Good Art…Tricky Conversations
How I’ve tried to frame chats with children about outdated views in films and books.
We were on holiday, looking round the ruins of a crumbling castle in Spain and all listening to the same audio guide. My son was little then, not yet three, but taking in bits of what was being said to him. He seemed generally impressed by things like ‘this is super old’ and ‘that’s where they used to poop’. You know, the classics.
And then the narrator talked about ‘the Muslims’ and how ‘we’ had to drive them out of the local village. The narrator was talking about events hundreds of years ago, but it was confidently assumed that the ‘we’ being talked to weren’t Muslim. That ‘we’ were probably white, culturally Christian and comfortable snuggling up to the ‘right’ side of history.
I absolutely could have let it go. He was three, and honestly just wanted to go back and see the long drop toilet, but I kind of wanted to start a conversation which we could come back to another time.
“Pal,” I said, while completely unsure what I was going to say next, “sometimes when we talk about things in the past, people think the winners were right all along. And, my love, I don’t think that’s fair.”
It wasn’t the greatest, most profound chat we’d ever had. (That was probably when he asked ‘what is the sky?’ and I freaked out and gave him an overly complicated answer which spanned physics, philosophy and astronomy when I could have literally said ‘it’s the bit of air just above us’).
But it was the start of me becoming aware of something I wanted to establish as a parent: that it was ok for us to have conversations where we questioned what we were told, and looked at the past with curious eyes. A super simplified habit of critical thinking, that meant we could watch and read things with views which don’t hold water, and have a chat about that while still appreciating the art.
I really liked this article by Simon Dillon, about how he curated a programme of classic films for his children:
We’ve also watched some vintage fare in our house. My wee one loves monster films, and after going to a Ray Harryhausen exhibition and learning about old special effects, we ended up watching the old King Kong movie, It Came from Beneath the Sea and Gamera.
The original King Kong is fun, it’s dramatic and it’s a great snapshot into early cinema. It’s also full racist stereotypes, offensive language and a leading lady who does a lot of swooning onto a man who’s mainly plain rude to her. So…how do you have that conversation?
I actually hadn’t realised just how outdated some of the script would be in King Kong and ended up pausing the film partway through, which I said was for a drink break. We sipped hot chocolate and chatted about what we were watching.
You know what? It was a great chat. Just asking a few questions about whether it was ok to actually talk to people like that, or whether girls actually had as many interesting things to say as boys. About how the people on the island had been made to look.
“I think it was meant to make them look silly and a bit mean. But they came up with the big wall to stay safe and those other people came and made everyone unsafe.”
We didn’t get deep into colonial history at this point but we danced around the edge of it.
And, it all came back to a point: people acted and said stuff in the past which we know now wasn’t ok. It’s great that we’re always learning about how to be kinder, and how to be fairer…and so it’s important to remember that not everyone you see in movies is great. They don’t always make good choices, or use good words, even if they seem to be the hero.
The conversation ended with something which we’ve come back to a few times: it’s ok to see things which you know are wrong, because you can make your own choices and help to make the world better and better.
I work with children and young adults a lot, and sometimes just asking ‘do you think that’s ok?’ can be enough for them to feel confident in saying ‘actually…I know the person who made this is super famous but, no. I don’t think that’s ok.’
I know, people will read this article and roll their eyes that this is way over the top. I am, I know, so earnest I feel like I should be typing with my hands clasped together. However, I reckon one of my main jobs — aside from the essentials which keep us alive and healthy — is to offer some signposts. The world is big, and hard to navigate, so I hope that growing up with chats like this will mean he’s never too ashamed to talk about difficult issues or complicated subjects.
And, too, I know that there are people who think you just shouldn’t show kids films with harmful stereotypes in them. And that’s fair. I wouldn’t actually make it a very regular thing to watch, or read, narratives which jar so much, and try and swing heavily in favour of art which celebrates other cultures and identities.
I hope that growing up with a sense of history, of what came before, will help him question things he’s told as he grows up and look into whether they’re accurate and/or kind.
I hope that growing up with an appreciation of art throughout previous decades will help him see how ideas can develop and place him, just for a wee while, back in time when the cinema screamed as a big gorilla came on the screen.
I hope that growing up will still involve big monsters and finding out where people used to poop.
Would you like to read more?
I wrote about whether it matters if a kid watches TERRIBLE movies for Writers Blokke. tl;dr — probably not but holy moly there’s some crap out there.
And, I wrote in Inquisitive Narratives about using storytelling to help with comms.
Thanks for reading. I’d be interested to know your thoughts.
