How much should Sunshine see?
In a post on my review of Little Miss Sunshine on They Might Be Critics, Wicked Little Critta writes: "the young actress [is] exposed to a bunch of stuff I'd never want my daughter to see."
And the question of what the young daughter should or shouldn't see or hear comes up in the movie as well. When her Uncle Frank comes to live with the family shortly after his suicide attempt, young Olive notices the bandages on his wrists and asks him--with childish innocence and genuine concern--how he got hurt.
This question splits the family into two different camps: One camp, manned solely by the father, feels that Olive is too young to hear about such unpleasant matters as suicide, and he insists Frank not tell Olive. The other camp, which includes pretty much everyone else, feels Olive is old enough not to be lied to.
The way this scene comes about in the movie, the father is presumed to be clearly in the wrong, with the message being that we do more harm to children by protecting them from ugly truths by lying to them than would be done by simply allowing them to hear the ugly truths.
But what do you guys think? Is it better to protect children from ugly truths until they're old enough to hear them? Or is it better to let them hear these unpleasant thing than to lie to them?
Obviously, this is a nuanced debate: It's unlikely anyone would deliberately show their three-year-old scenes of rape for truth's sake alone, and at the same time few people develop elaborate webs of lies to protect their children from all unpleasantness, only to destroy that web when the child comes of age.
But what if we put you in the father's shoes in Little Miss Sunshine. Would you allow her to hear the truth about your brother-in-law's suicide attempt? Would you tell her a fabrication or a half-truth to protect her from the ugly nature of the incident? Would you quickly change the subject and hope the matter was forgotten about? Or would you do something else entirely?
And the question of what the young daughter should or shouldn't see or hear comes up in the movie as well. When her Uncle Frank comes to live with the family shortly after his suicide attempt, young Olive notices the bandages on his wrists and asks him--with childish innocence and genuine concern--how he got hurt.
This question splits the family into two different camps: One camp, manned solely by the father, feels that Olive is too young to hear about such unpleasant matters as suicide, and he insists Frank not tell Olive. The other camp, which includes pretty much everyone else, feels Olive is old enough not to be lied to.
The way this scene comes about in the movie, the father is presumed to be clearly in the wrong, with the message being that we do more harm to children by protecting them from ugly truths by lying to them than would be done by simply allowing them to hear the ugly truths.
But what do you guys think? Is it better to protect children from ugly truths until they're old enough to hear them? Or is it better to let them hear these unpleasant thing than to lie to them?
Obviously, this is a nuanced debate: It's unlikely anyone would deliberately show their three-year-old scenes of rape for truth's sake alone, and at the same time few people develop elaborate webs of lies to protect their children from all unpleasantness, only to destroy that web when the child comes of age.
But what if we put you in the father's shoes in Little Miss Sunshine. Would you allow her to hear the truth about your brother-in-law's suicide attempt? Would you tell her a fabrication or a half-truth to protect her from the ugly nature of the incident? Would you quickly change the subject and hope the matter was forgotten about? Or would you do something else entirely?
posted by Dr. Worm at 9:25 AM
5 Comments:
That depends. You might be surprised what the kids actually hear/see in these types of movies. But they talk this stuff over witht he parents from what I know, and I think, go out of their way to protect them from uncesessary elements. In the movie Happiness, Dylan Baker's pedophile character is questioned by his son about his inequities. Obviously, the scene can't be done without the child, but the actors are obviously being shot responding to the dialogue via somebody else, and the actor playing the child wasn't privy to Baker's character's answers (according to Roger Ebert).
I don't think I'd want it brought up. I mean, if it was someone really close to the child, like a best friend, parent, sibling, then I guess I might, just because in general keeping family secrets isn't a good thing.
But if the kid didn't have to know, then probably in the earlier years (before age 10) I'd avoid talking to them about it. It's just such a heavy topic, and I feel like suicide is something that a young kid shouldn't have to have running around in his or her brain.
I agree with WLC, keeping secrets in families is not goood and the closer you are to a person the harder it is to be lied to about something that happened to that person. I think kids can handle slightly more than adults give them credit for, but I believe parents make these decisions based on what they can handle not on what they think their kids can. Example: The mothers brother attempt suicide, obviously a painful topic for her husband, and he might not be able to deal with it so why should he think his 7 year old could.
a tough one. i think a balance needs to be struck with these things. lying to a child is wrong, no matter what the intentions, but you also don't want them to be exposed to things they don't need to be exposed to. i think the thing you need to keep in mind is love; show love in all things, even those things where love seems to be absent. i can't really explain what how i'd approach that particular subject, so i'll just give an example (subject to editing):
"Uncle Johnny was unhappy. think of how you feel when you're unhappy. Uncle Johnny's about twice as big as you, right? well, if he's twice as big as you, his unhappiness must be twice as big as yours is, too. that's a lot of unhappiness. that unhappiness got so big that he thought the only way to make it go away was to end his own life. but Uncle Johnny forgot that by making his own sadness go away that way, he would bring sadness on all the people that love him, like you and me. so we have to work extra-hard that Uncle Johnny isn't so unhappy anymore. i think we can do it. how about you?"
does this sound good?
Allow me to awaken this thread.
I think you're on the right track, PM, but there are a couple of things I would edit. I would probably take out the line that says ending Uncle Johnny's life would take away his sadness (I think it assumes too much, and therefore might lead children to assume that death is a cure for sadness), and also I'd change the "working extra hard so Johnny isn't unhappy." Kids often place blame on themselves for things way beyond their control, e.g. divorce. So telling a child that it's up to him or her to cure someone else's sadness has potential repurcussions if they don't "try hard enough" and Johnny kills himself anyway. But that could very simply be changed by saying we can try to help him change his mind, or something like that.
Personally, I think that a big factor in explaining traumatic things to children is responsibility combined with acceptance. People make choices for themselves, and they are responsible for them. But sometimes wrong choices are made, and that's ok.
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