Final Project Treatment - Rough

Pulling from our class discussion on documentation where we talked about the disenchantment of a parent, I want to do a project that reiterates the essence of that idea from my own personal experiences.  I have found that a big factor in the coming of age narrative is the acknowledgement of reality.  As a kid, I found great admiration in my father who could do no wrong.  He was a perfect being.  But after my family went through some tough situations, and I grew up a bit, I came to the realization that he was far from perfect.  Not being a bad person--just a misguided one.  And it’s been a struggle ever since to compromise my uninhibited love for him and also my constant critique of the decisions he makes and how he governs his life.  I can see where he is flawed now, and there are things about him that I cannot stand.  Yet, I need and love him more than I can say.

So, the project I want to make encapsulates this idea of disillusion of a parent in a child’s mind.  I will do so through a compilation of short videos or vignettes.  I will start by making a list of memories that are particularly important to or significant in my understanding of my father throughout my life.  Then, from there I would shoot small ten second videos of my father over the course of a few months when he is not aware that he’s being filmed -- and use these videos as representations of the individual memories and the emotions I associate with them.  

This also pulls in another concept I’ve been thinking about which is the impermanence of memory.  I am confused and troubled by the flightiness of my memories, and have come to find that a lot of the things I remember may not even be accurate and there’s literally no way of finding out what the actuality of the event is.  I remember something one way and another person remembers it differently and there’s no reconciliation between the two who both believe their are right.  So using my own skewed memories as a guide for the project content is also subjective.  I could be incorrect, but that’s the point.  

There’s a duality to man.  People disappoint you, they let you down, they impress you, they love you--and you love them.  There are so many emotions swirling around our relationships and clouding our minds and complicating our daily interactions.  I want to capture the nature of my father.  See him at his best and his worst and almost come to no conclusion. It’s merely a presentation of a subjective fact.  

Short Essay for the final project - rough draft

Sariah May

As I’ve stated in the project treatment, the relationship between a child and parent is one that I’ve been incredibly interested in.  There is a sort of disillusionment that comes along with growing up that affects much of how you see the world, but a big change is in how you see your parents.

This is something I’ve found to be explored in many different pieces of media--much of it would not be considered children’s media, however, and instead would be classified under the category of media about childhood.  There might be some overlap there, but for the most part, media that talks about childhood and examines the ins and outs of the coming of age narrative are not typically suited for children as it explores the loss of innocence--something we wish to preserve.  

One particular example is the novel Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie--this book works to not only entertain and enlighten children readers, but to shed light on the important issues of grappling with love and passion and anger (adult emotions and issues).  And, fortuitously, the relationships between parents and their children.  Wendy Darling starts at a place that is a bit distanced from her father and all the children feel the supposed tyranny of their father in their lives.  While my project is specifically about the distancing between children and parents, I think it’s important to note the different energies between the children of Peter Pan and their father right from the start.  The children start at a place that is misunderstanding of where their father is coming from, and learn at the end of the film to see the value in him and how he loves.  This is indicative of an adult man, J.M. Barrie, who was trying to reconcile his own mixed emotions about adulthood and what it means to truly leave behind imagination and childhood and to understand the things that have to change.

So using this as a guide, my project works to expose the same sorts of things about my own father.  I have found that much of the things I’ve learned about him as I’ve gotten older have not only shown me that he is a wonderful and loving person, but also that he is a flawed and complicated human who makes mistakes and has problems.  

I’ve really enjoyed the sort of naturalistic and home video style representations of family that we’ve watched in this class, and so the style of this project takes after the home videos we might watch nostalgically to remember our family members in the past.  This allows us to see unobjectively snapshots of my father as he interacts with different members of my family and even me.  This allows us to see what he is like in the present so it can not only be a reference point for us to look back on, but juxtaposes my own perspective of him now with the memory attached to it from my past.  It sheds light on some sort of shift in my thought process or a similarity that might exist there in how I used to think about him and how I now think about him.

Overall, the way he is and acts I personally don’t think has changed much, but it’s been important for me to think about the way his influence has either shifted or changed over time and the way he’s impacted the way I am and the way I think about the world.  There needs to be some sort of understanding between him and me for me to be able to understand something important about the world and relationships between humans.  Wendy must learn to accept her father and to learn about the different ways to love, and I must learn this as well.  

Film Analysis #4: Brave

I took the opportunity to watch this film because I'd never seen it before and it's one of my little sister's favorite movies.  Paired with our discussions on family and the role family plays in children's media, I've found that the film offers up important and heart-warming contributions to the discussion.
The thing that I find to be really great about Brave is the way it addresses the relationship between mothers and daughters and differences in family members.  It's a really sweet and special message about getting to know and understand where each other is coming from.  I think there are probably a lot of daughters in the world that don't see eye to eye with their mothers, and this film handles it with great respect and love.  There are wonderful and beautiful parts of the mother/daughter relationship, but with the shifting feminist movements and with women starting to reject the roles that women have fulfilled in the past, this film showcases some of the arguments that I'm sure many have engaged with with their own mothers.

