Please welcome today’s guest writer, Sadie Kornoelje. Sadie (‘23) graduated with degrees in statistics, Spanish, and psychology.
Our theme for the month of October is “childhood fears.”
I’m nine years old and walking up the stairs to my friend’s front door. It’s not the first time he’s not been ready for our carpool and probably won’t be the last. As I approach the front door, I realize that this time is different; the door is open but all the lights are off. Confused, I turn back to the driveway to seek my mom’s help. However, instead of my mom’s car, I see that I have stumbled upon some sort of council of villains discussing their next devious actions. At first, my eyes roam the table with little distress as I scan over the likes of the Rumor Weed, Darths Vader and Maul, and Cruella DeVill. But my heart stops when I finally reach the head of the table and see him: Chief Blue Meanie.
To this day, that’s one of the most vivid dreams I have ever remembered, likely due to the visceral fear I had of Chief Blue Meanie. Chief Blue Meanie was the music-hating antagonist of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine movie. He and the other blue meanie minions (blue menials) captured and turned to stone any source of music and joy in Pepperland. As they rounded up more and more of the music-makers, the world slowly drained of color.
Any number of Chief Blue Meanie’s physical characteristics could have been enough to frighten a young child—his flashing eyes and his six-clawed paws, to name a few—but I think what scared me most was how well he lived up to his name: he was mean. He could be having a normal conversation with one of the blue menials when he would suddenly fly into a rage. He ruled with an iron fist—or rather, a Dreadful Flying Glove—as he terrorized the people of Pepperland with his favorite word: “No.” Chief Blue Meanie had no regard for the desires of others and acted solely for his self-interest.
Coincidentally, the year I was most afraid of Chief Blue Meanie was also the year I started to be afraid of going to school. Until then, school had been a place of joy for me—so much so that I was one of the rare kids who counted down the days until the first day of school. That year, however, as the start of school drew nearer and I learned that more and more of my friends were in different classes, I began to dread the day that I used to love.
It wasn’t like I thought Chief Blue Meanie himself was going to jump out and turn me to stone—no matter how scared I was of him, I still knew that he wasn’t actually real—but nonetheless my world was draining of color. I would make myself physically sick in order to avoid the world where I believed I had no friends. In my first few years of school, I was so social that my parents regularly received feedback from my teachers reminding me to quiet down during teaching times. My third grade teacher, however, would’ve been surprised to learn this about me, given how isolated I made myself at the start of the year. I was so scared that these new classmates would be mean that I didn’t give them the chance to prove otherwise. But over time, I felt the color coming back as I learned to love the people that would become some of my deepest and oldest friends.
No matter how much I feared Chief Blue Meanie at the beginning of the movie, I continued to request it over and over because of how much I loved its ending. One citizen is able to escape Pepperland in his yellow submarine to track down some helpers that can restore the frozen and colorless town. The Beatles—with a little help from their friends—use the magic of music to bring light and love back to Pepperland so that even the bluest of meanies are filled with joy. Chief Blue Meanie himself embraces “yes” for the first time in his life as he sprouts flowers all over his body. The end didn’t eliminate my fear of Chief Blue Meanie, but I think it taught me something even more important: even when we are scared, beauty can still bloom if we are willing to let it.
Sadie Kornoelje (‘23) graduated with degrees in statistics, Spanish, and psychology. She loves traveling to new places but still calls Grand Rapids home. Sadie’s a big hobby-hopper but can be best defined by her loves of baseball, Hozier, and Dr. Pepper.
