You Sit on a Throne of Lies!
On seasonal ambivalence, belonging and the search for your true (s)Elf this holiday season.
The holidays can be a complicated season for many of us, where the focus on spending time with family and coercive participation in quasi spiritualist-capitalist rituals of spending, gifting and making merry, can be just too much. For those of us with complicated family histories, as is the case for many of us in the queer and/or neurodivergent community, this can be a particularly painful time of year.
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My own attitude towards Christmas is marked by ambivalence. On the one hand I love all the twinkly lights, the cosy nights around the fire and the excuse to spend days in my pyjamas and watching classic movies from holiday favourites like Home Alone to the complete director’s cut box set of Lord of the Rings. On the other hand, I’m not Christian, I hate the capitalist debt-drive to spend, spend, spend that gets earlier and earlier each year, and Christmas has served as a painful reminder of the many losses, absences and estrangements that punctuate my family relationships.
I have, for many years, tried to avoid Christmas altogether, spending it in the tropics where coconuts and palm trees help take the edge of the seasonal blues. I have invented my own holiday rituals to share with friends and chosen family. This will be the first Christmas in five years that I will spend in Ireland and it cheers me to know that my wife and I continue to reinvent our Christmas traditions each year as our whims or necessities dictate.
So forget the late-capitalist, consumerist panopticon that is the ‘Elf on The Shelf,’ and join me instead for one of my favourite holiday movies, full of swirly-twirly neurodivergent flavours: Elf.
AutCasts has covered quite a few tales this year centring on a human baby who becomes somehow cut off from the rest of society and is catapulted into an almost unrecognisable human world when he reaches his thirties. He must (re)learn human customs, reconnect with other humans and fall in love. For George it was the jungle, Adam it was a bomb shelter and for Buddy the Elf it’s the North Pole.
Elf is a 2003 holiday comedy directed by Jon Favreau. After sneaking out of his orphanage crib into Santa’s sack as baby, human child Buddy (Will Ferrell) is adopted by the head of Santa’s workshop, Papa Elf (Bob Newhart).1 Buddy lives happily in the North Pole well into adulthood until a series of work-related incidents and comments from his elven community force Buddy to confront the fact that he is a human, rather than the elf he has always believed himself to be. He embarks on a quest to find his human family which takes him out of the North Pole and straight to Manhattan. Buddy finds his father — the scariest man ever to grace children’s publishing, Santino Corleone, ehem, I mean Walter Hobbs (James Caan) — working at a publishing house in the Empire State Building. Between an arrest, restraining order and paternity test, Walter comes to accept Buddy as his son. Walter does not, however, believe Buddy is a real elf until he comes face-to-face with Santa Claus (Edward Asner) in Central Park on Christmas Eve.
Seems like everyone else has the same talents…
Having grow up in the North Pole, on an elven diet of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, elven education and training to prepare him for professional life in Santa’s workshop, Buddy could not be a happier, nor a more committed elf. Despite his larger-than-average size and lack of dexterity Buddy doesn’t, at least consciously, realise he’s any different to the tiny elves he was raised alongside.
For the rest of the elves working for Santa is a job they sign up for voluntarily, but for Buddy it feels more like a way of life, a spiritual vocation, or a very special interest. He is, after all, the best elf Santa’s ever met. I do wonder, though, if Buddy’s unwavering enthusiasm for Christmas and loyalty to Santa is rooted in some unconscious awareness that somehow he just doesn’t quite fit it in (literally and figuratively) to life in the North Pole. If he can just be the best elf, the happiest elf, the most Christmassy elf maybe the others won’t notice he’s not actually a real elf?
But they do notice. They even gossip about it behind his back. It’s painful to watch how the other elves are all aware of his difference while Buddy seemingly remains oblivious , or at least evades acknowledging it, until it can longer be ignored. But, like many late-diagnosed/identified neurodivergent people, Buddy has no frame of reference nor language to understand the difference between him and other elves. When the explanations from Papa Elf and Santa fall short, Buddy decides he must see the world of humans for himself!
Everyone looks like they want to hurt me…
Like his predecessors, George and Adam, Buddy’s acquaintance with the real world and his first encounters with his biological father, are unexpected, disorientating and largely disappointing. He fails to understand the rules and social conventions of the human world, is constantly confronted with indifference when expressing his joy for Christmas and discovers that much of his behaviour is regarded as so threatening or criminal, that he is eventually arrested.
The sad reality of our world is that many neurodivergent forms of expression, particularly physical and verbal stems, and manifestations of both positive and negative emotions, make other people uncomfortable, are considered disruptive, unacceptable and sometimes even criminalised. Fortunately Buddy’s stint in prison was short-lived, but he emerges chastened and at least minimally aware that he needs to ‘tone it down’ to avoid getting arrested again. He even tries out human clothes, rather than the elfish attire he has worn his whole life, to make Walter feel more comfortable with his presence.