Something that I think is really great, though, is that respect that's still held or advocated for with both mother and daughter.  Merida is wild and unruly and strong-willed; she resists the role her mother desires her to fulfill and because of that, puts her family in danger.  Merida has to learn to not only reign her passions a bit to fulfill her responsibilities, but that she doesn't have to completely ditch who she is.  Her mother in return then learns to administer her knowledge to her daughter to help her become the woman she needs to be, but also to accept the change in tradition and expectation. Both women have to learn to accept each other, adjust something within themselves, and then also stand up for what they believe is right.  It's really great, too, that in the end, they both actually wanted the same thing--they just needed to communicate better.

I think something that has caused rifts in society and generations is the lack of will to understand one another.  I know that my mother and I have frequent and lengthy arguments about what each of us thinks is important for my own life and the way I live it.  Much of what we disagree on is because of a lack of understanding and a lack of proper communication.  This film was able to kind of shed light on an important issue for me: that the outcome of the argument isn't important.  It's not about whether I'm right or whether she's right, but it's more about the fact that both of us have to learn to see the value in what the other is saying.  It's an acknowledgement, too, however, that both of us are valid and right in our own ways.

Brave is a good example of a family friendly film that promotes good communication between family members.  At the end of the day, it's not about who was right or who should have listened, too.  It's about that achey bad feeling you get in your gut when you realize that you will someday lose the person you love so much that you break them.  And that's the moment in Brave that seems to drive home the message.

Book Response #4: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is an excellent example of a book with a religious message that's been hidden (not-so-subtly) in a story that would otherwise not be religious at all.  I think it's cool that a lot of fiction with fantastic elements in it resonate as religious for me.  Lord of the Rings can do so, Harry Potter can do so, Eragon can do so--it really just depends on your perspective.  I think it's because a lot of fantasy deals with the idea of the supreme being: there is always someone who is all-knowing or all-powerful that is there to protect, and there is also always the all-evil who is there to threaten the balance of nature.  It's stories like these about the forces of good and evil that allow for easy religious connections.

For The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I've found that much of the metaphors and messages arise from Christian beliefs about Christ and the Resurrection.  The book deals with many themes that have to do with bravery and goodness, but one particularly important one has to do with faith.  The children must have faith and valor and courage to save Narnia and the people there. In a way, they are acting as the catalysts for the act of the atonement where Christ suffered for the sins of all mankind, and Aslan then fills the role of Christ as he is sacrificed and the resurrected to rise again and end the battle with the evil Witch.

But the religious message is so apparent and obvious, that I feel the need to discuss something else.  As Tom talks about in his religion and media lecture in 102, he outlines the two styles that can be attributed to different types of religious media.  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe almost fulfills the abundant style, as its religious representations are seemingly directly stated.  Yet, it still remains familiar, because the religious terms are translated ever so slightly.  There is one particular quote that I find very beautiful and oddly comforting that I think is noteworthy:

"And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken [his name] everyone felt quite different.... At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer."

This excerpt is important to me for a couple reasons.  It shows the difference between those who are weighed down with guilt and fear Christ.  Edmund is an individual who has committed wrongdoings in his life and because of that, he fears God.  This is a very subtle way to not only teach religious messages to children but to also teach morality.  The other reason I like it so much is because Lewis puts religious impressions and feelings into such beautiful familiar language.  Instead of talking about having a burning in your chest or the sound of the still small voice (phrases we are familiar with when talking about religion), he relates the joy and beauty of Christ's presence to something like a good smell or a good progression of notes.  

It's really important, I think, to find religious confirmation in the mundane and the everyday.  Sure, church is awesome and general conference is uplifting, but aren't we encouraged to constantly have the Holy Spirit with us?  The Chronicles of Narnia is just one example of a book series that deals with religious content without becoming didactic or hyper-religious.  It puts familiar, comfortable, and accessible words and sentiments to religious concepts that we can relate to.  Perhaps this is the case with all spiritual or religious media and literature, but the way Lewis handles it is full of awe and grace and poetry.  It's beautiful to read and I feel is important to give to children.

It's also nice because the child reading the book can identify with the children protagonists in the book.  They can read and understand their own role in the plan of salvation.  They rely on and need Aslan, or Christ, to get through to the end, but they are also their own saviors.  They must make the decisions and fight their own battles, with a brave lion by their side when they need the help.  Christ is there to make up the difference in strength and valor, but the children need to have the faith that he will be there to help them and that he will be their arms.  

Film Response #8: Speed Racer

The main issue I'd want to talk about Speed Racer with is its portrayal of gender roles and equality of the sexes.  Particularly, its disregard for the female participant.

The gender roles enforced in the film hark back to the same era the design is pulling from.  Relying on traditional 50's and 60's values, the mother in the family is reduced to someone who is there to serve food when needed and offer up a heart-warming piece of advice to her troubled son.  Seen in a montage near the end of the team gearing up to bring Speed to the Grand Prix race, Susan Sarandon appears only briefly in the kitchen making sandwiches and delivering them, while the men are hard at work.  This being her only main task in aiding the team is putting her directly out of the danger zone and excitement of the things that everyone else is doing.

