Childhood Friendships: Peers, Pets & Grown-ups: Children in Films

By Andrew Musgrave

This is volume 4 of the series Children in Films . The generalisation that girls form enduring CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS, while boys hang out in gangs, is challenged. A few court SWEETHEARTS in their preteen years, an accomplishment the film industry seems keen to promote, but which in most classrooms is breaking a time-honoured rule. Others are LONERS, unable to integrate with other children. Reference is made to 140 different movies as diverse as Beaches, Harry Potter, Stand by Me, The Ice Palace , and That Night . Some kids are impervious to entrenched constraints by forming FRIENDSHIPS ACROSS THE CULTURAL AND RACIAL DIVIDE despite the unpleasant history of American segregation, South African apartheid, and antagonism towards Aborigines, as in Corrina, Corrina, Mischief Night, Rabbit Proof Fence, Anita and Me , and The Secret Life of Bees . Despite alarms of 'stranger danger' the movie industry perpetuates as normal THE CHILD MAKING FRIENDS WITH AN ADULT, either as good neighbours ( Before Women had Wings, Lawn Dogs ), as travelling companions ( Journey of Natty Gann, Alice in the Cities ), or with the retarded adult ( Tideland, Digging to China ). Inevitably, in the case of impressionable young girls, this adult becomes the object of their first crush ( Sundays and Cybele, Leon ). Equal to any family member, THE PET can become the closest provider of unconditional love for the child. We are shown the variety of animals the child adopts as companion from Lassie and Because of Winn Dixie to Black Beauty and Fly Away Home in its role as rescuer of the helpless, and how the pet can be misused as a perverse disciplinary tool, as well as the impact its death has on the child. The full range of titles in this series, Children in Films , are: 1 Gender Roles and Themes; 2 Families Step-kids & Orphans; 3 Tomboys Adventurers & Talented Kids; 4 Childhood Friendships: Peers, Pets & Grown-ups; 5 Make Believe Horror & the Supernatural; 6 Puberty & First Love; 7 Childhood Trauma: Illness, Death, Divorce & War; 8 Physical & Sexual Abuse.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1480086177
• ISBN13: 9781480086173
• Release Date: October 2012
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 196 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.5" x 5.3"