To What Extent Does the Theme of Family or the Childhood Preoccupy Contemporary Cinema - Essay Example

AHC 3108 Contemporary Cinema Assignment One Tamas Zelei Alistair Billam To what extent does the theme of family and/or childhood preoccupy contemporary cinema? Family movies are an essential part of contemporary cinema. These movies have always depicted the real lives of contemporary American society. However, there is a clear contrast between the 1950s and the 1990s movies in the depiction of families and family roles. This paper will show how strong the theme of family is in modern movies but will also depict how the theme family and its role in society have changed. In the early cinemas of the 1950s, the theme of family and childhood were depicted in a very positive light. These families, which featured in most television and theatre shows, consisted of heterosexual fathers and mothers who were very dedicated to their monogamous marriages that were strongly founded on both material and emotional support. The fathers were very affectionate and caring. Mothers were portrayed as the ideal homemakers while children were obedient to their parents and well-behaved. Each family member seemed to know his or her obligatory role in the community (Bresson, 1997, pp. 223-434). In that era, cinemas portrayed fathers as the sole bread winners while their wives and children were dependents. This scenario rendered both mothers and children totally submissive and answerable to the head of the house; the father. In the early 1990s, a radical change hit the film industry and the family theme depiction took a new dimension as seen in Train Sporting (1996). There was an introduction of career women in society. Thus, both the husband and the wife were income earners. The working class women betrayed the traditional loyalty to their husbands since they were no longer the sole bread winners. These women started to compete with their men on various family issues. Men felt a bruise on their egos and reacted with violence, as seen in The Burning Bed (1984). This marked the origin of domestic violence in cinemas. Marriages started to break up and children had to be raised by their step fathers and step mothers. These children were shown to lack proper guidance from their half parents and adopted bad behaviors and became violent as well. At a very tender age, a child could be seen in a film abusing drugs and alcohol; in films, such as Trainspotting (1996), Traffic (2000) and Requiem for a Dream (2000). Unlike the 1950 cinematic families that solved their conflicts with a lot of maturity and diplomacy, the modern cinematic families have resorted to violence (Mendelbaum, 2007, pp. 34). Most people, both scholars and the lay society, argue that cinemas represent the real lives of American families (Kitty, 1989, pp 98). Cinematic trends, they say, follow the lifestyle and technological changes that occur in real life. In the past, society embraced religion and every step they took was guided by their cultural and religious beliefs (Kitty, 1989, pp. 98-99). They believed in peace and love. This is what was depicted in most films. Conservative cultures and traditions dictated the role of gender in society. Women could not do some jobs that were done by men. Girl child education was of no great value to most families. As years went by, women achieved formal education and secured the white collar jobs. The mid 1980s saw this period of radical transition of gender roles as witnessed in Tootsie (1982). This rough transition was marked by domestic violence and frequent misunderstanding among the spouses. Their children suffered the consequences of such violence. According to sociologists, the 1950s families have been referred to as functional family, which had a well organized hierarchy that ran from the parents to the children (Gibson, 1994, pp23). A functional family is guided by the rules that are formed by the members in the higher hierarchies. However, these rules must be semi-diffused so as to allow a smooth interaction between parents and children. Most of the 20th Century families have, however, been described as Dysfunctional families. Such families always have mixed subsystems with no clear division of the roles played each member. The responsible members may play the roles of the irresponsible members. There is also the element of poor hierarchical organization, whereby a child may replace his parent who either disable or just irresponsible. Cases of domestic violence, bad behaviors and child neglect are very rampant in such families. Children from such families usually end up being like their irresponsible parents since this is the normal lifestyle they know (Vetere, 2001, pp136). In today’s cinema, since beginning of 1990, the lifestyle changes that have been brought about by modern technology have covered all the cinematic families in relaying the very theme of family and childhood. Technology and modern education is shown to most families. In many films of the 20th Century, the families consist of single parents and adopted children. Cinematic parents of the 21st Century are not as caring as those in the early 1950s (Schreck, 2001, pp. 56-78). The new generation children seem to know more than their old fashioned parents. This state makes the children defy the parents. All we see today is violent families. A sample of movies are critically analysed for the theme of family and childhood, and how the depiction of these themes has changed over time. