EXTRA CREDIT: The Kid/Spirituality

Newton’s third law can be seen, clearly, in every Chaplin film because with Chaplin, you see a pattern or rhythm of a thing and then in contrast, its opposite. The first time we see Charlie, people are throwing trash away and it falls on him. He then tosses away the gloves in which he has been preening. Charlie tries to get rid of the baby, then accepts it. The kid puts a quarter into the gas meter and gets it back. He and the kid live by breaking windows, then repairing them. Even in the lovely Georges-Melies-pure-fantasy-like “Dreamland” sequence we still see this Chaplinism showing our Tramp walking and “unwalking” ‘round a post. The Kid is a doing and an undoing, in particular, wanting and rejecting in the way that I could probably imagine Chaplin wanting and rejecting religious allegory.

Religious and spiritual aren’t the same thing but this film manages to be both, without necessarily trying to be either. A title reading "The woman—whose sin was motherhood" is in juxtaposition to the next insert of Christ bearing the cross. Maybe this was Chaplin’s way of deflecting any charge of immorality on the woman, back at the accusers. So now, a marginalized, unmarried mother (not unlike The Tramp character) goes from being a “blasphemer” to carrying a sacred burden. This film was made with the spirit of charity. Chaplin had known poverty and broken homes, so now he’s offering (as we all say) his voice to the voiceless, those who are marginalized or oppressed.

I mean, this is really good drama. It’s the best of comedy and tragedy -- even a title  describes this as a film “with both a smile and a tear.” By the end we’ll be affirmed and even uplifted, but first we have to endure a few trials. It’s pretty much Dante’s Commedia; we must go through Inferno and Purgatory before we get to Paradise. We see the realities of abusive authority. We see the trauma of a single mother giving up her baby. We see the terror (even at the idea) of a child being taken away from their parents and oppositely a parent losing their child. This is a very empathetic film.

But even with all that said, this film celebrates people and life. It’s inordinately affirming in the fact that everything will be okay if you’re just good to other people. The Tramp and John are happy with their circumstances, not unlike Danny and his dad in Danny Champion of the World. It’s silly to say that if you read your scriptures everyday that all of your prayers would be answered and all your needs would be met. Chaplin isn’t mad about that, he doesn’t even disagree. In fact, he’s basically saying that if you read your scriptures everyday, bad things are still gonna happen but it’s up to you to just still be good. That’s probably spirituality, or at least that’s my brand of it.  

This is a humanist film and if I learned anything from my Comparative Literature class I had to take, it’s that during the renaissance a “humanist” wasn’t a secular person, they were a devoted Christian believer (it's 2017 though, so that take isn't limited to Christianity obviously!) So The Kid is just Charlie Chaplin screaming, “I can hear you and I feel your pain, people of the world!” He’s glorifying humans (kids included!) in order to glorify God. Newton's third law glorifies a God for me, maybe Chaplin does too. Chaplin is asking us to be charitable and possibly even, more Christ-like. Charity and empathy are some of the best parts of Christianity for me -- that makes it a spiritual film for me.

Film/book analysis #4

Critique/Princess Mononoke

The scope of this film is enormous. It’s an epic tackling just about as many social concerns as you can count. While the film has a very clear environmentalist message, it permeates much deeper than that without being, necessarily anti-industrialism. It’s not quite an anti-war film but it would be dismissive to just call it “pro-peace”. In his introduction to the book, “The Art of Princess Mononoke”, Miyazaki draws our attention not just toward the awesome majesty of nature, but also toward the social context in which the film takes place. He consciously avoids the popular period-drama tropes of rice farmers and samurai where everyone knew their place, instead setting the film during a period of social upheaval, with the hero Ashitaka representing one of the nation’s forgotten aboriginal people and has "Irontown" set up as a proto-Marxist worker’s collective rising up to challenge the power of the samurai lords.

