Grinch’s Ultimatum - My Analysis and Interpretations
Written by Rei Caldombra 12/21/24 Video: https://youtu.be/Pvo8n6vC1jw
Hello everyone, I hope the often-busy end of the year is going well for y’all. I haven’t had as much time and energy to write recently but I wanted to write something Christmas-y. So I have done an in-depth analysis and discussion about the subject of one of my Christmas viewing traditions, Grinch’s Ultimatum by PilotRedSun. I’m a big fan of what he created on that channel, and to me this is his magnum opus. His work very much straddles the line between shitpost and surrealism, but I feel Grinch’s Ultimatum truly is surrealist art. It is an amazing video that gives you thoughts and feelings that are very hard to describe, but still recognizable and powerful. I’m here today to do my best to put my feelings into words, giving my own thoughts and discussing what interpretations on grander topics we can take away from this video. When you really take the time to process it, there is a lot to take away from this just under 2-minute-long video.
I’ve linked the Grinch’s Ultimatum and an extended version of the BGM used in the video below. I highly recommend watching the original video if you haven’t rewatched it recently or at all, please give it a view. I wrote this with the assumption that you have watched the video. Also consider listening to the extended BGM while you’re reading this. Listening to it helped me get deep in thought while writing.
Grinch's ultimatum ————————- Grinch's Ultimatum - Pilotredsun [Extended]
I’ll start off going through the video chronologically, talking about what comes to mind for me as we go along. Then I’ll get into the bigger ideas that this video inspired me to consider. As must be said, these are just my opinions and do not make up the entirety of what you can take away from this video. I am not insisting you have to view this video as more than just a funny video, it is fine if you think I’m reading too much into this. But I believe that this video is both funny and deeply thought provoking. With this piece I am enjoying just letting pretty much all my thoughts and considerations. I hope y’all will enjoy my ramblings here that I did my best to make cohesive and definitive. I will be discussing some serious topics and opinions that can be considered “political”. But I can’t be true to myself and what I see in this video without talking about them. And just because I bring up a perspective here doesn’t automatically mean I have it. I’m explicit when I do though.
——
We start out with the perspective character holding a remote, one hand repeatedly moving around above the remote. This shows that the character is thoroughly unsure of something. He doesn’t know what buttons to press. Based on what comes later, this can mean that he is unsure of himself and what he should do.
We then cut to an outside view of his house. The roof is very lopsided rather than even. Just like how he is lopsided towards being a Grinch. The TV antenna on the roof represents the coming conflict. It is pushed to one side a few times by the wind, which could be foreshadowing that he ultimately ends up on one side. But while the wind sways it, it ends up staying straight before the transition back inside. A choice has not been made yet. The TV antenna being a representation of the character’s mental state fits with the TV.
Next, we see him fiddling with his TV with an annoyed look on his face. The color on the TV going back and forth between primarily black or white. Black and white being a commonly used binary. Binaries are an important theme here that I will discuss heavily. He is trying to change the channel. He wants to change what he is seeing on the TV, but nothing he does makes that happen. This makes you think that he is a person struggling to change. Coming back to the remote, that could be something that is capable of causing change in him. But he is unsure of how to use it.
There is a figure on the screen of the TV, but it is unclear who it is. I see this as him. He is unsure of himself, so he doesn’t know who he truly is. He doesn’t like what he sees. This inner turmoil frustrates him, which is why he hits the TV until its broken. His sense of self is broken. He breaks the TV to resist facing this insecurity. There is a goat noise played when the TV breaks. Honestly, I couldn’t come up with any firm meaning to this. It could simply be a funny noise for the sake of enhancing the sudden destruction of the TV. Just because I believe this video was made with deeper meaning in mind does not mean every little detail has to be intended for serious contemplation. Maybe it meant to represent how extreme his feelings are?
Now we go back to the roof for Santa’s entrance. Santa walks over the roof with afterimages, then it cuts to a rotating image of Santa with text of “It’s Claus!” I’ve had a bit more trouble with this scene too. Perhaps the afterimages represent how Santa goes across roofs repeatedly while delivering presents around the world. It could represent that the character has had this scene play in his head multiple times.
