Children's Films Rejoin the Dark Side
The Reemerging Trend of More Adult Children's Movies
Sep 13, 2009
When one thinks of children's movies from the past few years, they are apt to think of very Disney-esque fare. Hannah Montana and High School Musical were huge. There were the Spy Kids and Garfield. Critters roamed the Ice Age and ran wild in Madagascar. All of them silly (which kids love), but also generally void of deep, complex story telling. In order to please the many parental watchdog groups, they are politically correct and unchallenging.
That may be changing. So far this year, many kid's movies have been very serious, even scary. Movies like Coraline and Up, while cartoons, have a much more sophisticated feel to them. It isn't a new trend exactly, but one that seems to have been in hiding.
Kid's Movies Over the Years
In the late 80's and early 90's, it was not unusual for children's movies to be a little dark. They were by no means the norm, but neither was it unusual. As Tim Burton's career began to blossom, films like Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas started to influence the rest of the industry. Movies like The Secret Garden and The Secret of Nihm, while easily accessible, still dealt with serious issues, and challenged kids to think about them. Even Disney films could be complex, such as their 1996 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Fast forward into the new millennia. As more media watch groups emerged, and could utilize the internet to communicate more effectively, children's media came under tighter scrutiny. This included Hollywood. Not wanting to incur the wrath of protesting parents, studios started keeping children's movies as inoffensive as possible. They became stripped of their depth and ambiguity, and became much more clean-cut (though toilet humor and poop jokes remained). Everything in the story was resolved nicely, usually without any serious consequences on the part of the protagonist, and the message clearly spelled out in a very obvious manner.
That is not to say that kid's movies with adult sensibilities disappeared completely. Movies with darker sensibilities popped up here and there, such as 2004's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Pixar's films have also dealt more emotional and complicated story telling. But they were far from the norm.
Kid's Movies Grow Up Again
Recently, it seems the trend for darker films is reemerging in Hollywood as a whole. Superhero movies are an obvious example of audiences demanding more ambiguity and depth from the movies they see. Even kid's movies.
Following the book's lead, the last couple Harry Potter films have taken a much darker tone, as Harry and friends deal with loss and an enemy who seems to get more and more powerful. This past year, animated films have started moving the same way. Coraline is primarily a cautionary tale of not to wish for more than you need, and the style of the animation is as creepy as any puppet can be (and with images like sewing buttons in your eyes, it's pretty darn creepy). Pixar's Up dealt very openly with loss, and while it had it's own bizarre sense of humor, is about moving on from the past, and does not sugarcoat the difficulties. The recently released 9 is also not afraid to give kids a bleaker landscape, with terrifying machines and the end of the world looming.
And more are on the way. This fall Spike Jonze's take on Where The Wild Things Are will be released, and so far looks to be a much more serious affair. In the spring, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland comes out, and judging by the stills that have been released, it looks like it is going to be one helluva trip.
Controversy
That is not to say that these darker films are in the clear. Both parents and studios are reluctant to make movies for the kiddies that might scare them. Last year, Where The Wild Things Are was in danger of having to be entirely re-shot because the studio felt it was too scary for younger viewers. This ended up not being the case, but it still shows the tension these kind of children's films cause.
9 drew some complaints from parents over the terrifying nature of the machines, and in particular, a shot where the corpse of a mother holding her child is very plain to see. And when the stills for Burton's Alice in Wonderland were released, many parents found them to look too gothic, ghoulish, and "Buton-esque." Indeed, they do look worlds different than the 1951 animated Disney version that many grew up with. And this is probably what scares them over everything else.
Where To Go From Here
Will children's films become engulfed in a dark void that robs them of innocence? Probably not. While there has been a spike in the number of more grown up kid's movies as of late, there are still plenty that are just for fun. The third Ice Age scored big this past summer, and movies like Aliens in the Attic, Shorts, and Monsters vs. Aliens were goofy and simple entertainment.
However, studios should no be afraid to challenge kids every now and then, whether it is with more serious themes, or simply trying to scare them a little. Actor Forrest Whitaker defended the tone of Where The Wild Things Are (in which he stars), saying in the reality of childhood, things can get scary, and "children can identify with a character who is upset."
In the end, every child is different. Some of them are more than capable dealing with darker stories. Other may not be. But that is no reason to saturate the market one way or the other. This year has seen a nice balance of different kinds of children's films, a variety that acknowledges the varying levels of maturity children posses.