Environmentalism has been around even in the backgrounds of most, if not all of Miyazaki’s work. Clearly in Nausicaä and Castle in the Sky, but even less explicit works like My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service have a simple and genuine love for the natural world. Each of the film’s varying factions are shown with detail and Miyazaki’s typical humanism. It’s not even just as simple as man vs. forest. Even the creatures of nature are divided, with the apes getting in the way of the wolves’ progress, and the boar clan trying to act out their own agenda. The humans, meanwhile, are just as divided as the animals, with samurai, iron workers, and a group of hunters all fighting for control of both the forest and the future of mankind. So not only is Mononoke addressing environmentalism or war or capitalism but it examines its messages intersectionally. The film is a rigid condemnation of partisanship and closes with bittersweet compromise -- Miyazaki shows us that although humans and nature should respect each other, there exist differences that neither side will ever be able to overcome. Humans and nature may not always agree, but there is no reason to hinder goodwill between them.

Miyazaki tends towards progressive female characters, sure, but we don't want to dismiss or reduce this fact here, and in turn, ignore the bigger picture. Eboshi is the ultimate adversary for this story: someone who wears a mask of benevolence in order to manipulate the masses to her own desires -- a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s kind of amazing that she still ends up feeling just as sympathetic and human as the other characters by the film’s end. Eboshi's character is a means for Miyazaki to actually subvert his own progressiveness, baiting the audience and then giving us something that’s even more difficult to wrestle with. The gender of this character in relation to their actions is inherently political. This complexity and grayness is how, in a way, Eboshi is using these more modern notions to exploit women and the underclass for her own means, rather than benefit them. It’s just one example of many regarding the layers and layers of pathos and detail that Miyazaki brings to each of the film’s factions.

Yes, “Princess Mononoke” is deeply concerned with nature, but it is also a paean to working men and women. Its heroes are oppressed minorities, lepers, prostitutes, ox drivers and orphans. The result is a film whose most defining declaration is: “Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living.”

Family/Danny the Champion of the World

This is a story of courage, play, wisdom, and the deep connection that can exist between a parent and a child. After the death of his mother as an infant, Danny is left to live with his father and together, they forge a bond so close that no one can come between them! This is quite simply, a sweet book. They live in a colourful wooden caravan under a large apple tree, serving petrol and fixing cars together. At night his dad tells him fabulous stories. When Danny starts school at seven, his dad walks him there and back. Danny has the best life, and he loves his dad more than anything.

Danny's father is a fantastic figure, and when Danny calls him the best father in the world, you kind of find yourself nodding along in agreement. When Danny discovers his secret hobby, pheasant poaching, he teaches Danny the best ways to steal birds off the large estate of the wealthy and pompous owner. I could be writing about Critique just as easily because Danny the Champion of the World is a win for the working class. Danny loves life and sees the riches in it rather than his poverty stricken surroundings. The objective reality is that they live in a caravan and just scrape by with the barest of essentials, yet through the eyes of Danny, life is splendid. Having money isn't the key to happiness, a notion frequently present in Dahl’s work. Here, the key to happiness is the quality time spent with our loved ones. His father doesn’t simply tell Danny what to do but rather takes the time to teach him how to do it (Danny is a great help in the garage, at only nine years old!). Not only that, but Danny’s father does the work alongside him -- they’re equals. In fact, it’s Danny himself who comes up with the most clever poaching plan, ever conceived!

Danny's inventiveness in the poaching scheme earns well-deserved praise from his dad and others, and it’s his father who dubs him “the champion of the world” -- which not only humbles Danny but leaves him reaffirmed in the greatness of his one remaining parent. The two are a close family unit who share everything with each other. The tenderness of this novel comes from its’ simplicity. They have each other, and love, and great stories and fantastic adventures. And that’s kind of it.

