Children’s films are a serious marker today on the
personalities and development of a child’s emotional, cognitive, and social development. On the one hand, it gives parents a little breathing space, it can result in a child’s developing language
skills, or even bilingual skills, and it can be something that is also used as a
social tool, where parents or other children, can gather and find a common interest or activity.
On the other hand, there is significant evidence that films for young children have become significantly more violent
in recent years and that children are watching many more hours of programming through the medium of films. Films in generations
past might have been viewed weekly at the movie theatre, requiring one to get out of the house, to have sufficient money to
go to the theatre, and usually a certain amount of socialization. Today, with the VCR and DVD’s, films available on
the Internet, film viewing can be a daily activity, with the same films, e.g. a child’s favorite films, being watched
over and over again. (In the case of television, a 1996 survey revealed that 8 out of 10 children’s cartoons were violent
in nature.
Films are more powerful than television in that there is more time for characters to be developed and therefore, characters
can be more emotionally bonding. Also, even children’s films from years ago, such as Walt Disney movies, had significant
amounts of both violence, as well as subjects of deep emotional significance. Disney had been subject to child abuse when
young, and some of the scenes in his movies reflect that fact. (One scene in Pinocchio as an example, so strikingly resembles
his own experience in being beaten by his father, that it is close to being a reenactment of his own life’s experiences.
The deep wounds of child abuse are something that often stays with a person long into his adult life and that can surface
in various ways.) Bambi is an example of a child’s film, that was based on a novel written by a writer by the name of
Salten, who was an Austrian Jew, living in Austria, before the Fascist occupation. The novel itself was an intense emotional
work, Orwellian in nature (George Orwell-1984), and that was written at a level more for adults, than children. It somewhat
paralleled the experiences of some Jews in being hunted down by the Nazis, 12 or so years later. There are underlying messages
in the original Bambi novel of a subtle sexual nature, along the lines of incest of pedophilia also.
In Disney’s version, the sexual references are not so pronounced although the intensity of some of the scenes
still is a tremendously emotional experience for a child. ( Steven Speilberg recently, 2007, related the emotional effect
of watching Bambi when a child, crying through the movie). Peter Pan is another
movie that was based on a play from 1904, the story of which was a tragic rendering of a mother’s attempt to sustain
herself emotionally after the death or her son, Peter, being a real child, and Pan being the Greek god of music. When Disney
produced the film, after WWII, Bambi was the only film produced during WWII by Disney studios, as they were involved heavily
in producing war propaganda films during that time, he deliberately toned down the “darkness” of Peter Pan, lightening
it up a bit, but also, deliberately added sufficient amounts of fighting and violence to attract audiences, as the studio
was suffering financially and still deep in debt. Other more modern fantasy movies today, such as Monsters Inc., have deep
psychological impact on young girls, the audience to whom such a movie is directed.
A large percentage of children (kindergarten to teens) are watching extremely violent movies, such as R-rated slasher
type, and violent horror movies. This is reflected in some of the art that they produce in the schools and it can leave deep
psychological wounds on a child.
So needless to say, movies and cartoons are exerting an influence on the psychology of children in the 21st
century.
RECOMMENDED BOOK
FOR CHILDREN:
I Can Draw
by Terry Longhurst
Amanda O'Neill
Paragon Publishing 2000.
Excellent book to teach children 4-15 to draw.
Color, illustrated, animals, human figures. Simple, wonderfully illustrated.
Disney Films and the literature surrounding them.