Santa comes out of the chimney, which has fire drawn in it along with sound effects for fire during the time Santa is moving. There is a deliberate sound for the fire only during that moment. I think this is intended to be picked up on, which implies there is meaning here. Santa traditionally moves inside the house through chimneys, but the fire is never lit when he enters a house because that brings up the idea of whether he could get hurt. Here that doesn’t matter, Santa moves inside through the lit fireplace. Now we can bring up the idea of whether what we see from here on is meant to be literal or figurative for the character. Santa moving through the fire without issue can imply that the Santa he sees here is not real. Everything with Santa could just be in the character’s head, being a visual representation of how he is processing his feelings towards himself. Or it could be that Santa is real and is an actual magical being, so he doesn’t care about the fire. Another could be that Santa coming out of the fire is like how a demon can walk through hellfire, representing him as a negative influence rather than a positive one. Which could fit with what we see from Santa and the binary he pushes.
The character, now holding a baseball bat, loudly says “What” upon seeing Santa. Him holding the baseball bat while looking at the TV makes it seem like he was going to continue damaging the TV. This further shows his self-hatred and could go as far as to represent legitimate self-harm, since this is a step above using his fist on the TV. Which as I previously stated, the TV can represent himself. Upon witnessing this, Santa gets a gleam in his eye and to me has a smug look. This could be because Santa has already pegged him as a grinch from this response alone. From this perspective, we could say that Santa saw a mere moment of this guy’s life and already decided he must be a grinch forever. Or it could play into the “all seeing” nature of Santa, with him seeing these actions validating his preconceived notion. But regardless, this look does not fit the saintly, good-natured persona he usually has.
Now to the meat of the video. Santa talks directly to the character, telling him he has a choice between being a grinch or a saint. This is a binary based around morality, putting people into just two camps. Grinch and Saint being spelt wrong represents that the binary being presented is illegitimate. And Santa’s insistence on this choice could represent how this binary is forcefully pushed onto people. Or it could just be because the way Santa talks is really funny. Seriously though, this part of the video is genuinely super funny. With his speech finished, Santa disappears with a smile which I again interpret as smug. This brings us back to my point that this version of Santa doesn’t feel like a good person. He presents what I feel to be a dehumanizing binary with a self-satisfied look. Santa disappearing could represent how this may be all in the character’s head. This is him processing his thoughts about himself and society. Santa represents society forcing a binary through labels, with which we make assumptions and generalizations about a person’s character.
Only about a second later, the character turns into a grinch styled after the design by Dr. Suess. The character has visually become the grinch. What has actually happened here is firmly intended to be up to the eye of the beholder. Why did he change? Was it because he decided for himself that he was a grinch? Or did he change because Santa decided he was one? Did magic physically change his body for real, or did he not change at all? If we follow the track that everything magical we see is metaphorical, then this represents that he has made the choice to view himself as a grinch. Or it could be that this did not come from his own agency. As I brought up previously, you could say that Santa wanted him to be a Grinch. The character was labeled as a Grinch, so we along with him started to see him as a grinch.
“Have I truly become a monster?” Is the core of what the story of this video is about. Monster is a fitting word for The Grinch. The Grinch is treated like a monster in most interpretations and has the design traits of one. But is he actually a monster? Has he actually changed since making a “choice?” Based on some of the previous things we see in the video, such as his anger early on and Santa’s reaction, you could say that his transformation was predetermined. Was he born a grinch? Does how he looks define him? Is he suddenly a monster now that he is green and hairy? Is his appearance what defines him as a monster rather than his behavior?
The character leaves his house, sets up a boombox in a public space, and starts dancing. This is the hardest thing in the video to put into words. All I can really say is how it makes me feel. His dance is incredibly powerful. There’s something so beautiful, sad and euphoric about his dance, with all of those things emanating at the same time.
People look his way as he dances, but their gaze doesn’t stay for long. His face is not very expressive at the end, so what he is feeling here is very much up to interpretation. But I’ve always got the feeling of sadness from it. Lonely. To me his dance was his attempt to connect with people. Dance is an act of self-expression. Dance is performed by pretty much all living creatures, not just humans. Usually as a means of attracting others in the wider animal kingdom. Ultimately, he could be dancing to try to gain acceptance that he craves as a result of seemingly being turned into a monster.