Danny is a nine year old mechanic who has a fabulous story-teller of a father. At times his father may seem irresponsible and a little wild but still holds all the qualities you want in a great father. Not only does he provide and protect, he is attentive and involved, and he’s also a friend. Danny is enamoured at the possibility that his father and him have this activity they can share together and like a good parent, Danny is cautioned against the danger (and illegality) of poaching. Proudly spelled out on the back of the book, Dahl says:

A MESSAGE
to Children Who Have Read This Book

When you grow up
and have children of your own
do please remember something important

a stodgy parent is no fun at all

What a child wants
and deserves
is a parent who is

SPARKY

Speed racer/critique

I have a pretty watered down knowledge of Althusser’s theory of ideology. Basically from what I know, he has an argument that essentially says we don’t realize we're within ideology. Basically, it lives within plain sight in everyday life yet we're in denial of the fact that we live within it. This to me is the most important effect of ideology; it “never says “I am ideological”” (Althusser, 700). When I first saw Speed Racer, I interpreted it as a caustic treatise on the evils of capitalism. Speed and his family run a small racing company threatened by corrupt corporations, so Speed must win the Grand Prix to foil the plans of the capitalists; seemingly, colorfully anti-capitalist. What I interpreted this time was way different, the opposite in fact. Contrary to the general perception, Speed Racer proposes a value system that, while being anti-corporate, speaks nothing of collectivism or equality.

Rex Racer tells his younger brother, Speed, about this special spiritual relationship between car and driver and says, “The car is a living, breathing thing.” This anthropomorphization of machine could potentially imply an organic existence of industry and thus a rationalization for capitalism which presents a useful ideological foundation for untangling the aesthetics and politics (man as machine) of Speed Racer.

Speed is a powerful individual fighting for his family, his hubris, and his quality of living. He lives on a moral code placing importance on fairness (“cheaters never prosper”). With all this in mind, we see Speed presented as an unabashed competitor. He is the capitalist ideal of spirited competition (“You’ve gotta win if you want to keep driving.”) His pre-race snack is a homemade PB&J which is in contrast to the bourgeois decadence of champagne by the evil corporate antagonists. Speed battles for the rights of the rugged all-American individual, in this candy colored landscape of shiny globalization while carrying a chip on his shoulder for the lost family-oriented, grassroots ideals. More than just a racer, Speed is indeed, a capitalist.

Maybe the film is asking if there’s room for the determined individual in the system of mechanized corporate control. If anything, the film, like Speed, attempts to remind us that people are living, breathing things, even if their surroundings are slick, shiny, plastic. This is where Speed Racer demonstrates Althusser’s view (as far as I know) that even though we think we live outside of ideology, we’re actually just reiterating ideology’s power over us. Whether we rebel or not, the individual still has to struggle against the constricting clockwork of corporatism.

So what are kids supposed to make of this?? The blogpost says that “children use their play to explore the social structures that surround them; sites of play represent places where students are questioning the nature of reality."’ A child is probably learning about social structures (gender, class, race, etc.) different from their own situation (reality) when they’re outside of the home. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl’s work Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children suggests that prejudice against children is based on the idea that they are property, not unlike pets or other animals (who frequently appear as surrogate humans in children’s literature). Hubler argues that “capitalism is inherently hostile to children” and “capital is to labor as adult is to child.”) Perhaps Speed Racer is attempting to encourage viewers to think critically about how an attitude of maintaining or questioning and challenging the status quo is communicated through media for children.

Works Cited

Althusser, Louis (2004) Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses in Literary Theory: an Anthology, eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, Oxford: Blackwell (2nd Edition)

Film/book analysis #3

Nostalgia, Hook

The progress of the world has provided numerous reasons to long for glowing revelries of the past. Nostalgia, like we discussed in class, is inherently accompanied by aches and pains. It’s the longing to return home and desire to venture out. By leaving our society we can regain our innate connection with nature, and even God. Neverland is a perfect representation of that desire for adventure and the connection between people and the earth. Hook portrays this type of nostalgia perfectly.

