Ignorant Exhibitionism

            Education through the use of media has occurred since media’s inception.  Sometimes it educates people on the proper way to behave or the proper values to have.  After the Enlightenment, some wanted to keep religiousness/morality out of education. They wanted education to be objective and free of the heavy-handedness of the Church.  After all the power the Church use to have, this opinion seems very understandable. But can morality and values be removed from education leaving only solid blocks of learning with no embellishment.  I would like to submit that, even if you could, values should not be removed from educational media.

            I believe that children become most invested and learn best from those that care about them. The man in “The Son” shows a proper way of teaching through the medium of film.  Olivier teaches the boy, Francis, how to make a toolbox. He tells Francis how to build it and lets him try. If Francis begins to make a mistake, Olivier will stop him give him a few tips and maybe hold something in place for him, but Francis is always the one making it.  While building it, Olivier asks Francis about his family and what he is going to do on the weekend.  This is a good and proper thing for him to do.  Children need that connection; they are emotional beings that need support not just unadulterated facts. There is a time for education and a time for emotional connection, and often the two overlap.  I think that is why Mr. Rogers was so good at what he did on TV.  He could connect with children from a television screen like no one else could. His love and sincerity can come through even from watching a video on YouTube that he narrated about how crayons are made.  How to educate is a huge thing that adults need to strive to improve on.

            Often people think of documentaries as boring but real, fact-filled educational machines.  Often this is not the case. Some documentaries try to show reality but fall short.  Cameras are fairly noticeable, and it is difficult to observe people while not being observed by them.  And if a filmmaker wants a nice looking shot, he will often have to stage it: a mock-reality.  “Chang” is a documentary from 1927, but it is all staged.  Does this take away from the educational value? I think it does, at least somewhat.  It means that I can’t take it at face value. I don’t really know how natives live because so much of the subjectivity of the filmmaker is injected into the film. So while I believe that emotion and values shouldn’t be removed from the film, I think that these emotions and values should come from the souls of the characters.  It was an interesting film, but it felt like the filmmaker just wanted to parade every jungle animal across the screen and then trap them all in a really deep hole.  Whether you agree with objective or subjective education, we can all agree that ignorant exhibitionism is unacceptable.

Difficulty Teaching Morality

            Teaching morality to children in cinema and other mediums can be a balancing act.  Morality involves the good, the bad, and the problematic gray areas. So what are parents to do? Some parents choose to only show things to their children that are upbeat and have no “dark moments” (Gretchen mention one of her family members did this with their little child.)  Others pick and choose what to show their children, and they avoid films with gray areas because they are too difficult for children to understand.  Plato wrote about how he felt about literature and media in general. He thought that it should be controlled and edited for the benefit of all: heroes shouldn’t have flaws, god’s shouldn’t be imperfect like humans, etc. He thought that stories should show examples of what you should do instead of what you shouldn’t do.

            While I believe that parents should try to always be good example to kids, I also think that parents should help kids learn about the gray areas. How else will they learn?  Don’t get me wrong, I think fairytales that have very straight forward morals, like the three little pigs or little red riding hood, are a wonderful tool to teach children with. But it isn’t the only kind of story that teaches.  I believe that stories that aren’t as straight forward are important to expand a child’s understanding.  Avoiding the “gray area” problem doesn’t make it go away, and it does protect children from it. Instead it just leaves them ignorant and defenseless.  “Peter and the Wolf” shows a boy who was able to grow up and realize that there is not just good and bad. The wolf didn’t eat the duck because he was the essence of pure evil. He ate the duck because he is a wolf and he was hungry.

            I believe that as a people, Americans have become polarized themselves.  People often think that they are right, making any other opinion absolutely wrong. Democrats believe that they are always right and Republicans are always wrong, and it goes the other way around.  People aren’t very good at compromising anymore.  We reached the financial cliff at the end of last year because democrats and republicans didn’t want to work together. They knew it was coming from a long way off, but only started dealing with it at the 11^th hour.  The common ground that all Americans use to have in common has disappeared.  Without knowing what is the common ground between all people, or if there is any at all, is what is tearing at this nation right now.  I’m sorry I ranted so long at this, but I think it is an extremely important root to the problems people face when choosing what their child should watch. How can they teach their children about the complexities of life and how to deal with them, if they as parents only know how to deal with black and white?  I think this is the biggest problem underlying what children are being shown.

Childhood, not Mini-Adulthood

           It’s interesting to me how childhood works. It’s so short and so different from adulthood. Some people remember their childhood constantly; it sticks so firmly to some and not to others. Is growing from childhood into adulthood like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly? I’m not saying that being an adult is so much greater or more beautiful, but I wonder if the transformation is just as extensive as it is with a caterpillar. Does the butterfly remember what it was like to be a caterpillar; better yet, can the butterfly remember or is it incapable in its new form? It’s like there is a wall between childhood and adulthood that grows steadily as a child grows up; for some it becomes thick and impenetrable, but for others it is almost see through. Some people work really well with kids and others don’t, and yet they were all kids at one point.

             This brings me to the film: “Son of Rambow.” I really enjoyed watching the relationship between the adults and the children, and how the adults treated the children in that film.  The biggest thing I noticed was that in this conservative religion, portrayed in the film, children were treated like mini-adults (similar to what we talked about while looking at the old portraits.)  I also got the impression that the film was saying that this was a bad thing. On the one hand you had a family where the children had no parents around and had to take care of themselves like adults, which really didn’t happen because they’re not adults. Instead the big brother just took advantage of the little brother because that’s what big brothers do. On the other hand you have a family with mini-adults who are expected to raise themselves to an extremely high standard, and put away every childish thing.  Many adults in this film, Joshua, the teachers, and Mrs. Proudfoot for most of the film, don’t understand children. They are like butterflies looking down at caterpillars and wondering why they don’t fly, they are just mini-butterflies right?  I’m not sure I agree with how the film treated religion in this film, but that is a topic for another day. Regardless, I really enjoyed the increased understanding and love that the mother gained for the son. She came to realize that she had to think of him and treat him as a boy and not as a "man of the Brotherhood." I think that butterflies can understand caterpillars, and it is their job to do so. The wall between adulthood and childhood isn’t as thick as we think. We may never be able to go back, but we can remember and earn a better understanding if we try.