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a family movie that demonstrates how families used to stay close together in time of hardship, whereby, the child supports his father and the father also recompenses the absence of the mother. This movie was shot by Hollywood in the year 1989. Indiana Jones is a very young man who is quite adventurous. Indiana Jones takes after his father, Henry Jones, also known as Sean Connery in the episode of the Last Crusade. In this film, Indiana Jones leaves his teaching job and goes after his father in search of the treasure; the Holy Grail. At this moment, Sean Connery had been imprisoned by the antagonists; the Nazis. Indiana walks a very long distance as he goes through a number of hardships so as to find his beloved father. He eventually finds his father and rescues him from the cruel hands of the Nazis. They then continue with their adventure to find the Holy Grail. A large fraction of this film shows the audiences the healthy relationship that existed between Indiana and his father, Sean Connery. Going by the year of filming, this must have been the era that families still embraced love and the members adhered to their obligatory duties. In this particular episode, Sean Connery is seen to be playing his obligatory duty of protecting his one and only son; Indiana. However, the son has been portrayed to playing a reverse role. He strives to rescue and protect the father, yet the father is not aged. Logically, one would argue that the two were mutual dependant of each other as they endeavored to achieve a common goal of obtaining the Holy Grail. In this movie, cinema has brought out the family as a corporative institution where every member watches over the other. Both the parent and the child show care for each other. These members of the family had a common goal as well as common enemy; the Nazis. In that era, the society believed in communal work and brotherly love. The theme of childhood is also illustrated by the kind of life Indiana Jones goes through as a child. As a boy child, Indiana Jones has been portrayed as adventurous and ambitious. Like any other child, he is full of dreams and admires his father too. He takes all the risks to see his dreams come true. This brings out another aspect of fathers in the ideal families. These fathers were role models to their sons and daughters. Children were proud of their parents and wanted to be just like them. The parents would also risk their lives for the purposes of fulfilling the dreams and ambitions of their children. However, the film had some elements of modernity. We are not told why Indiana’s mother had not been part of the team. This introduces the aspect of single parenthood. Even though Indiana’s mother had not been brought into picture, he does not seem to fill this gap. The passionate love of the father has covered up for the place of the mother. Although the theme of family is very strong here, it is not the same family of the previous generation. The movie, Batman Begins (2005) illustrates how orphaned children go through bitter stages of life and eventually take up responsibility in revenge of their lost parents. The movie starts with Bale as young child who lives in a supernatural land in a bid to understand the cruel murder of his parents. The murder of his parents and his state as a young orphan leads him to a severe trauma. He, therefore, takes it upon himself to establish the cause of the crime and eliminate the killers. Bale then joins a league of Ninjas and trains for the revenge. After he had attained his desired level of fitness, Bale escapes from the training camp and goes back to Gotham, his home town, to fight crime on his own. Fortunately, Bale succeeds in his quest for justice and restores peace and sanity to Gotham. In this cinematic family of Bale, a child has been bereaved at almost infancy age. This young person has to face the harsh society without any parental guidance and protection. Theory has it that such children often lack essential guidance and thus grow up to be ill-mannered in the society (Taylor, 1993, pp19). The various researches carried out by different sociologists show that most criminals must have been orphaned or neglected by their parents at an early stage of their lives (Vetere, 2001, pp136). However, not all orphans turn criminals at a later life. When Bale’s parents died, he was bound to become a bad man and join the criminals in Gotham. However, Bale’s childhood took a different direction. He took a step that most children would take in real life. He decided to look for the murderers and take a revenge on them. Bale, through this bitter theme of childhood, represents many orphans out there who find themselves in a solitary situation and wondering how death had been so punctual in snatching away their beloved parents. Such children often grow with so much bitterness in their hearts. They usually wish to revenge only they knew the murderers. They live lonely lives asking questions without answers. Contemporary cinema has featured many children as lacking parental attention at very tender ages. These orphaned children usually go a lot of hardships and the society has neglected them. In a real life situation, the main killers of such parents have been the many diseases that have rampantly increased with the modern lifestyle and behavior. Crimes rates have also doubled and some parents have fallen prey for the cruel predators, leaving young children behind. The cinema, by demonstrating how the bitterness of Bale led him to revenge, has shown the audience how orphaned children can take up adult responsibilities and accomplish so many goals in the society. Their resultant action can sometimes be of great help to a large population. In the case of Bale, by eliminating the killers, he saved the entire population from bad leadership and crime. However, in the course of revenging, such children may hurt many undeserving individuals. Bale, unlike Indiana Jones, did not get the opportunity to enjoy the love and care of his father. This film does have elements of the family but again it is a more modern and unsympathetic view. In Die Hard 4.0 (2007), detective McClean and his daughter Lucy have been used to describe how challenging it can for a single parent to raise a child. Die Hard 4.0 is yet another representation is incomplete families in the USA; a state that usually results from the rising cases of divorce and separation in the Western nations. This is an illustration families’ evolution from unity to domestic violence and eventually, separation of the parents. The father, McClean, is an aging father who does not seem to understand his new generation daughter. He is of the old generation and struggles to be at par with the trending technology. In this new world of technology, every system is controlled by computer. Lucy, living with his ever busy father, has unlimited freedom to move around and make friends. In the course of her socialization, Lucy meets and dates a young man, Matt Farrell. Matt is a genius hacker who has the capability to access all the government systems. One day, McClean finds Lucy and Matt by the road side and acts furiously. He is trying to protect her only daughter from the bad