          Nostalgia is a weird topic for a Children’s Media class for me, at least the ethics of it are complicated to me. Peter Banning is lucky because even as an adult he gets to physically retreat back into the world of a child. He gets to go back to his magical origins, revisit his hazy past. Nostalgia movies are made for the adults, not necessarily for the kids and it feels a little selfish. Or at least not very productive? We see Peter’s children in Neverland but our protagonist is an adult! Even Tinkerbell is an adult. In nostalgic films, or just ones about kids, there’s the sense that children inhabit a secret world, that there are things only they can see. Adults may be granted passage if they can find it in themselves to believe, which I think is a lovely thought. But Peter Banning gets access to this world even before he believes. So are we seeing that kids don’t really have anywhere to go that won’t be co-opted by adults? Maybe that’s okay. Can’t the kids have anything that the adults can’t have! Steven Spielberg, like the rest of America, succumbs to inner nostalgic longings. Not only does Steven Spielberg makes nostalgic films, he inspires them too. Pete’s Dragon and Stranger Things are two things just from this past year that draw inspiration from Spielberg. And not only is the film expressing Steven Spielberg’s nostalgic longings, our characters are also exercising nostalgia, the audience who loves the original book or Disney film experiences nostalgia, and now simultaneously, it’s nostalgic for me (the audience) watching it having not seen it since being a kid living at home. That doesn’t sound too bad. But nostalgia is a weird thing to try and portray on screen and also try and . Adult filmmakers are just trying to be empathetic. Maybe empathy isn’t always as altruistic as we’d like to think it is.

         With all that being said, I love Hook, or at least I loved it as a kid probably like most people my age. Peter Pan was a story I always liked as a kid (I even got the nickname Nana as a kid, because of the Darling family’s dog.) I wanted to partake in the feast of colorful pies, come up with badass things to call people like “lewd, crude, rude, bag of pre-chewed food dudes”, and I was highly interested in the Lost Boys vast array of homemade, mischief-causing gadgets. That dinner scene really is something else. When you watch that for the first time as a kid you start some really rapid fire thinking: Hey maybe boredom doesn’t exist! No wait, since I can imagine anything this means anything can exist! Boredom sure, but anything else I can think of too! Recalling these things I thought of as a child while watching this film as an adult, was really fun and a little bizarre. My nostalgia isn’t serving any children, so now I’m left wondering what my role is here. How can I turn this nostalgia into something productive?  I haven’t figured it out yet. This question will probably end up informing most of my work in this class. Hopefully by the end of it I’ll have come up with something.

Diversity, The Watsons Go To Birmingham

This book was an all timer for me in elementary school. It was one that my fourth grade teacher recommended to my best friend Miranda and I for the most unofficial, official book club two nine year olds could’ve started. I remember mostly loving all the stories of mischief and only vaguely being aware that race was a factor. We were in the process of learning about the Civil Rights Movement so it was all still kind of fresh to me. Then we read it as a class in the fifth grade. A year older, fifth grade Morgan knew a thing or two more than she did before; at this point the Civil Rights Movement had been covered a few times. Plus my fifth grade teacher was a black woman; she obviously knew what she was doing when choosing this novel for us to read together. There was some sort of context now and it weighed much heavier on me that time around. I think it was a terrific way to sort of be introduced to the issues of race as a child. Reading it again wasn't much different. Heavy handedness can be isolating and sometimes stifles conversation or dialogues but here, the book gets to have its cake and eat it too. It gets to teach us a message while still being totally entertaining. We get to talk about race without only talking about race. We get to take a look at the past, without being nostalgic but still have some fun. So we're both entertained and we get to learn something, what a good combination.

