(The Muppet) Christmas Carol vs. Disability Tropes

Listen, it's the best version, I'm not going to back down on that. But also good movies aren't immune to criticism.

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[doodleplayer]

I think that even a short part of a scene where he looks sad or scared would help fir his character development a lot. Sure he'd still only exist for Ebenezer's sake, but he'd have nuance. You could show Tim being sad ir scared when others aren't looking, but staying cheery for his family. That's good character writing.

[jadelinny]

In historical context, Dickens' "radical" social commentary was that poor and/or disabled people were humans worthy of living a decent life. For a long time in England (and I assume many other European countries, based off their folk tales), ugly equaled evil and poor/disabled people had done something to deserve their poorness/disability. (Of course there was the trope of the clever maid or youngest son that goes out and wins their fortune, but of course they didn't STAY poor, presumably because of their goodness/cleverness).

Dickens had some of the first sympathetic poor characters (eg. Oliver Twist, Tiny Tim, even Bob Cratchit). So given that social stigma he was working against, a poor disabled person (that was a child to boot) basically NEEDED to be a perfect angel saint in order for readers to care about his situation.

All that being said, this story was written close to 200 years ago, and perhaps modern retellings could give Tiny Tim a little more nuance.

[markgaydosh]

“Objectively most superior form”

Correct

[baldbeardedbloke]

As a disabled person I know that you are absolutely correct. I actually like The Muppets Christmas Carol but I can't wait to see A Christmas Carol from the POV of an angry frustrated scared Tim Cratchet.

[brianedner]

I 100% agree that this is the best of the adaptations, and suprisingly one of the more accurate and true to the book.

[Jupiterfangs]

I think that at the time, a Christmas Carol had good disability rep, and was groundbreaking, which is why it’s still so famous but I think modern adaptions shouldn’t just run with the story as it is since it plays into so many tiring tropes. Just because it was groundbreaking then, doesn’t mean it is now. I’m so sick of people thinking that old literature, just because it’s old, is completely flawless.

[sworddragonsliege]

Great video.
I also get peeved when the daughters always look like the mother and the sons always look like the father, even in non-anthropomorphic stuff. People also like to pretend it's the case in real life, I would always get compared to my mother, despite sharing more features with my father, and boy did it disphoria.

[L_Aster]

The frustrating thing is that it would have been so easy to flesh out tiny Tim, and it would have made his role that much more impactful. When bob tells his wife why tiny Tim wanted to go to church, maybe he sounds more worried, and when we pan to tiny Tim he looks like he’s putting on a smile. Scrooge still comments on what a remarkable child he is, and the ghost of Christmas present agrees, but adds “wouldn’t you try to give whatever small joys you can, if your family gave everything they had for you?”. Something like that that shows tiny Tim feels guilty- I used to do the same, try to do everything I could for my family to “make up for” my disability

[SqualorOpera]

Ngl I heard the “To see the man who made lame beggars walk and blind men see” and I thought “Oh he wants to be a doctor and he wants the people there to remember that they knew him beforehand” why did I not think of Jesus while watching a Christmas film

[Goomzz]

I'd love to get a version that shows some time after Scrooge has been good, showing Tim, still disabled with his crutch, but cured of his deadly illness. Making sure the viewers know that it's not his bad leg that's the issue, and that disabled people can live long happy lives.

[nomisunrider]

It should be noted that Muppet Christmas Carol does improve on the story in one way: in the original his disability is completely cured and he learns to walk again, whereas here he remains disabled but doesn’t die and that’s enough for the happy ending.
But yeah, I agree. A character who might have been groundbreaking when “maybe we shouldn’t leave disabled children to die” was considered progressive just doesn’t have the same ring over a century later.

[robbiegarber]

I think there's a lot of work to be done by the line

"he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see."

This has been continually interpreted as Tiny Tim wanting to be redemptive to others. However, consider it with even the slightest twinge of sarcasm, and you get a completely different message. Because he "who made lame beggars walk and blind men see" hadn't helped Tim diddly squat.

And while Tiny Tim's role in making others think about more than themselves during the season still remains, it can become less of an invocation of pity and more of a judgement against the lack of charity and goodwill they display.

[thegayghost]

I’m surprised, with the hundreds of Christmas Carol adaptations out there, there’s never been a version with Tiny Tim as the protagonist

[Fairygoblet]

I think the mistake people make is interpreting Tiny Tim through a modern lens. The problem isn't with the Trope itself, it's that Humanity hasn't progressed much past it. Tiny Tim is very much implied in the novels to be suffering from severe malnutrition ( probably rickets, according to one video I've seen, which can in severe cases make bones soft and cause deformities likeTims) and victorians would have understood this instantly. Social work in these days was not a defined field, so people of little means often relied on private charities.