Contrastingly, Trixie is given a bit more to do in the film.  She remains as a support system for Speed and is there to give him a girlfriend, basically.  But, we do get one moment of her breaking out of her female role to drive a race car along with Speed and friends towards the end of the film--even getting to kick some butt of the antagonists.  The thing about this moment, however, is that it's short lived and she still ends up needing saving from Speed when danger comes a-calling.  Trixie still exists on the plane of a supporting female lead, who is there to bat her eyes and look cute, while also providing some sass and surprise with her moment in the cock pit.

I can see the issue with presenting these kinds of ideologies in children's media.  While the film is clearly one giant hyperbole and is not meant to be taken seriously on almost any level, there is still a subliminal message being conveyed.  A woman is not strong enough to handle the dangerous things; a woman is not cut out for more than verbal or emotional support.  I think, if I were to watch this as a kid, I probably wouldn't voice these thoughts or even really think about them, but the happenstances would be stored away in my memory and would be pulled out later when I asked myself why it's so important that I continue to perpetuate my own gender roles.  I feel we may not think it to be harmful, but when the child is consuming so many different films that all perpetuate the same ideas, it adds up to a closed mind.

"Sketch Book"

A compilation of memories of my father:

1. My mother was away on a trip.  We were sitting in church.  He took off his wedding ring and looked at it hard for a few moments, before turning to me and asking me to read the inscription on the inside.  It read: Forever yours.  He took the ring back from me and slipped it back on his finger. It was probably 2007 or 2008.

2. It was 2:00 in the morning.  I had gone to bed hours before, but woke up sweaty and hot.  I looked up from where I lay next to my two little sisters and saw him on the computer next to us.  The blue light made him look sick.

3. We had been on the road for 6 hours already.  I sat next to him with my dog in my lap.  He talked aimlessly about how unfair all of it was to the dog, and started to cry.

4. I was sitting with my sisters in the middle of the afternoon upstairs.  He was yelling at my mom.  We were hiding.

5. My car broke down in the middle of Salt Lake and I was alone.  He left in the middle of a soccer game to come pick me up.

6. He had just had open heart surgery, and it was his first day home from the hospital.  I rested my ear against his chest and listened to the steady thump of his new heart.

7.  He picked me up from school on a regular day with my suitcase packed.  We never went back to our house.

8.  They offered to pay for therapy for him.  He refused to go.

9. He checked himself into a psych ward without explanation.  I asked my mom when he'd be back.  She told me soon.

10. I left for college, and he dropped me off.  He carried all my bins and boxes up three flights of stairs, even though he had a bad knee.

11. He linked his arm through mine and walked through the streets with me, singing songs he learned as a boy in school in India.

12. He rubbed my ear to distract me from my growing pains.


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My next step is to brainstorm some of the images that would accompany these memories.  These would be presented in the format of a website, where it would be just like a short video with the memories being read along with the images/vignettes.  The footage is not just of my father, but perhaps of other things as well.

I'd want to get other people to contribute to this as well, and have them try to recreate the memories with subjective images or video clips.

Film Response #3: Rabbit-Proof Fence

If I was to compare this film to the film we watched for diversity week, I'd talk about how the diversity reading of the film is different.  Rabbit-Proof Fence is a film about three aboriginal girls who get taken from their families by white men who think they're helping and doing good for the indigenous people of Australia.  Taken to a reformation school, the three girls escape and embark on a long dangerous trek across the country in order to return to their family.

I find that the part of the beauty of the film and its message about diversity is that it comes directly from the point of view of the indigenous population.  From my American grown perspective, I can see the goal or worth in what the British colonists in Australia are trying to do.  While they are trying to teach developed skills and knowledge to the children of the aboriginals, they are still misguided and wrong in doing so.  This is where the unique POV comes into play: the children make decisions and are shown doing things that directly go against what we know from our perspective.

The kids pursue the thing that will make them happy: to live with their family in the way they were raised.  They reject colonization, they reject the development of their people.  They don't care about what they are lacking or what they could gain, they only care about the bonds that have been taken from them--and justly so.  It's an interesting look at what colonization looks, feels, and does to the people that are at the other end of it.  I have only interacted with a handful of works that offer up this same kind of perspective, and it's rare that they are intended for children audiences.  Whale Rider and Rabbit-Proof Fence both work at this in a very graceful and sophisticated way that allows children to interact with tougher ideologies.  

I'm sure the concern exists there for the well-being of the children in the movie--and because of this, the child watching the film must ask the hard question as to why.  Why would they risk so much to get home?  What is the problem at hand with the colonization?  Is it the intent?  Is it the obvious racism?  Is it because the government actually wants to help or are they just trying to impose their own cultures and standards on people without taking into consideration how they feel about it?  A film like this forces a kid to think about things they wouldn't otherwise think of or have to deal with, and I think that's really important in good children's media.  I believe this would be a good immersion for a child into the world of 4th cinema, and allow them to see that there are different perspectives to problems and to history and that there is more to consider than just the immediate geography and culture outside their house.