         The Watson family rises above the experience of racism and violence in the same way that they overcome all difficulties -- with love, pride and determination. That's a huge lesson this book wants to teach. Although most of the story is actually set in Flint, the last sixty pages are dedicated to the events that occupy Birmingham. I think that’s a great strategy, again, for teaching children. It’s like the good version of a bait and switch. The contrast between the North and the South is a focal point of the story. In Flint, the only inkling of racism is a teacher's reminder that "as Negroes the world is many times a hostile place for us." As the Watsons travel south, the reader feels the danger growing. Mrs. Watson carefully plots the three-day trip, making sure that they stop in locations known as friendly to Negroes. Mr. Watson is not as confident of a friendly welcome, and instead chooses to drive straight through. When they make a rest stop in Appalachia, Kenny is at first afraid of encountering a snake in the dark, but Byron tells him that snakes are the least of his worries. "Man, they got crackers and rednecks up here that ain't never seen no Negroes before...they'd hang you now, then eat you later." Kids, unfortunately understand difficult things. This child’s experience is already vastly different than my experience as an adult woman. When the family travels together back to Flint they struggle to regain normalcy. Byron and Kenny undergo changes as Kenny suffers post-traumatic stress, and Byron helps him overcome it. Did we all hear that? A child with PTSD! That is scarcely a quality we see in children’s media. Eventually, the Watson family rises above the experience of racism and violence in the same way that they overcome all difficulties -- with love, pride and determination. Children’s media can deal with real issues and real violence and real suffering while still being for kids and I think The Watson’s Go To Birmingham is an excellent example of that.

Film/book analysis #2

EXPERIMENTATION
Alice (Neco Z Alenky)

The idea that growing up is tough and scary is not a novel idea, nor is the observation that lonely children might have more active imaginations. Svankmajer’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s story hints at something a little more sinister about growing up: we are expected to follow the whims and notions of authority. That makes sense for someone who lived under a government that emphasized obedience, conformity, and censorship; that persecuted or even imprisoned those who went against the status quo. So the entropy of postwar Eastern Europe is clearly informing this film. Alice says that we MUST NOT FORGET that children are citizens and products of a dark world too. Is Svankmajer making a comment on his own childhood? Maybe even a retroactive attempt at escapism?

Much of Svankmajer’s work deals with children and childhood. Alice is in the world of a child that’s been structured by the fears of an adult. Alice, even in the bliss of childhood, is burdened by adults and expectations that cripple and silence her. Political undertones (overtones?) aside, children are a mistreated demographic and it’s because we don’t know how to talk to or listen to children.

Kids don’t always have the tools to express what they want or need. When we tell children what to do, what is right and what is wrong and they don’t understand it, it’s not the child’s fault it’s ours for not accommodating to their needs. We need to adapt and innovate new ways to talk to kids in ways they can understand. That doesn’t mean patronize or condescend, it’s a call for creativity and experimentation in the adult.

Lewis Carroll's classic story has always been too erratically-paced and episodic to be successfully translated to film so who better to adapt it than a Czech surrealist? It was the first feature to be made by Jan Svankmajer after two decades of producing short films. The world of this experiment is set entirely within the confines of a series of connecting rooms (not unlike his short Down To The Cellar, which also features a young girl.) Svankmajer is experimenting with how we engage with kids here! The issue underpinning this, of course, remains animation's enduring identity (and burden) as "children's entertainment."It is clear here that in suggesting there are no aesthetic boundaries that a child may not cross, Svankmajer is already challenging the socially and legally determined parameters of what is, and what is not suitable for children.

The quietness of Svankmajer’s film only emphasizing the silencing effect society has on people who dare to fall out of line. His filmmaking feels motivated by careful observation of the surrounding world, the movements of children and animals informing a great deal of his work. It seems like he models his reanimated dolls after the stumbling and waddling of toddlers.

Svankmajer’s experimental take on a classic story might be the best depiction of the mood the original is attempting to create. It’s also an experiment of what constitutes children’s media. Alice is touching things and licking things and feeling the world that she’s a part of, but doesn’t necessarily belong in. The denizens of Wonderland are outcasts and it’s unfortunate that Alice, and children in general can sometimes be lumped into that category.

