How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies 3030974677, 9783030974671

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How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies Cary Bazalgette

How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies

Cary Bazalgette

How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies

Cary Bazalgette University College London Institute of Education London, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-97467-1    ISBN 978-3-030-97468-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © panic_attack / iStock / Getty Images Plus This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to my grandchildren: Morgan, Connie and Alfie

Terminology and Conventions

“Two-year-olds”, “toddlers” and “very young children”—although these terms are to some extent interchangeable, I often use the first because it refers to such a neglected age-group, and the differences between two-­year-­olds and one-year-olds or three-year-olds are very significant. That said, I do not want to give the impression that 24 to 36 months is a precisely defined stage of life. The kinds of behaviour and learning that I describe in this book may develop earlier than 24 months and/or carry on after 36 months. So although I don’t like the term “toddlers” very much—it seems rather condescending—I do use it sometimes as a reminder that the age-group I am discussing is one that is identified by its capabilities and behaviour rather than by calendars. I also sometimes use terms such as “little children” and “very young children” when describing behaviour that could apply to anyone under school age. “She”, “he”, “his” and “her”—it’s often necessary to use pronouns when discussing children’s behaviour. Rather than always using one set of gendered pronouns, resorting to the nastily impersonal “it” or acknowledging the constraints of binarism by using third person plural pronouns, I am following the convention, used by some other scholars, of alternating between both gendered pronouns. So the fact that I use “he” and “his” in one paragraph and “she” and “her” in the next does not mean that the behaviour I am discussing at any one point refers only to one gender or that I am merely absent-minded. “Movies”—most of the viewing materials I refer to in this book are short films or television programmes made for, or accessible to, two-year-­ olds. I use the term “movies” to refer to any moving image material, vii

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unless I’m referring to a specific example of content where it is important to emphasise that it is, for example, a broadcast television programme or series, a feature-length cinema film or a short (i.e. less than 30-minute) film. I refer sometimes to apps and games that have strong moving image components although I do not discuss them in any detail. I refer to learning about movies as “movie-learning”. “Viewing”—I am critical of the tendency to regard movies as purely visual media, so I use “view” and “viewing” rather than “watch” and “watching”. It’s not ideal, but they may suggest a more engaged activity that includes listening. Technical terms—where I have had to use technical or specialist terms from moviemaking and film theory, these are shown in bold in the text and are listed and explained in the Glossary.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the many people who have helped me develop the ideas in this book. Through his work in programming movies for children at the National Film Theatre, my late husband Terry Staples gave me many opportunities to watch movies with child audiences and to discover how readily they enjoyed archive and foreign language movies that many tended to assume would be alienating or too difficult for them. The hundreds of teachers and advisers whom I met through my work at the British Film Institute helped me to recognise children’s movie-learning talents and to realise that these must have emerged from prior learning. James Learmonth, Manuel Alvarado, David Lusted, Philip Simpson, Yvonne Davies, Nicola Beauman and Julian Sefton-Green all gave me constructive criticism and the encouragement I needed to take young children’s movie-­ learning seriously and to argue for its importance when policy-makers and academics were ignoring it. David Buckingham also read drafts of the book and provided helpful comments. My special thanks go to my PhD supervisors John Potter, Liz Brooker and Rosie Flewitt for their support, and to my partner David Mitchell for his patient advice, hard questions and eagle eyes. My biggest thank you, of course, is to Connie, Alfie and their mother Phoebe, for putting up with it all.

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Contents

1 Introduction  1 References   6 Part I Background and Argument   7 2 Beyond “Risks or Benefits”  9 Risks or Benefits: Historical Perspective  10 Research on Risks  13 Research on Benefits  15 Past Attempts to Understand How Movies’ Formal Features Are Learned  16 Attentiveness or Inertia?  19 Screen Time and Passivity  20 A More Positive Attitude?  23 References  24 3 Two-Year-Olds’ Movie-Learning 31 Vignette A: Viewing Something New  31 The Challenges of Studying Two-Year-Olds  33 Studies of Children by Family Members  35 How My Research Began  36 Movie-Learning Versus Language Learning  40 Learning the Formal Features of Movies  41 xi