Book Response #3: Winnie The Pooh

I struggled a bit with reading and interpreting Winnie The Pooh in the context of nostalgia for a bit.  It's been hard to separate my own personal attachment with the material with the aims and ties to the topic that are perhaps what I'm supposed to talk about and engage with.  For someone who views the television show of Winnie The Pooh as a formative part of her childhood, it's hard to talk about nostalgia with the book without referencing my own personal feelings of nostalgia for the characters and situations.  It's been interesting to read the stories for the first time, however, and to put them alongside the blurry remembrance of the show that I have.  I won't compare or contrast the two in any way, but I wanted to talk about my own tie to the bumbling little bear and his friends--if only to establish an already existing longing for something of the past.

The stories within Winnie and the Pooh are, at surface level, incredibly charming and clever.  Filled with surprising wit from seemingly idiotic characters, A.A. Milne handles the foolery of the woodland animals with grace and kindness and love.  I think much of the humor in the dialogue was lost on me as a kid, if the show was anything like the book.  There are themes present in each of the chapters and important life lessons about empathy and friendship that are being conveyed.  The book fulfills its purpose of serving as a piece of literature that a child could consume and inadvertently be entertained and educated.  But there is something else that sits under the surface of the book, and it's hard to completely pin down.

Taking into consideration what we talked about in class about nostalgia--mainly the ideas of yearning for something of the past and of homesickness--I am left wondering what it is about Winnie The Pooh that makes me feel a bit melancholic.  Perhaps it is just purely the memory of enjoying it in my own childhood, or perhaps it's something else.  While reading it, I found myself strangely longing for a part of someone else's life (a strange sensation).  I wonder if this is in any way tied to the strange obsession with the 90's in our current culture or the 80's or the 70's or any other era that we glorify with little to no interaction with the actual decade.  Winnie The Pooh leaves me wanting to return to Old English Times, to go to England, to go to Hyde Park, to eat tea and biscuits, to wear a frilly dress, etc.  This is a culture I did not interact with in my life, but still seems to have made an impression.  Aesthetic and the role it plays in nostalgia is important and possibly inseparable.  It's the walls of a room, and the color of the carpet.  Winnie the Pooh somehow seems to create a homesickness in me for a home I've never had.

Using the actual text as an example, though, there are things in the stories themselves that contribute to a different kind of nostalgia.  Christopher Robin is a young boy who starts in the book as someone asking their father for a story.  It is after that that he is transported into the story and begins to interact with the characters.  The narrator--the father--uses this storytelling technique to give his son something to interact with without the boy actually running off on adventures.  In a way, storytelling is an act that enables the child to leave home without ever having to.  And so, Christopher Robin does just that.  And coming from the perspective of the adult but told in a way that is simple enough for the child to understand and engage with, the adult is also imposing his own nostalgia and desires for simplicity by creating an idyllic and fantastical rag-tag family for his son to go on adventures with.  The nostalgia felt by him is then lived by his son as he recounts tales of friendship and fun.

I feel very satisfied by the collection of stories and have enjoyed the simplicity of it.  Though, with all the best children's media and literature, it's never really as simple as it may at first glance seem.  There's something more to the story of Eeyore on his birthday as he slowly takes his deflated balloon in and out of the honey jar.  It's a sadness and a happiness and that's the closest description to what nostalgia feels like as I can manage.

Children's Media Response: #7

Talking about Whale Rider in the context of diversity is a conversation that could be eons long.  The film handles the portrayal of a Maori Tribe with no apologies and extreme reverence and respect.  It's almost strange for someone with little to no exposure to the cultural beliefs and traditions of those peoples to come into a film that hits the ground running in the middle of a tension between a chief and his son that is based in a cultural tradition.  I, being very unfamiliar with the ways of Maori tribes, was confused for a good part of the beginning.  It took me a little bit to adjust to a language I was unfamiliar with--there was a bit of a learning curve, I guess, to understanding the film.  But once I was able to immerse myself in the world along with the characters, I found great beauty and joy in the traditions and music and beliefs of the tribe.  

But I feel that a conversation that is more complex or more intriguing is not just pointing out the way the film portrayed the diversity of the tribe in comparison with American culture, but the way in which the film was trying to merge contemporary culture with an ancient one.  Mostly dealing with preexisting gender roles, the journey of Pai is a paradox.  By defying ancient tradition, she is also able to continue it and help it to pass along.  She is, essentially, able to save her people because of her breaking the rules.  This film does a great job of showing how, in a different culture, the necessity of growing and adapting ones mind and standards can lead to beautiful and prosperous results.  Pai understands the beauty and breadth of her tribe's cultures and traditions.  She understands something that her grandpa does not, and her journey is less of self-discovery as the new chief of the tribe, but more of a journey of self sacrifice in order to help him understand something new.  

Whale Rider  is a beautiful combination of beliefs across two cultures.  It is a film that I watched as a kid and didn't understand at all.  I wonder where its place is in the children's media sphere.  Is it a film that children will understand?  Or is it something that exists purely as exposure.  I remember watching this when I was younger and feeling alienated by some of the things I was seeing.  I didn't get it, and therefore thought the film was kind of boring.  Perhaps I was too young when I saw it, I should have been ten or eleven instead of only 6.  I do think, though, that it is something that would be beneficial to older children, who can more fully adapt and understand.  I think the early exposure to diversity is really important.  Disney is great, but doesn't give any insight into cultural difference.  