DOCUMENTATION

Catcher in the Rye

Like all American teens, I read Catcher in the Rye as a sophomore in high school, the same year Salinger died. Then I read it a couple more times just as an introspective person probably does with this novel. I retired it from my arsenal a few years ago because we all have to graduate from teen angst sometime but I really enjoyed revisiting it.

I noticed that the things I loved about it as a teenager weren’t things I love about it as a non-teenager, and the things I loved about it now weren’t even on my radar in high school. It’s difficult for me to hear about people who read the novel as teens and despise it as adults. It seems like a betrayal of your former self. Most of the discourse surrounding this novel is simply asking a bunch of adults whether or not Catcher in the Rye will really “reach the youth.” That’s pretty silly, if you ask me. This only helps prove Salinger’s point that adults were once young and disillusioned themselves, but they’ve grown out of it, and they assume the rest of the world has grown with them.

That Ring Lardner is one of Holden's favorite writers is a considerable, if wholly inadvertent, irony. Lardner was the master of the American vernacular who, as H.L. Mencken wrote, "set down common American with the utmost precision." Salinger does the same thing with American teen-speak. The language is dated but it’s written with such innocent sincerity. I bet if Catcher in the Rye was written today, he would’ve accurately documented exactly the way teenagers speak and interact now as well as he did in WWII/postwar America. Some people might find the writing manipulative, but it's not phony. Salinger writes a bildungsroman without making that it’s sole purpose. I think that’s the biggest issue with a lot of YA fiction today.  Countless YA novels follow a troubled yet appealing teenager but hardly any are written like they’re speaking to citizens (there’s that word again!) I feel like YA novelists are working backwards. They’ve decided they want to write for kids and teenagers instead of just writing for people. They then become beholden to the conventions of YA fiction and if we’ve learned anything from Holden Caulfield, it’s that teenagers can sniff out a phony from a mile away. It’s so obvious to young readers when the writing is inauthentic, artificial and insincere. They’ll reject it as false. "The Catcher in the Rye" is from the heart -- not Holden Caulfield's heart, but J.D Salinger's.

So our generation has cellphones and the internet -- the world is always changing in little ways like that. It’s the big things that don’t change -- and even in an era of such impossible interconnectedness, there is no way to circumvent the feeling of being utterly alone and misunderstood. Salinger managed to document those intangible feelings into something tangible. A case could be made that "The Catcher in the Rye" created adolescence as we now know it, a condition that barely existed until Salinger defined it. It’s one of the few good versions of a petulant teen that I’ve seen in media. This is a documentation of teenagerdom and unfortunately, just as in life, often goes misinterpreted and misunderstood.

We are plagued with awful teens in media and it’s really unfortunate. Whining rebellion may be a reality for a lot of teenagers, but when an adult creates a teenage character without care and affection that character turns into something completely unproductive. There’s no nuance, there’s no conversation, it’s just an adult chastising kids and wagging fingers. Holden, as a character, has been turned into a product -- commodified for lazy media makers. They’ve isolated one part of him and turned that into the entire thing and it’s remained such ever since.

Film/book analysis #1

INQUIRY
Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy;

We have a flawed main charachter who goes back and forth from being the bully to being the victim of bullying.

I was a huge Nancy Drew fan as a child, they were my favorite books (along with the Boxcar children.) I liked Harriet the Spy too but she was very different from Nancy. Nancy Drew was a polite and demure spy where Harriet is brash and snarky.

Harriet’s parents are harsh and disconnected. This makes her lonely and isolated. She finds solace in being inquisitive. She is encouraged to write down observations
I remember being inspired to keep a little field notes journal nearby as a kid. It maybe didn’t last very long but it worked for a bit.

ADVENTURE
Spirited Away

Response #4, Arrietty

Arrietty is whimsical and playfully sensationalist and that adds an amount of epicness to the film. Normal childhood events like being sick, playing with dollhouses or toys, making a friend who is different from you, or simply being outside, are presented as glorious occurrences.

