Captain Outrageous Dorfman

So here's the thing. Since I first saw the movie "Big" I have always wondered about the relationship between adults, children, and these types of movies. I've been curious as to why these movies are produced, what they say about the adult culture. More specifically I've always wondered what it is in childhood the adults so desperately need. I guess I've always been a critical thinker. I knew there had to be some answer. In fact, I'm sure if I rummaged enough I could find things I used to write on this entirely frustrating subject: how horrible growing up must be if these stories keep getting told about adults always needing to find their inner child or explore the child mentality or something. After reading Dorfman I have many questions answered and I'm a little less confused but still frustrated and here's why: I've always kept it under special consideration that the reason I wanted to explore this topic was because of my own carefully constructed views of child, childhood, purity, etc. which were of course in total opposition to anything adult; but, as it turns out, the foundations on which the views were created, i.e. the movies, stories and ideas that I was raised with were not only chosen by adults but created by adults and in turn created in my own childish lens a mini adult able to, at a very young and not very grown up age at all, look at childhood nostalgically. I feel both liberated and restrained, though that's the purpose of this whole juvenile literature idea anyway isn't it?

To make this not entirely personal, I'll go into the movie "Big" briefly. There's a bit of a formulated flow chart within this movie that's pretty easy to understand after having read Dorfman: child wishes to be adult though child is already adult---child turns into adult but is in fact more of a childadult---goes from childadult to normal adult---changes an absolutely normal adult into a childadult---new childadult sends other adult back to childhood---our first adultchildadult goes back to childhood as a more grown up child familiar with what the adult life is like and what childhood should be because he already grew up so he can now appreciate childhood. Phew. So do you all see the problems with control here?

First of all, Josh (Tom Hanks) wants to grow up more quickly because he isn't tall, but in his home life he takes care of his sister and helps his struggling middle class family, hence he is already being shaped by adult forces. Moving on Josh gets "big" and turns into an adult. What better job for a child slash adult to get than working with toys? In the toy industry and then in his love life Josh is a breath of fresh air because of his child-like behavior and carefree simplistic ways: the adult who acts like a child. In a lot of normal societies this doesn't usually work out, in constructed socieities it changes everything. Josh meets Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) and two things happen: one, Josh decides he wants to become more adult (for his job and because I'm pretty sure he has sex); two, Susan becomes more like a child, releasing her inner child behavior. After a while Susan finds out about this whole crazy scenario thing and insists that Josh "goes back". In the end Susan actually drives Josh home- he's an adult in the car, a child by the time he reaches his front door. When the child again Josh turns to wave goodbye, his expression is jaded, all-knowing: he is already a grown up and he will now appreciate the remainder of his childhood through a nostalgic lens.

How does all this relate to Disney? It doesn't really. It relates to all Dorfman's ideas concerning the adult and the child, who controls who, how they do it, the worlds that are created, the distance of the worlds etc. And what does this matter if they are just movies? Well as good CMC students know there is no such thing as "just a movie", but, aside from that, I think it raises a horribly terrifying set of questions: When does childhood stop being an experience and start being a memory? How will we construct the imaginary worlds of our children? Is there such a thing as imaginary world and playing pretend if they are all vehicles of adult self-gratification? Do we let this affect us, do we let a line be drawn between child and adult, do we let childhood be a construction of loss? Is there a way to escape this or is there black and whtie, child and adult, and any intermingling is sado-masochistic? What does adult even mean, what does growing up mean, what does child mean, why do they have to mean something?


I won't grow up.
Not a penny will I pinch.
I will never grow a mustache,
Or a fraction of an inch.
'Cause growing up is awfuller
Than all the awful things that ever were.
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up,

Maybe its no wonder after all that adults hate adulthood and latch onto childhood and construct childhood as this wonderful thing that must remain pure...because we start with this stuff, then end up there.