Film Analysis #2: The Wind Rises

For this assignment, I watched The Wind Rises directed by Miyazaki.  This film, a beautifully animated and sound designed film is an interesting film to talk about documentation with.  From our discussions, it was hard to draw the distinction between documentary and the role documentation plays in fiction films.  The film we watched for the week did not necessarily help with this, or at least to me and the way my mind works.  However, pulling from the examples shown in class, I've come to understand that documentation (from my understanding) means or aims to show the coming of age or realization or growth of a child.  Documentation exists to literally do just that: document the shifts and actual growing up of the character.

The Wind Rises, then, takes on the role of documenting the growth of one character: Jiro.  He is a character who makes his way through adolescence in war torn Japan during WWII, and grows up to design the fighter planes for the army.  He lives through many sorrows on his way--falling in love, losing his wife, surviving the war and being away from his family.  Not only do we get documentation of his life and the things he experiences, but we also get documentation of some of the key historical events that were happening during the time of the war and the Great Depression.  The cool thing about it, too, is that not only are we getting documentation of his life and the world but we are getting to see these historical events through the eyes of a character and in context of someone who we wouldn't necessarily get to see otherwise.

With Jiro, we get to see him periodically as he grows up.  Some of the examples we watched in class were more about the exact moments that were specifically poignant or life-changing in a person's life.  This is still the case with this film, but we get to see moments of importance and blips of significance as we follow along with the character.  It's like watching someone's timeline: the moment they fell in love with planes and aircrafts, their days in school as they learn their craft, a day where fire and war took over and caused tragedy, the moment they met the love of their life, the times they spent with their best friend, the day their wife died, etc.  All of this is shown to us in sequence, but condensed in time.  In a few short hours, we get to see the entire journey and arc of one man.

It's perhaps in the end when Jiro's wife dies that the true importance of documentation shines through.  I've found that the event itself is what holds significance and weight, and not just the lesson learned.  The lesson almost comes later, with reflection.  When life happens, one has to just kind of endure after it.  It never truly goes away, it possibly never even gets easier.  But it does, however, get easier to continue on.  Maybe this is the thing about the movie that was so interesting and compelling.  There is almost no closure to the trauma and the tragedy, there is just continuation.  I liked that aspect of his story.  Whether there were good things happening or bad things happening, it all just had to keep going on.  There's a nostalgia and an impermanence in his story.  But we don't get to dwell on it.  We just move on.

That's kind of the beauty of documentation then.  Because life does indeed move on without our consent, we can have media and home videos to preserve and to contain.  It's kind of amazing, actually.

! Response to Matilda the Musical !

"And these children that you spit on

As they try to change their worlds

Are immune to your consultations

They're quite aware of what they're going through."

-David Bowie

Kids understand more than we give them credit for.  I've said this many times in my responses in this class, but I mean it more here than I ever did before.  I think the difference between children and adults is a topic that Roald Dahl was always trying to bring up.  Across all his works, we can see clear patterns in the characteristics and behaviors of the adult characters.  A few words we could throw out would be neglectful, rude, evil, ugly, fowl, or biting.  Whether we're talking about the treacherous Trunchbull or the ambiguously mean Willy Wonka, the adults all have an air about them that separates them from the children.  One exception to this rule, however, is the character of Miss Honey in Matilda.  I spent a long time wondering what the reasoning behind making Miss Honey a nice adult was, and came up with a few different answers.  A possible explanation is that the child-genius Matilda needed to have at least someone on her side--someone who could eventually take care of her.  Or perhaps it is that Dahl didn't necessarily think ALL adults were evil.  However, the answer that I think works best in accordance with the subject matter of the musical and book is this: Miss Honey is not really an adult.  In this reimagining of the beloved children's book, the biggest overarching theme that I could pull out was that of bravery being the most important tool for change in ones life.  The children are all portrayed as beautiful, wonderful, eager to love and learn humans; the adults are all portrayed as the opposite.  Miss Honey survives the story as a kind compassionate woman, yet still upholds dishonorable traits--she is scared, beaten down, and a pushover.  I submit  that Miss Honey, in Roald Dahl's eyes, is not actually an adult.  She instead is the child of  the story,    and Matilda takes the role of the adult as she guides Miss Honey to find her voice and her courage.

To tie in this musical with our discussion on experimentation is quite easy.  It's clear that when you sit down to watch this show there is a lot at work that is unconventional and non-traditional.  Right from the start, we are thrown into choreography that resembles the wild energy of children. Everything is really sharp and perfectly timed--the children dance by hitting specific poses.  As they sing about how their parents think they're miracles, they jump and yell and do naughty things, and it's very  contrapuntal.  When Matilda is introduced, we also get to see the difference between her and her classmates, because she instead sings of how her parents say she's a "nasty little worm" or a "bore."  Matilda is subjected to abuse throughout the entire musical, but remains level-headed and calm and wise about the situation.  She knows when people are being unfair, and she knows that she deserves something better than what she has.  Her choreography for her solo numbers is really influenced by boxing and karate--she hits battle poses and strikes the air with her hands more than others.  This stylized dancing is reflective of her inner desires and motivations to fight to get what she needs.  So,   at first glance, while the choreography seems very strange and unrealistic, it's actually reflective of  the nature of children and their desires to be heard and taken seriously.