A child is just a tiny human and they are dwarfed by the world around them. They’re little compared to just about everything. Objects can be too high to reach, arms are too short to carry everything without something spilling over, legs too little to get anywhere fast enough. But when you’re little, I think you have a more concentrated sense of wonder. Have you ever taken a child for a walk? The distance it would take an adult 15 minutes to walk could take the child an hour to do. Kids notice the smallest of details and get distracted by them, easily. They’ll take it all in: cool rocks, big sticks, weird bugs, you name it. Maybe it’s simply their proximity to the ground but the world looks cool and overwhelming when you’re little and you notice all the little details. Maybe being distracted isn’t such a bad thing sometimes.

Detail is a virtue of Ghibli films, especially with Miyazaki’s work or in this case, Miyazaki-associated work. Like mentioned before, children notice things adults pass by everyday. How fun for a child to watch a film and feel like they’re playing a game of iSpy! I’m talking specifically about The Borrower’s makeshift home because the borrowed objects (buttons, pins, tissue paper) are being repurposed to fit their needs in a way that is different from the humans. Their home looks like a shoebox diorama that 10 year old me would make, using objects around my home to create a new space.

(I spy an aluminum pop tab, a button, a stamp...)

For The Borrowers, ants are the size of rats and crickets are as big as dogs. Watching liquids behave on a small scale is beautiful to watch. They all have surface tension, so water beads from their teapot in droplets, and melted cheese forms big round balls. Wouldn’t it be lovely to look at my own food that way? It’s a shame that age seems to deprive most people of their ability to look at the most mundane elements of their life and see something extraordinary.

Arrietty’s parents teach that discovery equals disaster but she let’s her curiosity get the best of her anyways. This is an adventure film that allows children to take their own fantastic journeys within the realms of their own homes and yards and neighborhoods (although, that does sort of feel like an adult’s version of adventure.) Pod is stern yet fair. Homily may be a bit more easily hysterical and anxious when it comes to safety. It’s kind of like saying, “Go have an adventure and discover new things but don’t go too far away from safety.” Nevertheless, I think that’s a pretty good compromise.

Arrietty’s size is seen as a challenge at points but it never impedes her (i.e climbing up the drapes). It’s also an advantage sometimes (i.e fitting through a crack in a locked window.) What a nice thing for kids to see! You have a little body and can still do things, perhaps even things big people can’t do. And her unwavering enthusiasm makes her the perfect vessel for the spirit of childhood adventure.

I couldn’t help but think about Honey I Shrunk The Kids while watching this and how much I loved that movie as a kid. It recognizes that most kids are able to look at their own backyards and see a world of infinite adventure. This movie does so much with its relatively simple premise by throwing nearly every obstacle at these kids that could possibly occur. By turning our small heroes even smaller, these stories become epics. And as frightening as their adventure was, I didn’t know a single kid who saw this movie that wouldn’t have gladly embarked on that journey at least once if they could.

Response #3, Here Comes Science

People start out curious. I think children in general are far more curious and inquisitive about the world because adults think they’ve seen it all. Children ‘aint seen nothin’ -- they have to be curious. Children explore, and question, and wonder, and by doing so, they learn. When a child turns a light switch on and off, they’re learning about cause and effect. There’s transcendence from exploration to discovery.

So kids start out curious but does a child always stay curious? I don’t think so. That’s where adults come in! We have to encourage interest and inquiry. One way to do that is introduce compelling media to a child or rather, a student.

They Might Be Giants does this well. Flansburgh admits that their songs are mostly for entertainment. He says, “We can’t approach these projects as teaching tools, or pretend they are filling gaps for kids. We even have some issues with the general necessity for kids’ stuff to always be educationally enriched.”

I don’t think this is a bad thing. I think there’s power within this limitation. They’re scratching the surface -- simply opening up a door a kid wouldn’t have thought to open. Hopefully, due to a lack of information, children will take matters into their own hands to learn more. This is where they become autonomous learners. Introducing children to important subjects in ways they find interesting then allowing them the space to figure some things out for themselves is a marvelous thing.