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Situating This Book’s Project  44 Focused Attention  48 Summary  54 References  54 4 The Nature of the System 59 Vignette B: Viewing In the Night Garden  59 Capturing Reality?  62 Making Movies for Children  63 In the Night Garden Opening Sequence  65 Movie “Rules” and Play Rules  70 Types of Simplification  73 Understanding the Nature of the System  75 References  79 5 Evolution, Neuroscience and Embodied Cognition 81 Vignette C: Mimicry  81 Our Ancestors  83 Summary of Embodied Cognition Theories  85 Embodied Cognition and Film Theory  88 Mirror Neurons and Infant Development  91 The Relevance of Embodied Cognition to the Study of Toddlers’ Movie-Learning  93 Mimicry and Cultural Learning: Vignette C  94 Summary  97 References  98 Part II Aspects of Movie-Learning 103 6 Fear, Distress and Sadness105 “Inappropriate” Fears? 106 Managing Fear: Or Distress? The Peppa Pig “Sports Day” Episode 108 Attachment and Disorder 112 Narrative, Genre and Ambivalence 114 Distress About Endings 116

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Managing Sadness: Baboon on the Moon 118 Different Distress Scenarios 125 Research on Movies and Fear 131 References 132 7 Reality and Make-Believe135 Making Judgements About the Reality of Movies 136 The Example of Animatou 138 Making Modality Judgements? 141 “Confusion” and Pretence 143 Playing with Reality 145 Proximity and Touching: Delusion or Exploration? 150 Truth and Uncertainty 154 References 157 8 Understanding Narrative159 Learning to Understand Narrative Structures 161 Establishing Expectations 162 Emotion, Memory and Laughter 165 Moving on to More Complex Texts 167 Animatou and the Development of Narrative Understanding 172 Repeat Viewing 177 Narrative and Diakresis 178 Inference 181 References 182 9 Viewing Together185 Movie-Viewing as Child-Minding? 186 Viewing Practices 187 Solitary Viewing by Two-Year-Olds 190 Viewing Movies with Others 192 Active Co-viewing 194 Cuddled-Up Co-viewing 194 Adult-Level Co-viewing 196 Modelling Responses 199 References 202

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10 The Value of Movie-Learning205 Significant Developments? 207 Teachers’ Responses to Movie-Learning 210 Why We Should Respect Toddlers’ Movie-Learning 212 References 214 Glossary215 Index221

About the Author

Cary Bazalgette  worked at the British Film Institute (BFI) from 1979 to 2007, having previously been a teacher of English and filmmaking in London secondary schools. She has written and edited several classroom resources for media education and has spoken on this topic across the UK and in 22 countries around the world. She was Head of BFI Education from 1999 to 2006, leading the BFI’s commitment to developing new ways of teaching and learning about moving image media, particularly with the 3–14 age-group, and gaining a higher profile for this area of education at national policy level. Following 18 months as the BFI’s Education Policy Adviser and as General Secretary of the eight-nation Steering Group for the European Charter for Media Literacy, she worked as a freelance researcher, writer and consultant specialising in media literacy and in children’s media, and chaired the Media Education Association. In 2018 she completed a PhD on two-year-olds’ encounters with moving image media and is now Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Culture, Communication and Media, UCL Institute of Education. Her previous publications include New Directions: Media Education Worldwide (editor; 1992); Report of the Commission of Inquiry into English (editor; 1994); In Front of the Children: Children’s Audio-Visual Culture (co-editor; 1995), Making Movies Matter: Report of the Film Education Working Group (editor and principal author; 1999); Teaching Media in Primary Schools (editor; 2010).

