Childhood is an interesting period in a person’s life. It is the period that people realize that they are living in a world that is very complex. In her work, Judith Halberstam explores the complex nature of childhood. She provides insight to childhood in the eyes of a child who is born queer. She also examines how queer children view movies, particularly, the animated ones. Her main purpose is reaching out to the young adults that were raised watching animated movies.
She discusses how the directors of these films from companies such as Pixar and Disney try to showcase real life social and economic issues in their craft. Some of the concept explored are fight for transformations, social hierarchies, communistic versus utopia and rebellion (Bartholomae 282). Therefore, films can be used to influence the society, particularly children, negatively or positively. It is thus the role of the directors to decide and create content that will influence children into being optimistic and good people as advocated by the theory of Utopia.
The sense of urgency that Halberstam tries to convey is that children should not be exposed to utopian idea and not negative issues that will influence them into developing negativity. On the contrary, she wants children to be exposed to content that upholds perfection as the central theme. In this way, optimism will be kept alive. There are several moments that Halberstam has employed in her essay in order to convey the sense of urgency. She has used different texts such as Chicken run, Toy Story, Bee Movie and March of the Penguins to strengthen her arguments.
For instance, in her essay, Halberstamgives an example of Chicken run, a 2000 animated movie whereby a group of chicken figure out how to work as a team to attain their goal which is flying away (Halberstam 34). In this film, Halberstam considers the concept of working together a positive one since the chicken were able to attain their goal without much help from the roasters. The fact that the chicken managed to achieve their goal without the help of the roasters is an indication that the film employed feminist element. In her argument, Halberstam expresses appreciation for the feminist element since it tries to showcase the importance of equality rather than male dominance stereotype.
From this example, it is clear that the author tries to show how films can be used to influence children into doing things. Also, through the concepts presented in such films, children can be able to disown the negative stereotypes within the society.
Through the film March of the Penguins, the author tries to show how imagination and humanity can change the way people think. From the film, one can easily think that it is a documentary showing the lives of penguins. However, through her argument, Halberstam shows how documentaries are not the reality but rather a manipulation through human imagination. In the film, the directors focus on incorporating human concepts and behaviors such as gender roles, authority and heterosexuality (Bartholomae 286). For instance, the male penguins are depicted as the ones responsible for watching and protecting the eggs while the female penguins are the ones fending for food (Halberstam 40).
This is a concept that is contrary to the human world. Therefore, Halberstam has been able to use the different texts in showing how films significantly affect the minds of children. She tries to persuade the audience, particularly film directors and adults to portray positive information to children and not one that stresses on the prevailing negative stereotypes in the society.
Works Cited
- Bartholomae, David, et al. “Animating Revolt and Revolting Animation.” Ways of Reading: An
- Anthology for Writers , 10th ed., Bedford/St.Martin’s, Macmillan Learning, 2017, pp. 271–293.
- Halberstam, Judith. “Animating Revolt and Revolting Animation.” The Queer Art of Failure (2011): 27-52.
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