the place like he would if he were in a small town or having entered a small town where he could have these personal relationships. It seems that there are these other mediators who are needed because it's his two initial converts, it's Jovie and Michael who end up helping in that crucial way to get Santa's sleigh off the ground. And we have a local news anchor. Like, there are quite a bit of indications that Jovie and Michael are really the facilitators of Santa's sleigh getting off the ground in that final scene or almost final scene. And over the course of that scene, because of the list and because of the local news, you know, it's New York City, but it's local New York one. Right. Like, New York becomes a small town in that final scene. I think, you know, first of all, we have the fact that because they live off the park, Walter and Emily. Emily, right. I almost said Mary. Like, she's Mary Steenburgen. And it's also like Joseph, Mary, and they have a son. Anyway, you know, they are able to get there really fast because they live right off the park. And then there's this local news anchor who the guy is ribbing her for having just come from Buffalo. So she's moved up into the metropolitan area, but it's still local news. You know, she's doing a little puff piece about people thinking that they've seen Santa. And then when Michael starts reading out the names and everybody in the area is watching, there's this recognition. And Jovie is able to come because she sees it on the news, you know, so there's a. There's that drawing things in. So it's like they live in Mayberry, is what I'm trying to say. There's an element of this which is about belief, which we have to get into, but there's also an element of this that's about recognition. That's a crucial component of the belief, and it's about turning the stranger into someone who you know by name, which seems to be part of this de. Cynicization, you know, the way of cutting through the cynicism of New York, which seems, you know, related to. Part of what's so cynical about it is like the. The anonymity, what you can get away with because of the anonymity of the place. And so that knowing people, that recognition, knowing their name and then knowing what they want, too, that seems. That seems a crucial component of this as well. 37:27 Wes: Yeah. And that seems to be part of the way the Santa myth functions as well. Right. He's got everyone's name on a list. He knows if you're naughty or nice, and he's bringing presents to every single child in the world in one night, doing something impossible. But it shrinks everything, right? 37:45 Erin: Yes. 37:46 Wes: You're supposed to suspend disbelief and think the entire world could be one tiny community in a sense, where. Yeah. If we lived in the village, we could be Santa Claus to that village. We could go around and provide a gift to every family, for instance. So it takes this village feeling, this small community feeling, as you're saying, and makes it feel like you can globalize it. 38:11 Erin: Yeah. And that seems to be that conversion that needs to happen where the world is shrunk. That's New York City. Coming out to meet Buddy. Right. Buddy has to adapt a little bit to. To New York, but it also seems important that New York adapt a little bit to him, that he's going to be a stranger either in the North Pole or New York City, so long as there isn't this adaptation. And it seems to be a mutual one. But I love that idea of shrinking the world as being central to the Santa myth. That's great. 38:39 Wes: Okay. That's the end of part one of our discussion of elf. 38:43 Erin: Can't believe we're making it to two parts. Sorry. 38:46 Wes: Well, the second part may not be so long, but we'll see. 38:51 Erin: I'm impressed. 38:51 Wes: We will. Yeah. I'm sure. I wonder how people are reacting to the, you know, the attempt. 38:57 Erin: We're taking this seriously. 38:59 Wes: We're doing it sophisticated. Yeah. Taking it so seriously. Is that a good thing or bad? 39:02 Erin: Sure. 39:03 Wes: But anyway, it is what it is. It's the format of our show. But yeah, so we will. [email protected] subtextpodcast or right on the Apple app. Or you can wait a week or so into the second part. Thank you. 39:17 Erin: Thank you. And thanks to everyone who listened. 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