Scrooge is directly responsible for the fate of this little lad, but for the message to get through his ignoramus skull, Tiny Tim would have to be a kind, virtuous, almost saintly little gentleman. Scrooge is not a character who deals well with subtlety. If he had been able to find a loophole, some reason why Tiny Tim was the Surplus population and not him, he would have found one. He had spent his life in denial of his role in this family's misery, and would have continued to do so had Tiny Tim been found at fault in any way. Dickens was in no way saying that everybody should handle poverty and sickness and disability in the way the cratchits did; on the contrary, he presents them as an anomaly if anything. Why else would the cratchets have been held in such high regard? We see poor people ransacking Scrooge's stuff in the third Act of the book. Poor people are not righteous by default, only the cratchets. You could make an argument for Scrooge's girlfriend, but I never got the impression that she was at the same level of destitution when she broke up with scrooge.

The reason Tiny Tim is considered such a hated stereotype by disabled people, a group I'm a part of myself, is how we are all expected to follow Tiny Tim's example in a very modern way, while still holding to Modern values. We are expected to bear our lot quietly and not complain, not because we are in a terrible situation and complaining could make it worse, ( seriously, could you imagine if a cratchet dared to complain and it got back to pre-redemption scrooge? They'd be ruined.) but because people don't want to hear us complain. The cratchets are no longer a family that deserve things because of the content of their characters and the fact that they are humans in need, but the example everybody is expected to follow. Don't complain. Don't Rock the boat. Dickens presented the idea that we are all called to choose how we respond to our circumstances, and Scrooge learned to hold himself to the same standards. He didn't say we shouldn't try to make some noise to make change, quite the contrary.

I would actually argue that the Muppets did create a better characterization for modern times. We don't see Tiny Tim complain, but he's also a child that clearly does not fully grasp the situation his family is in. We see Emily and Bob struggle with what Tim could have struggled with, were he a bit older. And who's to say in his later years, Tim won't have questions for Scrooge about how his family was treated? But nobody really thinks that way about the book. Tim is just taken as the one-dimensional archetype he appears to be, and as a result a lot of people in the disabled Community are bitter after being compared to a little boy.

[lauramarschmallow]

the problem is, that Tiny Tim NEEDS to be liked by the reader/viewer, because his whole purpose within the story is to be grieved. if he was either a brat or raises points as to "his family would have been better off without him" Scrooge (and the Audience this book was written for) could justify his death à la "now the Cratchets have enough money to feed all their hungry mouths, Scrooge didn't need to raise Cratched's pay." Around the time "a Christmas carol" was published a NOT INSIGNIFICANT amount of wealth owning people were of the impression, that starvation of the poor was a good thing. You need an empathy-hook which needs to be pure and kind.

and to top it all off: Scrooge only visits them in one scene, you cannot be a debby downer all the time.

[packman]

Honestly I was thinking while watching this (as someone not admittedly that familiar with Christmas Carol) that it would probably be really easy to just add a scene where Scrooge talks to Tiny Tim during the Ghost of Christmas Present section. Might be a bit on the nose but in terms of making Tim a more complex character, just giving him the chance to put words to his own situation can make a lot of space for dealing with or even just implying these big, difficult emotions that come with the situation he's going through.

[artandme_]

I actuality knew a child who died of cancer and tiny tim reminded me of her. For the majority of the time she was (or at least seem) positive. She accepted everyone for who they are. She was the only person i knew who accepted my autism. I don't know how she felt because she didn't want to talk about it.

Tiny tim reminded me of her. Unfortunately money didn't safe her life.

Rest in peace sweety

[camiojeda]

My one defense for Tiny Tim’s depiction is that is was incredibly progressive at the time, showing that all life is valuable even if you don’t contribute to the greater economy.

[sensarna]

I think that the best way to include Tiny Tim's thoughts on the matter (in my opinion) would've been if The Ghost of the Christmas Present used his magic to let Scrooge hear his inner monolog that shows his fears and anxieties. It could also partially save the "inspirational disability/cancer" thing by adding something like "I will still smile to lessen my family's worries".

Also, just a food for thought or boost for later, I was wondering if you could share your opinions on the "the loss of self paralleled by the loss of body parts" trope that I sometimes see in Scifi (I haven't watched all your videos so I don't really know if you covered this topic yet). It's sometimes works for me as a form of exchange or payment if, for example, the additional functions of the prosthetics are too complex or taxing for the human brain so it kinda overloads (I think Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and No Guns Life handle this sort of thing relatively well? And also maybe that one episode of Teen Titans) but in some cases it's either just to add some horror or tragic aspect to the story which might not work all the time (Gundam: Thunderbolt and Gundam: IBO have protagonists that gradually lose body parts/mobility as the plot progresses and while in one case it can be justified as an exchange for power boost in the other its mostly parallels with the characters graduall descent into "war madness").

In any case thank you for the video.

[Logitah]

Yeah... Children weren't really written that well during Victorian times (I have investigated this during my studies). The first believable child character in Victorian literature was Lewis Carroll's Alice (who was based on an actual child).