Then we are told that the tale of the Christmas cretin ends there, with a variety of images appearing at the end that are mostly related to Christmas as a holiday. The final words carry a lot of weight to me. They insist that his story is over, which means his fate is decided then and there. Apparently, he is a Grinch, case closed. And that fits with this being an Ultimatum per the title.
I wish I had a better vocabulary for expressing music. I’m not proficient at putting it to words, so I left it for last in this section rather than starting with it. But the music is definitely a notable aspect of the video. Like with the dance, I can really only say how it makes me feel. It feels contemplative, which fits for a story about someone supposedly making a decision. The music also feels melancholic, which fits with how you can interpret his journey here as having positive and negative aspects to it. The music also fits with what happens. The soundtrack is very noisy early on, then a lot of the noises fade away once he transforms but returns once he dances.
——
It's very intentional that I have not referred to the perspective character as a grinch. I don’t recognize the oversimplification of who this person is.
In the traditional story of The Grinch, he starts out as the type of personality we consider a grinch. He is full of anger and jealousy, an outcast by choice from the town. These feelings spur his wrongful actions, like stealing all the Christmas decorations and presents. But by the end of the story, he changes. After seeing the joy people still have despite losing their possessions, his heart grows. He returns what he stole and is welcomed by the town he initially wronged. The original story shows the Grinch changing from a traditionally bad person to a good one. But unlike in the original story of the Grinch, there is no opportunity for the character’s heart to grow 3 sizes here. Here, his transformation into a grinch is treated with a sense of finality. This could be PilotRedSun saying that the story of The Grinch sadly does not represent our own.
One topic we can discuss is the concept around Santa Claus. One of the more well known and memorable aspects of Santa Claus is his lists. There is a naughty list and a nice list. Naughty vs nice. This is a binary, one centered around morality. You are a good person or a bad person and go on the respective list based on that. Santa decides whether people are moral or not, simplifying them into just two types of people, with the vs directly putting these people at odds with each other. Taking this moral binary higher would bring us to the Heaven vs Hell scenario, which hits on the Christian roots of Christmas and the characters born from it like Santa Claus and The Grinch. In Grinch’s Ultimatum, I feel Santa represents the unjust binaries around morality that we often see in our society. With the people pushing these restrictive beliefs knowingly taking advantage of them. Santa pushes his moral binary onto the main character. This is why he is shown with negative traits, like his labels being misspelled and him seemingly finding joy in presenting this “choice”. We don’t truly choose what labels we have when they are given to us. People can act like we “deserve” our labels through our actions, but we can’t always choose our actions or how other people interpret them through their narrow viewpoint.
In my opinion, morality is not something to define within a binary. How can you just be a saint or a grinch, naughty or nice? These binaries remove the grey area between each extreme. There is a broad spectrum of what can be considered right and wrong based on the details of the situation at hand, philosophies, socio-economic statuses, etc. This binary also pushes labels. Naughty vs Nice, Grinch vs Saint. These are also overgeneralizations and are used to define people in as simply as possible, which can be used to make someone’s behaviors and beliefs seem set in stone. That is the meaning behind the finality of this story. It is getting at how society gives you unjust labels that you are often stuck with. And with those labels come assumptions, mistreatment and not being accepted by the greater society. And on the topic of society, we as the viewers could also represent society. We are seeing a limited perspective of this person and making our own judgements about what we are seeing and what type of person he is.
