Children in Movies

By Gordon Kearns

As an elementary school educator for more than thirty years, I became very concerned about how we view children in our society. In objective discussions we typically talk about them as no more than stimulus-response learning machines. We even love them as if they were dolls. However, in movies of recent years a new perspective on the nature of children has evolved. A whole new generation of child actors has exploded onto the cinema stage in the past fifteen years or so, child actors who have proven with their history of perceptive performances that child actors are more than clever apers. (For more on the subject see Class of the Millennium; Movie Review: The Parent Trap ; and Childhood.)

A partial list of such powerful young actors would include: Fairuza Balk, Mischa Barton, Kimberly J. Brown, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, Elizabeth Earl, Megan Follows, Jodie Foster, Domenica Giuliano, Bug Hall, Zelda Harris, Florence Hoath, Scarlett Johansson, Line Kruse, Lindsay Lohan, Kate Maberly, Tina Majorino, Jena Malone, Liesel Matthews, Joseph Mazzello, Haley Joel Osment, Karolina Ostronzna, Anna Paquin, Natalie Portman, Brad Renfro, Meredith Salenger, Jurnee Smollett, Kasia Szczepanik, Victoire Thivisol, Judith Vittet, Mara Wilson, Elijah Wood, and Evan Rachel Wood - as well as pioneers like Jenny Agutter (The Snow Goose, Walkabout), Dana Hill (Fallen Angel), Line Kruse (Emma's Shadow), Hayley Mills (Tiger Bay), Elizabeth Taylor (National Velvet).

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