Kids in Movies & TV: A Decent Proposal

I will never forget hearing the story of Sophokles’ Oedipus the King in drama class. I rushed to find a copy of the play immediately—the whole violent ending sounded exciting to someone all of eleven or twelve. Imagine my dismay, then, as I found words I couldn’t find a rhythm in and that all the cool stuff takes place offstage—meaning Jokasta’s suicide and Oedipus’ gouging of his eyes. Later, I learned this absence of violence onstage was a part of a moral stance Greeks applied to their theatre. While to us, the Festival of Dionysos would have seemed like a civic event, the Super Bowl, and a church service all rolled into one, it was, above all, a religious event. The violence seemed too much to expose.

The man. I mean, the kid.

While there are no real moral choices that affect today’s dramatic writing, except for those whose purpose is purely political, I shall make a decent proposal that will all at once seem impossible and a bit hypocritical as I acted in plays with regularity from the time I was five to the time I was eighteen or so. I’ve also completed a play for children recently and, I suppose, kids have been on my mind because of a smattering of true crime documentaries on streaming services that take on childhood celebrity in all of its abject ugliness.

For every well-adjusted former child star like Hilary Duff, there are multiple Judith Barsis, Lindsay Lohans, and Demi Lovatos. In between, there are those who somehow remained grounded in reality and those who nose-dived like Amanda Bynes, there are also Culkins whose parents grow rich from their children’s labor. I think we all know it’s a nasty business, but when a cute kid shows up on a Netflix movie or a Nickelodeon show, we are bound to be charmed by them—their talent, their tenacity, their precociousness. Some are natural comedians (Kenan Thompson) and some are born tragedians (Henry Thomas) and some are annoying as all get-out, but you can’t help but smile at their talent. As we now know, behind those smiles are an awful lot of pain.

All that, and a bag of chips.

I was never a kid actor on screen, but I’ve grown up alongside those who were my contemporaneous heroes. I’m sure few people didn’t envy Macaulay Culkin with a house all by himself, let alone how famous he was. Then again, none of us were surprised by his up and down trajectory. Though he doesn’t make headlines anymore—his brother has become an actor of a different caliber. Hard to imagine given he was Fuller in Home Alone, but it’s true.

Working as hard as we did at a performing arts high school, many of us were burned out by the time we graduated. Some of my classmates have gone back to amateur theatrics, but for the most part, they have professional jobs and normal-as-it-can-be-lives. Certainly, theatre training is life training. One learns to walk and speak with confidence, work as a team, carve out one’s niche in the world. So, kids need scripts to learn from if they want to pursue a career as an actor. But I would be remiss if I didn’t say I don’t think they should be in the industry.

It is indeed hard to imagine a world without Charlie Bucket or Kevin MacAllister or Pete and Pete, but I often wonder if we did not include children in our screenplays and teleplays, if they waited until eighteen to go into professional work, how much more well-rounded they would be—some would have even been alive today. Yes, Drew Barrymore’s performance in E. T.: The Extra Terrestrial is enduring, and I’m glad there is a record of her giving an adequate performance (she never would again), but I also envision a Drew who, instead of running headlong into a world of debauchery, was a normal kid—played Viola Spolin games, trained in a drama school, or went to a pubilc school where, at the very least, she would have learned the good and the bad of the world without necessarily falling into drug addiction. Would she have emerged a more interesting actress than we have with us presently? More importantly, if she were absented from Hollywood, would she even be an actress? What if Drew Barrymore, even with that dramatically royal name, ran a patisserie or a daycare center?

I once read a beautiful Rolling Stone piece about the essential tragedy of Michael Jackson, a marvel as a kid and an adult (and, consequently, an unnatural fascination with the childhood he never had. In it, the writer imagined a world where Jackson might have been born into a different family—a family, perhaps, that did not have the drive and the whip. He pictured him singing in a saloon with only a few hearing that gorgeous voice. He described a tear coming from his eye—because everyone wants recognition—but he also described someone who had a better chance of getting out of his fifties than the average kid in the spotlight.

What if, like the Greeks, we did something decent and made attempting celebrity something for folks who might have more brain cells to make good decisions? Would there still be those who crash and burn? Of course. Would there be as many? I don’t think so. Children (those 17 and younger) are not equipped to make important life decisions regarding their future, their work, their identity. I couldn’t very well recommend anyone seriously put their child in an American public school knowing how they are and how they are run, but I often wondered if I had been in more regular surrounding—would I be able to play Ibsen? Maybe not. Would I be better at managing my life, though? You bet.

The Prince, before the fall.