The design also is experimental in its own way.  The color scheme seems to be bright greens, pinks, and blues--brighter than you think they'd be.  Set pieces seem to glow, and the lighting enhances the weirdness of it all.  I've noticed a certain grossness that exists with Roald Dahl's works.  He   understands the appeal of weird and nasty to children.  Everything from the clothing the parents wear to the insults Trunchbull makes is a little bit gross, and it's really refreshing.  I think we need to see the contrast between our world and this particular world in order for the aesthetic to tell a message.  Perhaps children need to know that the weirdness is a cue for them to understand that the bad evil adults are metaphors or exaggerations.  I think it's probably important for children's media to be fantastical for them to make the distinction between reality and fiction.

One more thing I want to reiterate is the adult-ness of Matilda.  I think portraying such a young girl as so mature and controlled and smart is a really honorable way of portraying a child.  THere are    children that I think feel and act this way.  They are small adults in tiny bodies and are quite aware of  their shortcomings and their disadvantages.  I think more children are like this than we  are aware of.  There's a nice number called "When I Grow Up" in the musical in which the kids dictate what they want and will do when they grow up and can make their own decisions.  They sing idealistically about how they will "watch cartoons until [their] eyes go square" or "eat sweet everyday" or "go to bed late every night."  This is their anthem of advocation for some kind of charge in their lives and is a bit sad because we, the adults, know that they won't ever get there.  Those children that sing that song are then followed by Miss Honey arriving on stage and singing a verse that reflects her own follies:

"When I grow up,

I will be brave enough to fight the creatures 

That you have to fight beneath your bed

Each night, to be a grown up." 

This is then followed by Matilda singing about her own personal convictions :

"Just because you find that life's not fair 

It doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it.

Even if you're little you can do a lot 

You shouldn't let a little thing like little stop you."

The two verses sung next to each other provide us with the ultimate insight to the inner emotions and expressions of the characters, and provide a nice thematically framework for the theme.  We learn here that Matilda, though small and young, is the one who understands more about what life requires.  Miss Honey remains the child, stunted and afraid, and in need of help from her smaller counterpart.

Overall, it's a very beautiful musical that has an important message and then is just filled with energy and imagination and fun.  I feel it's one of the smartest and most cohesive works I've ever seen on stage.

Children's Media Response: #4

God Bless The Child (2015) is a hybrid documentary/fiction film following a family of five children living through a summer day without the supervision of a parent.  This film, made and directed by the  quintet of children's own father, is a really interesting documentation of the children and the way they interact with one another and survive one another.  Throughout, there is a clear and prevalent love experienced and shown by each one of the kids, and despite their lack of parental attention and care they still seem to endure together.

I really liked our discussions of documentation in class last week.  I feel, that this is where we veer away from talking about media FOR children and start talking about media ABOUT children.  I would say this film is for adults, as it plays on the nostalgias of childhood and showcases the joy and sorrow of childhood, presenting its audience with a clear and abundant love for kids and what they are.  Each child in the film is, essentially, perfect in their own unique way.  The things they rejoice in are good, the ways they love are good.  They exist and thrive in goodness and in indulgence.  The eldest, Harper, is shown as a mature mother.  She takes the role of mom when their own mom is not there, and she represents the adult viewer in the film.  She has grown up and matured too early, and the way she interacts with her younger siblings holds the weight and sadness of an adult, but is still holding the young hope of a child too.  She is shown by the filmmakers with as much love as she shows her siblings.

I have found that the preservation of childhood is something that we are interested in discussing in this class and that almost every piece of children's media holds to be important.  It's almost as if we are all trying, in some way, to figure out this weird limbo in our minds where our memories of childhood exist.  It feels as if everyone is trying to get back or try to understand or relive some piece of their past.  This film is clearly getting at some statement of what children are and how precious childhood is.  It points a finger at those who are young and have untainted personalities and minds and says, "isn't this what we want? Isn't this what we need to get back to?"  I felt the filmmaker's own love for his children in this film and a melancholic desire to protect and preserve them in the way they are and were.

Documentation does that.  It gives us the ability to freeze time and keep people the way they are forever on a strip of film or digital file.  It allows us to hold on to something that eventually becomes shrouded and obscured.  And because of this, we can have films like God Bless The Child, which not only serves the purpose of being a showcase of childhood and goodness but also the documentation of a family, and how they once were.

Film Analysis #1

MARY POPPINS (1964)

This is not a story about children.  Filled with fantastic colorful sequences of animated creatures dancing and chalk full of delightful musical numbers -- it could be very easily categorized as a film that children would enjoy and could easily be a piece of children's media.  However, despite the beautiful imagery and light-hearted comedy, a very solemn and stern message sits at the heart of the film.  While it can be a piece of media enjoyed by children and adults alike, the film adheres firmly to its pro-family messages, and acts as a cautionary tale against neglectful parenting.