These moral binaries and labels can dismiss the capacity for change. Entertainment media constantly presents the idea of people changing for the better. But oftentimes we also see character who are shown to be incapable of change and are treated with scorn because of it. Through these themes we can breach the topic of criminality. Oftentimes, once someone is branded a criminal, that label can stick with them for life. Many assume they’ll always commit more crimes. Once a criminal always a criminal. This is a philosophy I strongly condemn for how dehumanizing it is, and how it can be abused to target groups of people. We see this all the time with political leaders and the media disparaging groups of people in a manner that fits their agendas. This philosophy also goes against what the story of the Grinch is about. The Grinch commits theft and breaking & entering, but by the end is welcomed in by the Whos he previously wronged. They forgave him, and because of that he is able to move forward positively. But in real life, things often don’t work out that way. Many people are unable to shed their negative labels and the pitfalls it puts in their way towards improvement. It can be very difficult for normal people who were convicted of crimes to return to normalcy, even if they do not commit any more crimes. Criminals are not always offered the proper chance for redemption that we see by good natured characters in fiction, like your Supermans, Gokus and the Whos of Whoville in the original story of The Grinch.
The negative effects of labels extend further than just criminals. Oftentimes in real life labels are used to sew conflict, like we can potentially say Santa is doing in Grinch’s Ultimatum. The label of “poor” can brand someone as a criminal despite committing no crimes. Race is a topic we can bring up here, as the physical appearance of the main character plays into the question of if he is a grinch or a monster. When it comes to race as a label, racists will consider the people they hate as bad by default. This plays into how Santa may have pegged the perspective character as a Grinch before the apparent choice was made, meaning his choice may not have actually mattered. And that after he visually changes into a grinch, people disregard him. But sometimes hateful people using labels can consider someone to be “one of the good ones”. This is an oversimplification which loops back into the binary of good vs bad presented by the video. The reason why people only look for very long as he dances is because they disregard him once they see him as a grinch. Because of his label as a grinch and therefore being viewed on the negative end of the moral binary, he is discounted and not seen for the valid human he is. His dance was his attempt to be viewed as a human being just like them. And if we follow the sad interpretation of his reaction, then he did not get what he desired. And based on the finality posed at the end of the video, he never will.
His transformation plays negatively into the insecurity he already had before transforming. Despite seemingly getting his definite answer of who he is (a grinch), he still questions if he is really a monster. This gets into the idea of the human condition. We will never truly understand who we are, we are not static beings. Even if we are told that we are one thing, that does not mean we are convinced or need to adhere to that. We are not defined by any one trait, be it naughty or nice, grinch or saint. We should not give someone a negative label such as a grinch and let that dictate how we view their story.
I’ve mostly spoken about this story being a very negative one, but there are some positive ways to view it. This story could also be about personal acceptance and liberation from society’s pressures. This could be why I also feel that the music has a relaxing and upbeat side to it. This could be a story of someone unsure of himself coming to terms with who he is. He may be accepting that his actions bring him scorn, but that he will be true to himself. He won’t let society’s negative label stop him from expressing himself. He is who is his, not who society tells him he is. Dancing is a form of self-expression that can truly be unique to the individual. Dance is very often choreographed and danced in sync with multiple people, but free form dance is truly unique to the individual in that moment. Through his dance, the character shows the world who he is, which transcends labels and skin. To be clear I do not believe we should all think we are automatically doing the right thing. But within the contexts that I have previously brought up, such as the labels and binaries, it can be a good thing that he chooses to accept who he is. We have seen in real life that the acceptance of labels that have been pushed upon you can be beneficial when you use your agency to turn it into something positive for you. Sometimes the victims of labels can take that anger and use it in a way that makes the abusers seem justified. You absolutely should absolutely reject unjust labels that portray you in a negative light. But your reaction should be to find the healthiest way to process that and prove those people wrong. Fighting fire with fire often doesn’t help you or anyone else in the long run. In this case, the character’s reaction was to try to appeal to people through dance.
To wrap things up, I feel strongly that this video is meant to represent how illegitimate binaries of morality are forced on people by society, and that these create labels which misrepresent and dehumanize people. The “Grinch” in this story is a person unsure of who they are, trying to understand his sense of self in a society that is trying to tell him who he is and what he is destined to be.
And that’s the tale of my feelings towards Grinch’s Ultimatum. There is definitely still more that could be said about the video and the VERY dense topics that I’ve brought up. I’d love to hear any interpretations and thoughts y’all have. Whether you agree with me or don’t please (respectfully) share! I hope everyone has a great Christmas and Happy Holidays!
My Patreon if you would like to support me and the website: patreon.com/ReiCaldombra
