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When a Child Shoots on TV
Nov. 25th, 2005 10:23 pmIn 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.
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.