I remember, as a kid, loving this film.  There were so many fun parts of the film that I enjoyed acting out with my sisters and singing along to.  It was a jovial jaunt of ride for me, and I was able to use this film as a way to live out my own wild fantasies.  However, watching this film now, with many years in between viewings, I've found it to be one of the saddest films I've ever seen.  The way the film so clearly establishes the rift between adults and children is harrowing for a good part of the film.  It's clear very early on that the main problem in the family is the Father's lack of interest and attention in his family affairs -- pinning the root of the problem on his priorities being in the wrong place.  Mr. Banks' idea of being a man and being a good parent all relies on precision and order.  Very explicitly stated by his song, "The Life I Lead."

[Mr. Banks]: It's 6:03 and the heirs to my dominion
Are scrubbed and tubbed and adequately fed
And so I'll pat them on the head
And send them off to bed
Ah! Lordly is the life I lead!

The children are introduced as "problem" children, and they have been through many different nannies (all who have been run out by the naughty children).  They are shown as not wanting to do their chores or go to bed or follow the rules.  They long for sweets and kindness, and when they try to tell their father about it, he is too prideful and stubborn to listen.  When we jump to the end of the film, having gone through a journey of lessons and musical whim, we get to the ultimate lesson learned--that of Mr. Banks learning that he was the one who was wrong all along, not the children.  Bert sings of this lesson in a very sweet reprise of the tune from Mr. Banks' song from earlier.  Mr. Banks starts the song again by lamenting on how he had dreams of being something more than just a man.  He sings of how his plans were dashed and ruined, and his life in shambles all because of Mary Poppins.  This is when Bert steps in and corrects him, and tells him about the actual problem at heart:

[Bert]: You've got to grind, grind, grind

At that grindstone

Though child'ood slips like sand through a sieve

And all too soon they've up grown

And then they've flown

And it's too late for you to give

Just that spoonful of sugar

To 'elp the medicine go down

Mr. Banks does eventually have the change of heart that is required of him for the film to reach its resolution.  And then, when all is said and done, what the children really needed was love from their father.  Perhaps even their mother as well.  It is right for Mr. Banks to have dreams and aspirations.  However, the film very explicitly admonishes against those dreams being intrinsic and materialistic and worldly.  It instead advocates for a parent's dreams to be centered around creating a loving environment for the family.  After all, what is the good of having anything in the world when you don't have people to share it with?  Bert ultimately was warning Mr. Banks that if he continued to push his children and wife away, he would be alone in the world.  He advocates sweetness as opposed to morals. 

So, in the end, this film feels more like a story for fathers and mothers, and less so for children.  Perhaps it is supposed to warn and aid parents in the right direction, to help correct or prevent families from being broken down.  It is so clearly dealing with an adult problem and presenting a very clear moral to adults, that it is hard for me to know what exactly children take away from the film.  But, perhaps that is not the problem.  The problem is, in actuality, that there are parents who neglect their children, and the solution is not always a film.  But what a noble and beautiful way of addressing the issue this film is. 

Children's Media Response: #3

Looking at some of our media examples from class and from the assigned homework readings/videos, I feel as if I understand fairly well what the inquiry topic means in regards to children's media.  I have a good grasp on what that is and what it does.  A child is a new human: someone who is venturing into an entirely new planet.  They are curious, they are wild, they are students of every facet of life.  This leads to a need that their developing minds have.  They must try to understand what is around them.  I feel that there are many different ways in which they can learn--and media in its various forms is just one of them, but a very effective one.

The They Might Be Giants album about science is a really nice example of a healthy and fun piece of entertainment to expose a child to.  It utilizes animation and absurdity and catchy tunes to get some complicated or confusing information out.  I would say that even as an adult, I still learned a new thing in every song.  The videos and songs were informative and creative and varied in topics enough to keep the journey fun and stimulating.  This is something that is important for children, who tend to have shorter attention spans.  The videos are short and fun enough to keep them engaged. Not only that, but they are still promoting good ideologies and ideas.  They are still prompting kids to be nice to the environment by driving an electric car, or to be nice to animals who provide us with many resources.  

We talked for a second in class about some hidden ideologies in different things that children engage with, and I stand by those ideologies not only being present but as being active and playing an active role in the developing minds.  Kids are way smarter than they get credit for.  Especially because they are students, they are watching carefully.  Children are eager to understand and eager to learn.  They see something, and while they may lack some of the analytical tools that adults have, they still analyze in their own ways.  A kid can still watch Pinocchio and come away from it with the knowledge that bad decisions = bad consequences, and they can still come away from the science music videos and know that an electric car is better than a gas car.  They are understanding, and they don't want you to baby them.  

That's a big part of being a kid--is knowing that you are one.  People tell you all the time and overtly leave you out of discussions or dismiss you because you are young and small.  And they are right. You're not ready to watch Star Wars yet, or you shouldn't watch a bunch of people kiss.  But sometimes what you want is to be treated like a real person.  It's a strange line to walk, and I don't really know why I'm talking about this, but it seemed relevant this week. 