Here Comes Science reminded me a little of the Hubley’s 1959 film, Moonbird, especially the song I Am a Paleontologist. It’s a short animated film about two brothers exploring in the middle of the night to hunt the legendary and titular “Moonbird.”  Content wise, they have nothing alike but their approach feels similar. I read that the TMBG song features spoken appearances from Weinkauf’s two children, Lena and Kai. Similarly in Moonbird, the voices of the Hubley’s sons, Mark and Ray, are featured. Including their own children, for me as an adult, is so tender. What an incredible experience for parent and child to collaborate on a piece of art. In both pieces I think that the children’s curiosity leads them to adventure and in turn again, transcendence. And when a child experiences the joy of discovery, they’ll want to do it again.

(not a great copy, but take a look if you'd like!)

As adult media makers, we should be nurturing this desire for exploration. They Might Be Giants are doing exactly that here. I find them to inspire, enthuse, and motivate. What’s sadder than a child’s curiosity fading or their inquiry dimming? Let’s avoid that at all costs!! If we let them, children can reintroduce us to the world. When we truly allow a child to discover and then share those discoveries with us, maybe we experience the joys of rediscovery and in doing so, we learn.

Response #1, SON OF RAMBOW

This film maybe wasn’t my cup of tea. I found parts of it incredibly sincere and I value sincerity very highly in children’s media. But its virtues, for me, come when the film touches on peer pressure, running and falling (literally!), neglect, and yearning. Those are the things that make up good representational children’s media to me. Kids problems are still problems and even (especially) kids need escapism. We discussed the shifting definitions of childhood in class but I think some of those virtues I mentioned above can be seen in every iteration of a “child.”

Parts of the movie seemed really tapped in and to be a truly affectionate tribute to childhood, but most of it felt more like an experiment of nostalgia for the filmmaker rather than an example of “good” children’s media. I guess I just think it was a little more self serving than the director would care to admit.  

The film reminds me of Loren Bouchard and Brendon Small’s Adult Swim show, Home Movies (1999-2004). The show is centered around an 8 year old named Brendon and his friends who make movies in their spare time. The kids deal with a lot of very realistic problems including divorce, under-employed parents, etc. The show is animated using macromedia flash animation which really emphasizes the homemade, backyard aesthetic.

Brendon’s films offer the trio an entertaining and creative escape and sometimes seem like a metaphor for needing to escape. The children in Son of Rambow are also finding liberation from their grim circumstances by making art. From a formalist standpoint mixing in the DIY shots of their home movie maybe shows the audience, more specifically the child audience that making media is accessible for all kids. Anyone, even you, can make movies.

I think most children think cinematically because their imaginations are so powerful at this age. Personally, the whole movie could’ve just been the kid’s remake and I think it would’ve been just as powerful. I love the DV tape look. People assume that a homemade aesthetic will make a lesser art because of production value; “It’s funny because it’s so bad!” which I don’t agree with that at all. It proves resourcefulness and sincerity. Their home movie isn’t just cute, it’s crucial! Children are resourceful and creative and have so many limitations but push themselves to make things they like and enjoy anyway. Being a kid is hard! Kids in the film (and out) face trials just like adults do but don’t necessarily have the resources or the “freedom” to really solve those problems like grown ups can. A lot of the time, kids just have to suck it up and deal.

Two moments of the film were particularly touching to me. Kids have social hierarchies. The reveal of Didier’s normal life (as seen on the bus back to France) was heartbreaking. Oh! What it’s like to be a king! That was the best manifestation of the Henry Jenkins quote we discussed in class. Childhood itself is a “transitional (and fragile) moment in our life cycle”. Always changing who we are. Being malleable and protean and ductile.

The second moment for me was the final line of the film spoken by Poulter, “This has been my best day of all time” which could only be sincerely stated by a child their age. I think sincerity is one of the greatest virtues of children’s media.