Like Buddy, neurodivergent people often learn to suppress our emotions or mould and modify our corporeal and verbal forms of expression to fit neurotypical norms. If we fail to do so we may face, face social rejection, behaviour modification therapies, institutionalisation, prison or death. Masking can be a defence mechanism, a way to be safe in a hostile world. But it takes a tremendous amount of effort. Buddy can barely manage to suppress his true (s)elf even when he tries to change his behaviour and dress in an “appropriate manner.” His passion for elf culture and his unfamiliarity with the human world leads to an unfortunate (and problematic?) misunderstanding with the children’s writer Miles Finch (Peter Dinklage). Walter yells at Buddy to get out of his life. Alone and roaming the streets of New York on Christmas Eve, Buddy concludes that ‘I don’t belong here, I don’t belong anywhere.’
Buddy shows that masking is impossible to do 100% of the time and that the consequences for those of us who cannot or will not mould themselves to neurotypical expectations can be dire. Disability justice means working towards a world that would make room, like it does in Elf, for our unique and diverse forms of expression and creativity. Buddy finds acceptance and a place for himself in the world by turning his difference and his special interest into a life project: he writes a picture book about his journey from the North Pole and his adventures in Manhattan. This career path allows him to be his true (s)elf, continue dressing as an elf, share his joy of Christmas with children all over the world and support his family.
I just like to smile, smiling's my favourite!
Despite the challenges Buddy faces, Elf is a movie filled with seasonal cheer and, dare I say it, autistic joy. Will Ferrell’s physical comedy and over-the-top personality feels like the perfect casting choice for Buddy, as he channels elf realness and gives 110% at all times and for all emotions. Like George and Adam, Buddy’s unfailing joyfulness and willingness to see the good in everyone, even Santino Corleone, eventually wares down the layers of resentment and cynicism of hardened New Yorkers and saves Christmas.
And, if you’re still not convinced that Elf is one of the most neurodivergent Christmas moves ever made then please see the following neurodivergent easter eggs (or should I say candy canes?) for further proof:
At the quality control section in the North Pole, where his oversized fingers don’t interfere with Etch A Sketch production, Buddy experiences fright after fright with each pop of the Jack-in-a-box, even though he knows it’s coming. As somebody who hates loud noises, scares easily, can be duped by the same trick over and over again, and who jumped each time I hear the maniacal laugh in the film, there are few scenes in cinema history where I have felt more identified!
Like his other fish-out-of-water counterparts, Buddy takes many things he sees in the human world as literal truth: ‘the best coffee in the world’ café, the Santa impersonators and when Walter orders him to take off his elf suit as soon as possible.
Sleeping in the department store and Walter’s apartment, Buddy goes into hyperfocus mode overnight to create a winter wonderland out of paper and other materials at his disposal in just a few short hours.
He shows himself to be at once extremely distractible and infinitely curious about the world around him, shooting off rapid fire questions at the doctor’s office, Walter’s office and with his brother Michael (Daniel Tay).
Buddy is open to trying human food but still prefers his ‘safe-foods’: his elvish diet of candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.
He is a sensory seeking person who is, drawn to shiny objects, is unfailingly honest, has no filter and has echolalia with words that are fun to say, like Francisco!
And, like his predecessors, Buddy is destined to fall in love and establish lasting attachment with the first human female he encounters in the “real world.” This is aided in part because the object of Buddy’s affections is dressed as an elf. His immediate attraction to Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), the department store elf and subsequent unreserved declarations of love are, in this case, a sign of the intensity of his feelings but also his honesty, even when it might be considered inappropriate. There are no such things as pick-up artists in Buddy’s universe and no reason to play games when it comes to women. Instead, their first date is a sensory adventure as he shows her all of the things he has seen and learned in New York and all the experiences which give him joy, from Christmas trees to rotating doors.
Treat every day like Christmas!
At the end of the movie Buddy has not one, not two, but three families: his continued relationship with Papa Elf, his welcome into Walter’s family and the new family he has started with Jovie. As
observed in a recent guest post on The Boss Baby, love is not a finite resource. And if nothing else, Elf is a movie about men and their love for each other!
For those of us with complicated family histories, we often have to find and make our own kin, both human and non-human. I feel joyful to be spending this Christmas with my chosen family — my wife, our cat and our dog — and the friends who have invited us into their home for the day.
Before I go, I must give a holiday high-five to Will Ferrell, who is an actor I’ve loved (Mugatu) and hated (Anchorman) in equal measure. He has proved himself to be a true trans ally over the last few years, supporting his friend Harper Steele through her transition and becoming an advocate for trans rights. This is exactly the kind of Christmas cheer we need every day of the year, but particularly heading into 2025!
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That’s all from me for this year folks. Thank you for sticking with me through one of the most tumultuous and least productive years of my life. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing over the holidays I wish you a safe and joyful season!
See you in 2025 for more musings on a Life Less Ordinary! In the meantime, you can read about some of my other holiday favs here:
Or why not tell me what your favourite holiday movie is and if it has a particularly neurodivergent flavour?
Elf is ripe for commentary about the ethics and implications of adoption but I’m not really qualified to discuss this. If this topic interest’s you further, a good start might be Nicole Chung’s writing on adoption!
Love this!
Wishing you a nice, restful Christmas my friend 💕