Children's Media Response: #2

The film Pinocchio stands as one of my earliest memories of interacting with cinema as a child.  It is, personally, one of my absolute favorite children's films.  One thing that has been a consistent awe to me in this class so far is how different the take-aways are in adulthood when compared to childhood.  As a kid, and this is my current mind scraping the barrel for remembrances of what my child brain thought, this film was a colorful, light-hearted journey with a puppet.  It's strange to watch the film now and not only re-live the things I felt as a kid but to experience something different altogether.

The morality side of children's media is something that has always existed.  Our readings focused on the origins of fairy tales and different versions of one tale and how each presented their own ideologies.  I believe that the didacticism of children's media is something that it kind of has to have.  Where Son of Rambow lacked a bit of strong moral themes, it did still teach some sort of lesson about creativity and the importance of understanding within family members.

Pinocchio, on the other hand, teaches distinct and clear morals about right and wrong.  It tells the child in big bold letters: DON'T DO THIS, and DO THIS.  There are direct consequences and they are terrible and horrible.  As a kid, the image that had been burned onto my brain was the one of a boy turning into a donkey.  That fear of turning into a donkey if I did anything wrong remained with me for longer than it should have.  So one tactic that Pinocchio seems to take on is a sort of 'scared straight' one.  This was, and is, extremely effective.  Even watching the film now, as an adult, it remains a terrifying image and event.  I like that the film is able to elicit that same response in adults and children.

I know I mentioned before that the experience as a child can be different than the experience as an adult might have while watching a film.  The thing that is remarkable about Pinocchio is that I feel like the experience was mostly the same.  I got the same messages from the film when I was a kid as I did just last week.  The difference is that now, as an adult, I understand the apparatus.  I can see what's at work and how.  As a kid, all you take in is the sequence of events and the emotions you're left with.  You  still understand, you still make meaning, you are just unaware of how.

That's kind of important, I think.

Children's Media: Response #1

Taking into consideration our discussion in class, I'm left with a sort of blurry and upsettingly more complex idea as to what childhood is and what the term "Children's Media" refers to.  I've always been proud of my love for children's films and have used that love and devotion to the genre as a signifier of my "extensive" knowledge on the subject as well. I'm now sitting here questioning what I thought, and am excited for what I might learn.

Benjamin gave us three categories to consider:
1. Media For Children
2. Media About Childhood
3. Media That Children Consume

I was left trying to understand what to define as a child, and what to define as appropriate.  Many of us brought up good points about ethics and content and intent, and all of them seemed to propose a new thing that would complicate my former ideas about each subject.  You could lump all movies that seem to be aimed at children into the category of "children's media" but what about the films that are subtly or even explicitly just about childhood?  Shouldn't a film that deals overtly with themes about growing up and the mindset of being a child be a child's right to watch?  Examples of this that pop into my mind are films like Finding Neverland (2004), Boyhood (2014), or even Ivan's Childhood (1962).  You could make the argument that Finding Neverland, a film that talks about childhood and depicts it quite beautifully is a piece of children's media quite easily; however, something like Boyhood or Ivan's Childhood is more complicated in the sense that content and disturbing imagery and themes get in the way of it being appropriate for a child.  So that category gets complicated.  Perhaps not ever film that discusses childhood is for a child, but children should still be exposed to media that is about them and the things they go through.

The film we watched in class, Son of Rambow (2007) is a wonderfully imaginative and full of heart film that definitely is a piece of media that I find hard to define.  It deals with issues about being a kid and being in a world of kids.  The adults are distant and hard to understand and villainized for the most part.  This, I've found to be a common thread in a lot of films for children--the adults are misunderstood or presented as antagonists (hinting at an underlying ideology within children's minds).  The film represents the imagination and freedom in children as uber-important and, essentially, the thing that must be saved in children.  The main character, Will, is seen being stifled creatively in his family and his religion, and must find a way to break out of that or help others see the importance of the special world he lives in.  A common thread here also lies with his mother, who we see in a flashback being stifled creatively by her own parents.

There are definitely themes in the film that are aimed at parents in re: understanding your children, and also at children in re: being a kid and dealing with the issues that go along with that.  I would define it as a piece of children's media in the sense that it is a film that is for a kid, could be consumed by a kid, and deals with being a kid.  However, it is also something that could be argued to be aimed at adults as well, as I read and interpreted the film to be a message to adults about what we've lost, or what we're doing wrong.

I could go on forever about this topic, but I want to end on this specific note: children's media is a complex and beautiful genre within filmmaking.  Isn't it special that there are things that appeal to almost every single person on Earth, regardless of their intelligence level or comprehension?  Isn't is really unique that a film can give one adult a certain message and one child a different one?  I've found in my experience that children are incredibly smart and wise beings, and they deserve all media that is SMART and doesn't treat them like idiots.  Children should not be talked down to, they should be challenged.  Because they can handle it, and some of them want it and seek it out.  There are children out there that deserve beautiful and magical and special art to consume, and that is the children's media that stands out.