Calvin News

It’s the most popular movie in America, and especially this time of year. 

And one man has the inside scoop.

“I finally decided last year that I had to use all of the great material I learned from the screenwriter and tell the real story of the movie. Fans of A Christmas Story will be amazed at the stories behind the stories,” said Dr. Quentin Schultze, emeritus professor of communication at Calvin University.

Using the decoder ring

You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! Life Lessons From The Movie A Christmas Story reveals dozens of answers to questions like “Why did Mom break the leg lamp?” “Why does the Old Man say “Frah-JEE-lay?” and “Why doesn’t the Old Man ever call Ralphie by name?”

Schultze is probably the only one in the country who convinced screenwriter Jean Shepherd, who passed away in 1999, to explain the “secret” messages in the movie—such as the fact that the leg lamp is actually the Old Man’s trophy wife.

“The movie is a series of parables that work on two levels, said Schultze. “The tales are both entertainment and universal life lessons. And when you point it out to people, they’re stunned, and it brings even greater enjoyment of the movie.”

Learning from and teaching with Shepherd

Schultze is able to “decode” what’s happening because he actually taught with Shepherd at Calvin.

“I was a new communication professor in the late 70s and started following Shepherd’s storytelling in print, on radio, and on public television.” Schultze says he was convinced that storytelling is the most potent form of human expression. He wanted to learn from a master. “I found out that Jean Shepherd was such a person.” He also discovered that Shepherd and he shared a hobby, ham radio [amateur radio].

So, through the Federal Communications Commission database, Schultze tracked down Shepherd’s home address and sent him a letter. “I said, ‘I’m a new comm prof and I want to learn storytelling. I think you are the best out there … could I learn from you?’”

Shepherd was excited that an academic was taking his work seriously. So, by the time Schultze arrived at Calvin as a new professor in 1982 the two were scheming to teach a three-week course on Shepherd’s work. They first offered the course in 1986, three years after the movie came out and bombed at the box office.

Schultze became friends with Shepherd and taught the class at least three times until Shepherd’s health started deteriorating in 1998.

Taking valuable notes

“So, Jean and I co-taught storytelling, and I got to know how he told stories, the meanings behind the stories, the symbols in his stories,” said Schultze.

“I wrote this book from the insights I gained while teaching and conversing with Shepherd,” says Schultze in his introduction to the book. “I kept elaborate notes for instructing my university students about how his stories function as ‘parables’ (stories about everyday life meant to capture deeper life lessons).”

Sharing layers of lessons

Schultze’s recently released book unwraps those stories for the general public for the first time, even explaining why the chief bully is named “Scut,” who the Bumpus neighbors represent (they had hundreds of hound dogs), and why the Old Man actually loves battling the basement furnace.

“There were 24 life lessons that Jean used in his stories, like parts of an integrated worldview,” said Schultze. “I took the 20 [life lessons] that are most directly related to the stories in the movie and wrote a short chapter on each one.”

Schultze will be signing books as well as speaking about the book, the movie, and his relationship with screenwriter Shepherd on Tuesday, December 10, at 7 p.m. at Baker Book House (2768 E Paris Ave SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan).

Schultze explains in the book that Shepherd himself grew up in Hammond, Indiana without a loving father. The real “Old Man” even abandoned the family when Jean was finishing high school and Jean never saw him again. Shepherd believed that too many fathers fail to build strong, nurturing relationships with their sons.

But in the movie, the Old Man finally connects with Ralphie by giving him the Red Ryder rifle and enjoying with his son the splendid present. Ironically, the Old Man is the only significant adult in Ralphie’s life that he never asks for the rifle.

The new book is widely available online and at bookstores: Quentin Schultze, You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! Life Lessons from the Movie A Christmas Story (Edenridge Press, 2024).