ones. However, the duo belongs to a generation which this father cannot easily comprehend (Breznican, 2006, p. 23). In this family theme, there is a single parent who trying to raise his daughter single handedly. To complicate the situation further, the parent is a male trying to raise a female child. The theory behind parenting is that fathers may not easily understand the nature and complexity of their daughters. Bruce Willis, as McClean, has been used in this cinematic family to illustrate how this situation can be so challenging. Many of such families usually end up in a break up. To save the family, a father must expand his roles and offer friendly counseling to the daughter. Lucy is a girl who has to live without the care and understanding of the mother. She represents the challenges that girls in separated families undergo. The theme of family, in this instance, has been portrayed in two different dimensions. There is aspect of job duty and the family duties. McClean, being a government detective, is charged with various tasks in the line of duty. At the same time, he had to provide for and protect her daughter in as much as he had to protect other citizens. This case represents families in which parents fail to balance their time. Some parents pay much attention to their jobs than they do to their children. This is one of the reasons why some families fall apart and their children having miserable childhood. McClean, however, has been depicted as selfless and fights hard to save his daughter. McClean also represents conservative parents who struggle to fight to fit into new generation. He does not want to let go of her daughter. He strongly believes that the future is worse than the past and the present. Technology poses a threat and big challenge to these old fashioned parents. Technology, thus, widens the generational gap and creates a consistent conflict between the parents and the children. In such a family, the parent would want the children to stick the old traditions of the society while the children wish the parents were more flexible to embrace technological changes. In The Amazing Spider man (2012), Peter Parker’s family has been used to show how inhuman parents can be. This family movie also illustrates how the contemporary society has embraced adoption of children. Their situation shows how parents can be cruel to their children with the scientific adventure. Peter’s parents, at infancy, donate him for a scientific experiment that almost turned the child into an alien. His biological parents, he was told, had incorporated the spider DNA into his body system (Kirby, 2014, p. 3). They wanted him to be genetically modified for reasons best known to them. Parent cruelty varies in categories and degree. Some parents go as far as terminating the lives of the young ones. On the theme of childhood, Peter represents children who have been intentionally neglected by their biological parents. He grows without the knowledge of his parents. This situation traumatizes the young boy a lot. This case follows the theory that some parents run away from the familial responsibilities. In real life, a man may run neglect his family due to rising cost of living or some internal conflicts. However, such cases of child neglect are not as rampant in the USA as in other developing countries, since US has embraced the adoption of children (Vetere, 2001, pp138). In the very movie, a family of surrogate parents has been portrayed by Peter having been adopted by the uncle and aunt. After he had been neglected by the biological parents, this couple decides to adopt him. The couple has a challenging duty of raising the child and explaining to him, when he comes of age, what transpired between his parents. Here, contemporary cinema depicts the increasing cases of adoption in the modern USA families. Children live without their real as parents raise adopted children. Adoption in the contemporary families has raised complications and conflicts among the children. Adopted children, if not well cared for, may often feel out of place in the families they live in. Many adopted children have, therefore, been experiencing discomfort and trauma but find an avenue to raise their concerns. This circumstance may negatively affect their childhood, especially if the biological discriminate the surrogated child. Thus, in using the theme of family again it is not the straightforward family of earlier times; however it reflects adopted families and responsibilities. Contemporary cinema has widely portrayed the theme of family to a much deeper extent than early cinema. Modern cinema is based on the daily lifestyles and problems that affect real families (Laughey, 2000, p. 235). Sensitive issues such as divorce, single parenthood, adoption and responsibility have been highlighted in these movies. In the sociological view, the ancient families have been depicted as functional while most modern families have been dabbed as dysfunctional. These are issues that every individual can relate to in the world of today. Bibliography Bresson, R. 1997. Notes on the Cinematographer. Copenhagen: Green Integer. Pp. 223-434 Breznican, A. 2006. Die Hard Series Coming Back to Life. Las Vegas, 4(2), pp. 23-27 Gibson, D. 1994. Contemporary Families: Sociological View. New Orleans. Penguins. Pp 23 Francois, T.1985. Hitchcock. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Pp12 Kirby, J. 2014. The Amazing Spiderman. Las Vegas: Non-Peril Publishing Group. Pp. 2-5 Kitty, H. 1989. Sculpting in Time. Texas: University of Texas Press. Pp. 98-99 Laughey, D. 2000. Key Themes in Media Theory. Burlington, Dublin: Amazon Press. New York. Pp. 235-278 Mandelbaum, J. 2007. Masters of Cinema: Ingmar Berman. California: Cashier du Cinema. Pp.34 Nolan, C. 2005. Batman Begins. [Online]. Available at [Accessed 13 November, 2014]. Schreck, N. 2001. The Satanic Screen. New York, NY: Creation Books.. Pp. 56-78 Spielberg, S. 1989. Indiana Jones and the last Crusade. [Online]. Available at [Accessed 13 November, 2014]. Taylor, F. 1993. Social Hygiene in the 20th Century. Dickens. London: Vetere, A. (2001). Structural Family Therapy. Child Psychology and Psychiatry Review, 6(3), 136 Webb, M. 2012. The Amazing Spiderman. [Online]. Available at [Accessed 13 November, 2014]. Wiseman, L. 2007. Die Hard 4. [Online]. Available at [Accessed 13 November, 2014]. Read More