Visions of Childhood

Samantha: As we grow older, it becomes difficult to just believe. It's not that we don't want to, but too much has happened and we can't.

I don't immediately identify childhood with Rugrats or other disney tv shows or films, instead, I think of films such as Now and Then, The Virgin Suicides, or Stand By Me. These are the kind of films that take childhood and make it the most adventerous, secretive, and intense time in one's life. Maybe that isn't exactly what it was like, especially for us McFarlanders, but it's surely what it felt like. However, most of the feelings represented in these three films are feelings that, at least I, came across in our College Lit readings. In the Sutton Pie Safe, the young boy felt almost clueless to the world around him. He couldn't understand the tension between his mom and dad, the woman in the house, and his dad's feelings in general. It would be impossible to make a film about childhood without this uncomfortable feeling that we all go through. In the film Now and Then, a coming of age story for girls, Teeny and Samantha are going through hardships with their parents. Samantha's mom had just gotten a divorce and begins prancing around town in her smallest outfits trying to attract any guy that will give her attention, and Samantha can't figure her out. Teeny's parents simply leave her in the dark, or on the roof actually, so they can go on living their normal lives as if they didn't have a young daugher. Teeny can't simply understand her parent's motives. The character, Chrissy may not be having problems with her family, but she's certainly got the clueless part of childhood down:

Chrissy: It's not very big.
Roberta: It's only big when a guy has a hard on.
Chrissy: What's a hard on?
Samantha: Doesn't your mother tell you anything?

Another major feeling represented in the stories we read was a disconnection from reality. This feeling was perfectly depicted in Every Little Hurricaine. It seems that almost every young kid is a dreamer. They want to wish themselves out of their lives and into a world where things make sense, and they fit. The Virgin Suicides grasps this feeling all too well-- however, rather grotesquely. The young boy in Every Little Hurricaine compared his life to a hurricane because things really fell apart for him and through his dreams and habit of living he tried to escape them. This is preciesly how the Virgin Suicides felt. Their homelife was a mess, so in order to escape they would stage their own suicides. This shows the desperation for love and a longing for a caring figure in childhood.

Tim Weiner: What we have here is a dreamer. Someone completely out of touch with reality.