Return of the Meek
Every year on Christmas night I watch my favorite holiday special, The Twilight Zone’s 1959 “Night of the Meek.”
The story takes place on Christmas night as a department store Santa Claus (Henry Corwin, played by Art Carney), willows in misery of material poverty and alcoholism. I never quite understood what specifically drew me to this episode. Perhaps it was the fantastical conclusion in which he becomes Santa (a sort of death and rebirth) or the sympathy that the show manages to evoke for people like Henry Corwin.
In the opening scene, Santa is seen in a bar, late for his appearance at the department store drunk off brandy and looking for more. As he pays his tab, children knock on the door to get a glimpse and wave at Santa Claus. The camera fixates on Corwin’s drunken face as he asks the bartender “Why do you suppose there isn’t really a Santa Claus? For kids like that?” The bartender responds, “What am I supposed to be—some kind of philosopher?” I never understood why the episode was called “Night of the Meek” until now.
The dynamic between the two characters is striking, and it really only stood out to me this year. Corwin, an impoverished alcoholic who only finds work during the holiday season as Santa, sympathizes with children who, like himself, do not have the means for an abundant Christmas. In other words, he is of the same socio-economic class as the children, and thus cannot do anything to alleviate their poverty except pretend to be a beloved symbol. He sees the children playing in the snow ignorant of the implications of their poverty, and wishes to reclaim the imaginative reality that they so easily embody. The bartender, on the other hand, content with an average but steady-paying job, refuses to think about the causes of material poverty, a sort of ‘ignorance is bliss’ that is so endemic in our own time.
Contrast this to the department store owner, Mr. Dundee, who cares little for poverty and only for the income that Santa generates for the store. Or the parents in the store, who are clearly of means, reflexively moving through the rituals of Christmas without a thought of the poverty outside.
The “meek” in the title of the episode refers to Psalm 37:11: "But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace." The “meek” are those who are humble, patient, and gentile, connoting those who can suffer quietly and obediently. In this story, Corwin and the children are the meek.
Even when Corwin is fired aggressively by Mr. Dundee, he responds “Thank you very much Mr. Dundee. As to my drinking, this is indefensible and you have my abject apologies. I find of late that I have very little choice in the matter of expressing emotions. I can either drink or I can weep. And drinking is so much more subtle.”
As of 2022 12.4% of children in the USA lived in households with incomes under the poverty rate, a doubling of the 5% in 2021. In 2023, the number jumped to 14%. What we are witnessing in our own time is that as economic inequality intensifies and wealth consolidates more and more into the hands of the Mr. Dundees of the world, childhood poverty is steadily increasing. The meek are multiplying.
This cognizance of economic inequality in the context of 1950s America was humanized through the abstract notion of the “Christmas Spirit.” Christmas night has always been singled out as a night where those of means are supposed to recognize and do good by those without means. It is the night when Santa is supposed to distribute goods for girls and boys regardless of their socio-economic conditions. Santa, in other words, transcends divisions of class, which is precisely the reason why Mr. Corwin dreams of becoming Santa for real. What is interesting is the Twilight Zone’s willingness to acknowledge the plight of the meek so long as it served to remind viewers of the “spirit of Christmas.” In other words, Christmas is an exceptional night where the “giving” spirit is supposed to suspend class divisions, at least that is the way it is marketed, and it serves as a coy propaganda tool to circumvent the reality of systemic inequality.
The key quote of the entire episode is when Corwin explains why he drinks: “I don’t know how to tell you, Mr. Dundee. All I know is that I’m an aging purposeless relic of another time and I live in a dirty rooming house in a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people where the only thing to come down the chimney on Christmas Eve is more poverty… You know the other reason why I drink, Mr. Dundee? So that when I walk down the tenements I can really think it’s the North Pole and the children are elves and I’m really Santa Claus bringing them a bag of wonderous gifts for all of them. I just wish Mr. Dundee on one Christmas, only one, that I could see some of the hopeless ones and the dreamless ones just on one Christmas I’d like to see the meek inherit the earth. And that’s why I drink Mr. Dundee, and that’s why I weep.”
I am fascinated by the material messaging in this episode, as it deviates so much from the typical occult and paranormal entertainment of the Twilight Zone. Corwin finds a magical bag that contains whatever everyone asks for Christmas, and he goes to the rooming house and the children in the streets distributing presents to those in need. In contrast to someone like Elon Musk who has the wealth to become a veritable Santa Claus in real-time, Corwin the Meek is fulfilled by giving the people the humble things they desire— a smoking jacket, a pipe, and a sweater. The ability to produce presents for people turns Corwin’s depression into elation, evincing the humble desire of the meek with the power of material abundance. Think of go-fund-me and the implication of crowdfunding, where the working class helps each other, or the satisfactory feeling one gets from providing guests with food or a place to sleep. One can see it as “mutual aid,” but we can also understand it as the inherent empathy of the meek, the moral righteousness of those who suffer and live through the worst conditions our society has to offer.
As we embark on a new year, one destined to see deeper inequality and an entrenchment of oligarchic rule, I think we can all empathize with Henry Corwin in the pervasive sense of misery. But it’s not his alcoholism or misery worth dwelling on. Instead, it’s his hope and conviction that someday the meek will inherit the earth, for it is only the meek who have the empathy to do what is right at a time when so much is wrong.
