Kidding Around: The Child in Film and Media PDF
Preview Kidding Around: The Child in Film and Media
Kidding Around Kidding Around The Child in Film and Media Edited by Alexander N. Howe and Wynn Yarbrough Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway 50 Bedford Square New York London NY 10018 WC1B 3DP USA UK www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 © Alexander N. Howe and Wynn Yarbrough, and contributors, 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN: 978-1-6235-6054-6 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Representations and Renegotiations: Childhood and Its Uses Wynn Yarbrough and Alexander N. Howe 1 Part 1 Rites of Passage and Impasse 1 Betwixt and Between: The Child in M. Night Shyamalan’s Films Kevin A. Wisniewski 11 2 The Monstrous Masculine: Abjection and Todd Solondz’s Happiness Adam P. Wadenius 33 3 Only a Child: Spectacles of Innocence in the Lolita Films Brian Walter 51 Part 2 Childhood as Text 4 The “Rubbing Off” of “Art and Beauty”: Child Citizenship, Literary Engagement, and the Anglo-American Playground and Play Center Movement Michelle Beissel Heath 71 5 “The Studio World Surprised and Disturbed Ruth”: The Diffident Stage Mother and the Difficult Child in a Post-War Novel by Noel Streatfeild Sally Sims Stokes 95 6 Building a Mystery: Relative Fear and the 1990s Autistic Thriller Chris Foss 119 7 Pundit Knows Best: The Self-Help Boom, Brand Marketing, and The O’Reilly Factor for Kids Michelle Ann Abate 139 Part 3 Disney and Its Progeny 8 Power to the Princess: Disney and the Creation of the Twentieth- Century Princess Narrative Bridget Whelan 167 vi Contents 9 Surreal Estate: Building Self-Identity in Monster House Michael Howarth 193 10 The Wild and the Cute: Disney Animation and Environmental Awareness David Whitley 211 Conclusion: Criticism and Multicultural Children’s Films Iris Shepard and Ian Wojcik-Andrews 223 Notes on Contributors 233 Index 237 Acknowledgments The editors would like to thank the Provost’s Office at the University of the District of Columbia for generously supporting the conference that generated the essays collected in this volume. A special thanks is also due to Deirdre Evans-Pritchard for her tireless efforts organizing the film festival that accom- panied the original conference. We are grateful to the following publishers for granting permission to reprint these essays in the current volume: Chapter 2, “The Monstrous Masculine: Abjection and Todd Solondz’s Happiness,” by Adam Wadenius, originally appeared in Widescreen 1, no. 1 2009. Chapter 7, “Pundit Knows Best: The Self-Help Book, Brand Marketing and The O’Reilly Factor for Kids,” first appeared in Michelle Ann Abate’s Raising Your Kids Right: Children’s Literature and American Political Conservativism (Rutgers, 2010). A prior version of Chapter 8, “Power to the Princess: Disney and the Creation of the 20th Century Princess Narrative,” by Bridget Whelan, appeared in the journal Interdisciplinary Humanities in the Spring of 2012. Introduction: Representations and Renegotiations: Childhood and Its Uses Wynn Yarbrough and Alexander N. Howe University of the District of Columbia As scholarship of media evolves in the second decade of this new millennium, intersections with traditional modes of criticism have produced rich and often divided conversations. Contemporary media theory has left the “high” Humanist binaries of “natural” and “commercial” art far behind, and inquiries that combine cultural theory and discussions of consumption and marketing have become de rigueur. And yet academic analysis of children and media, particularly in the US, remains in the initial stages of reconciling the interac- tions of audience, message, and marketing. A necessary point of intersection to open the examination of children’s media is the field of children’s literature. Here, scholars have been studying children’s works from the perspectives of gender and thematic criticism, semiotics, cultural studies, new historicism, commercial marketing, and a host of other avenues of inquiry. Journals like The Lion and the Unicorn and the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly have offered a platform for analyzing the sociological, cultural, and political mechanisms driving a vast array of media (e.g. fiction, film, TV programs, poetry, illustrations, and new media) desig- nated for children. In many ways, these journals, and organizations like the Children’s Literature Association, have “legitimized” the field of scholarship known as “children’s literature,” even though the organization and the confer- ences, journals, and books it produces examine all sorts of children’s media. The chapters collected in this volume continue these ongoing discussions surrounding children’s media. The study of children and media is not without its pitfalls, and we are wise to remember Marcia Kinder’s comments in her Kids’ Media Culture—a work that discusses toys, games, TV shows, film, and other child-targeted media alike—regarding the ethical entanglements that await any critical discussion of children’s media:
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