Recently in the LA Times, there was a headline that asked an interesting genre question, “Too creepy for kids?” Under this “genre”, LA Times lists upcoming film Coraline, past successes such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Fantasia, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as not being completely age appropriate.
The full list can be viewed here. Perhaps I’ve always been hypersensitive to horror, but it’s true that when I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, I felt completely horrified by that created world. When I watched Mickey Mouse being chased by brooms in Fantasia, I felt a kind of nightmarish sensation by something so normal as brooms. And even though I’ve always found oompa loompas to be kind of adorable, there are many people who are freaked out by these ultra-tan-green-haired-pinstripey dwarfs.
So though these movies are advertised as a children’s movie, what exactly defines a Children’s Genre?
From an audience standpoint, how do we identify a children’s genre? For me, I think it is as much attributed to content as it is to form. Content-wise a children’s genre describes a fantastical world—in which the magic always comes from the unique perspective of a child, and the theme of growing—it is essentially a coming of age story. In addition, children’s movies, like children’s books are didactic—it tries to get a point across. Form-wise, it attributes to a world of happy endings, an imaginative world that supersedes yet relates to our own that can be achieved through techniques such as animation.
Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Princess Bride, Spirited Away, Alice in Wonderland, Kung Fu Panda, Ratatouille, and Finding Nemo all follow this formula to create an effective world and story, and in many ways they are what we expect from a children’s movie—humor, animation, and imagination.
Fantasia and Nightmare Before Christmas though they have the vivid form of a children’s movie, their content does not follow such a formula. Fantasia is essentially a chase scene, but is closer to being a children’s movie because there is the hint of a moral it was trying to portray. The nightmarish chase of the brooms only begins when Mickey decides to be a little mischievous when he disobeys and puts on the wizard’s hat. Nightmare however, is a little more questionable.
With the upcoming release of Coraline, it will be interesting to see how this formula of the children’s genre has changed.
2 comments:
Visually TNBC is fantastically appealing but the storyline and character developemt leaves everything to be desired if you’ve progressed beyond “The Thin Man” flicks IMO.
Yeah, but I have to wonder at Tim Burton's intent with Nightmare Before Christmas. Directed by Henry Selick, and produced by Burton, Nightmare takes the childish concept of the separate worlds of Halloween and Christmas to explore the more adult themes of isolation and identity crisis. At the same time, the film tries to remain within the reach of children through song and visual effect, so I would argue that it is a hybrid film, for sure. The same thing goes for James and the Giant Peach, which combines Selick and Burton again for the 1996 adaptation of the popular Roald Dahl novel. In novel form, I think it is definitely more of a children's tale along the lines of Charlotte's Web, but Burton and Selick transform the story visually as they translate it from the written word to the big screen. Again, there is song and stop motion animation for kids, but really the macabre visuals call to attention the more mature idea of following a dream to the point of uprooting yourself and moving from your home to a strange land, as countless millions of immigrants have done throughout history.
With Fantasia, that to me is like Looney Tunes in that while they are children's cartoons- they are from a different time from our own in which cartoons were also media of exploration and commentary for adults as well. Unlike the Tim Burton films, these are visually similar to a children's cartoon, but the themes and subject matters alone are what separates them from today's cartoons. In the modern era, cartoons can no longer take on mature concepts with any confidence and effectiveness because of the societal shift towards political-correctness and the coddling of children. In a world where even high school valedictorians are being ruled out in favor of "feel-good" education, Fantasia and similar projects cannot help but be perceived as overbearing and inappropriate.
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