Art About Children

Art, meaning specifically in this article books, music, and film, for children can have much different quality.  It can so simplistic that seemingly only children can enjoy them. Then there is the child art that is made with adult audiences in mind, so that the whole family can enjoy and the child is allowed to see.  What about the all too rare case, however, where a piece of art is about children instead of for them? This is when a piece of art is asking us questions on what it means to be a child, to have a child, to hurt a child, and to live as a child. In our society, young ones are always said to be “our future” and should be treated as such, but how often do we relate them to us and how we were as a child? Great art always poses the question and allows us to work out and appreciate its answer subjectively, and the subject of being a child is no different.

Book:  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Adventures of Tom Sawyer

I first read these books in the seventh grade before my idea of abstract thought had fully materialized (if it ever really does). I hated them. I thought they were overly long and boring at parts with no real action in between. Lately, upon revisiting them, I see what I was missing. The novels are definitely not for children, though a child reading it is not objectionable, but about them.  Tom and Huck are for all intents and purposes children, if not so entirely in age it world outlook. A child’s point of view is narrow and simplistic in the best way, with no heightened complications we as “adults” place upon ourselves.   

In Tom Sawyer, he must deal with the idea of a family and how that shapes a child.  In Huckleberry Finn, he deals first hand with the ideal of slavery, the darkest time in our nation’s history. These are adult themes if there ever were any, and yet they are seen and handled through the eyes of wandering children. Almost like children versions of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, except without the extensive use of middle nomenclature.  Of course these books are meditations on themes of the creation of American literary identity, Southern Antebellum decline, and free spiritedness, but a large place deserves to be owed for how Twain wrote a story that has become a children’s classic, but teaches us all something about how best to understand life’s most troublesome issues.

Music: “Engine” by Jeff Mangum

Mangum, force behind now legendary band Neutral Milk Hotel, stated once in an interview I can no longer get my eyes on, that he considered this his version of a children’s song.  When this comes from the guy who wrote an album about falling love with Anne Frank and sexual fantasy, this may seem worrisome.  But alas, this song is just as beautiful and resonant as all of his other ones. 

Hearing the title Engine, no matter the meaning, immediately instills in me the age old image of the little engine that could. This odd image continues with the songs opening lyrics after that hypnotizing three bar chord sliding intro: “For I am an Engine/and I’m holding on/ through endless revisions/ to state what I mean.” A wonderful lyric, the song only gets better. I wouldn’t do the disservice to Jeff to try and analyze what these lyrics mean or where they might have come from, I’ll leave that to the more pretentious of music fandom to tell me (and I won’t even believe it then).  All of his songs mean something different to everyone, especially the man singing them. Here, there is no mistaking the children’s song melody with lyrics about how we all wish to be children again, to be supremely happy with no worries mentally nor physically (see, I’ve gone and said what I think anyway, geez). This comes especially from the lyrics, “And sweet babies cry for the warm taste of milking/ that milky delight that invited us all/ and if there’s a taste in this life more inviting/ then wake up your windows and watch as those sweet babies crawl away.”

Film: Where the Wild Things Are

Obviously, the book the film is adapted from could be on here is well, and grace is due to Maurice Sendak, but the children focused theme is fleshed out much more in the film. Very polarizing upon release, the film was condemned as one either loves it or hates it.  Interestingly enough, it is one of the few times I’ve agreed with critic A.O. Scott. Anyway, Spike Jonze has always been good with character focus in his more absurdly themed films. In Being John Malkovich he was able to focus heavily on the emotions of the John Cusack character and the same can be said about Charlie Kaufman (and brother, Donald) in Adaptation. In this film, he turns that focus to a child.  The camera is nearly always on Max, the lighting always feels like home, but also provides for an adventurous mood, and the pacing is reflective of a child.

The story is by far the biggest component. The entire Wild Thing troupe are all, is pseudo psychologically examined, different fragments of Max’s life and personality. It is his world that we are transported to and inhabit for the film, and his psyche that is examined. Max is growing up, but refuses to give up his wild side, much like Carol. He sees his mother on a date, and can’t cope with not being his mother’s number one anymore, much like Carol cannot stand to be sidetracked by K.W. Much to his disappointment, Max cannot be the magical king anymore, and he must face the realization that there is no magic in the world, and what little is left is hard to find.

I really hope that this film is revisited by parents to help them learn something they may have forgotten about what it means to grow up, to be where the wild things are. I also it is revisited by whoever denigrated it to be look upon in average quality, as it is so much more.

Also those worth mentioning:

Books:
Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Night, by Ellie Wiesel
James and the Giant Peach, by Ronald Dahl
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Ronald Dahl

Music:
"Teach Your Children", by Crosby Stills & Nash
"Hey Jude", by The Beatles
"There There", by Radiohead

Film:
James and the Giant Peach, by Henry Selick (obviously overlaps in books as well)
Fanny and Alexander, by Ingmar Bergman
The 400 Blows, by Francois Truffaut
Kes, by Ken Loach
The White Ribbon, by Michael Hanneke

And just for fun, some TV:
The Wonder Years
Boy Meets World
Hey Arnold
Malcolm in the Middle

I’m sure there are numerous other examples, so feel more than welcome to elaborate on some below, or the ones I mentioned in more detail.