When a Child Shoots on TV

[dreaminghope]

In the past week, I have seen two dramas on TV (one a couple of years old, one brand new) about child killers. The CSI franchise seems particularly fond of this storyline. That got me thinking... of course.

I was a Disney child. Many people in their 20s probably were. We grew up watching Disney's animated movies. Disney's films are known to be lacking in active parents: in the vast majority of cases, one or both parents are missing or dead. A lot of the child heroes are orphans. In fact, the death or absence of the parent either launches the child's adventure or is crucial to allowing it to happen.

Forward to a more recent phenomenon: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. In the final years of the show, in order to allow the "kids" to complete their process of growing up, the show killed off or sent away all the parental figures. The heroes are not completely independent and grown-up, despite everything they had accomplished in the course of the show, until all the adults are gone and they are left standing on their own.

I suspect that the fate of the adults in Buffy isn't unique to that show, though I don't watch a lot of the teen and coming-of-age shows that would prove it. Feel free to provide evidence for or against my theory on this section.

The result is that we have a media set-up where children or young people are the heroes, but they cannot completely take that role until the adults are "out of the way". The Disney phenomenon alone is a pretty strong cultural driver; any other shows are simply reinforcing the theme.

It is my theory that this may pose a subconscious threat to mainstream grown-ups. After all, who wants to think that they are merely an obstacle to be disposed of so the next generation can get on with it? This subconscious threat is reflected in the current crime shows, where there seems to be a trend of showing ever younger killers and an increasing number of youth killers. In my livingroom, it has become cliché: if there's a person under the age of 25 on a CSI episode and they aren't the victim, then they are the killer. The shock value of seeing a cold-blooded killer of 12 in a TV show has worn off - we can predict the outcome of more and more episodes - and there must be plenty of stories that can be told that involve adults, so I am convinced that there must be something else behind this trend.

Any thoughts, anyone? I invite evidence to support my theory, evidence to refute it, and any alternative explanations for the rash of child killers on TV.

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, interesting. I don't really watch enough TV to be able to comment with any degree of knowledge, but it's a very interesting theory.

[particle-man6.livejournal.com]

Superman - home planet exploded - biological parents dead. (Although adopted parents still alive).

Batman - parents murdered in front of him. Ditto Robin.

Hmmmm....

[dreamhope.livejournal.com]

And doesn't Superman's adopted father die when he is a teen or something too?

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

It seems to run deep-Freud's Oedipus complex,named after the ancient Greek myth about the boy who falls in love with his own mother and kills his father and the Electra complex and myth vis-à-vis girls.These examples are not identical to the cases you mention,but perhaps related.Anyway, Disney should show more social responsibility-some hopes!

[dreamhope.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I didn't think of the Oedipus story. If I remember correctly, Oedipus blinds himself in horror when he finds out what he has done... the way the ancient writer worked out his subconscious discomfort that adults must die or step aside to make room for the next generation?

Maybe this is so much older then I was thinking, and the latest crime shows are but the newest pieces of the older story. Thanks for raising the idea!

[cinnamonsqueak.livejournal.com]

I dunno. AS someone who is technically an orphan (according to the govenrment 1 parent dead = orphan) it always seemed normal to me that cartoons had no parents.

But you are right it is odd when you think about it.

[roaneskin.livejournal.com]

Light on the Disney, that has been happening pretty much for ever, Bambi, Dumbo either dead or imprisoned probably goes back further then that too.

[dreamhope.livejournal.com]

...probably goes back further then that too.

In terms of Disney, it goes back at least as far as their first feature animation film, Snow White. In terms of a human phenomenon, I suspect that it is, to quote a Disney film, a story as old as time. Someone "upstream" in the comments mentioned Oedipus.

Perhaps it has always been a subconscious feeling of children that they aren't really adults until they are truly separated from their parents' influence.