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List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Viewing Laughing Moon (aged 23 months) 32 Fig. 3.2 “The richness of the interactions surrounding the television experience”. The twins (aged 23 months) find distractions while their mother Phoebe watches Monsters, Inc.34 Fig. 3.3 Viewing Laughing Moon for the second time (aged 23 months) 48 Fig. 4.1 Closely studying the screen (aged 23 months) 61 Fig. 4.2 Touching the screen (Alfie aged 23 months) 61 Fig. 4.3 Creating a low-angle perspective (Alfie aged 26 months) 71 Fig. 4.4 “Face”, by Alfie, aged 44 months 74 Fig. 4.5 “Elephant”, by Connie, aged 55 months 75 Fig. 5.1 Connie (aged 26 months) tries to imitate Monica’s gesture 82 Fig. 5.2 Connie tries to imitate Phoebe’s clasped hands 82 Fig. 6.1 Waiting for the rope to break in Peppa Pig: “Sports Day”: note cheek-­chewing! (Connie aged 24 months) 109 Fig. 6.2 Inarticulate response to “what happened?” (Connie aged 30 months)121 Fig. 6.3 Connie turns to me: appeal or reproof? (aged 30 months) 127 Fig. 6.4 Viewing My Neighbour Totoro (aged 41 months) 130 Fig. 7.1 Viewing Animatou for the first time (aged 28 months) 140 Fig. 7.2 Hiding the cat’s bellybutton? (Connie aged 30 months) 142 Fig. 7.3 Connie becomes Daddy Pig (age 26 months) 146 Fig. 7.4 Touching the taps (aged 29 months) 153 Fig. 8.1 Sustained individual play—Alfie aged 25 months 162 Fig. 9.1 Four-month-old gazing at a baby video while her dad eats his dinner. (Photo: Cary Bazalgette) 188

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Fig. 9.2 A two-year-old’s first encounter with a smartphone. (Photo: Sam O’Leary) 191 Fig. 9.3 Active co-viewing: an expected moment arrives (twins aged 30 months)195 Fig. 9.4 Viewing Monsters, Inc. (aged 23 months) with Terry 195 Fig. 9.5 Mother and grandmother converse while children (aged 22 months) view TV 197 Fig. 9.6 Connie (aged 29 months) and adults view Mary Poppins together198

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Humans have been telling stories in pictures for a very long time. More than 40,000  years ago, people living in what is now called Sulawesi, Indonesia, painted a hunting scene on a cave wall. The scene depicts figures that could be humans in costumes of some kind, or they may be fantasy semi-humans with features such as tails or beaks. They are grouped together to face a huge, fierce animal (Aubert et al., 2019). What interested the team that discovered them is how the figures and the animal are shown as interacting in a recognisable scene: from the way they are arranged one can imagine the actions taking place between them. In other words, we can see the protagonists of a story, perhaps at a crucial moment. The researchers argue that this cave painting is the very earliest example we know of that shows storytelling in pictures. Telling stories probably began in dance and music, much longer than 40,000  years ago and maybe even before verbal languages developed (Mithen, 2005; Wragg-Sykes, 2020). The Sulawesi people may have interacted with their cave paintings, using sounds created by voices, maybe instruments such as drums and rattles, and even lighting effects with torches. These could have been emotionally powerful experiences, perhaps with tremendous religious or magical significance. However they were originally used, the Sulawesi findings remind us that the urge to record experiences in more enduring forms and to re-live them is a very ancient instinct. It’s the same instinct that has driven many attempts to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_1

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make such recordings ever more realistic, and that now urges us to make, share and enjoy images and sounds on social media. The emotional power of storytelling through images, sounds and movement may also have seemed alarmingly intense to the Sulawesi people and to the other cultures who continued to develop cave art over many thousands of years. It is possible that access to these experiences was strictly controlled and limited to select groups. The emotional and persuasive powers of moving image storytelling still generate anxieties in many cultures today, particularly about how they are thought to affect children. No longer controlled by shamans or priests, these media are now widely and easily available on many different digital devices, alongside other cultural forms such as games and social media and are ultimately owned and controlled by commercial interests. The rapidity and range of digital technology development has led to the focus of anxieties about children’s engagements with media focusing primarily on the use of technologies— often simply referred to as “screens”—thus conflating the different cultural forms and practices that these technologies enable. Obviously it is interesting to consider the whole field of digital technologies and how they are exploited to support and transform a wide range of cultural, social and commercial activities. But I believe that it is also still important to investigate and understand how people select and relate to the specific cultural forms that digital technologies deliver to us—movies, games, advertising, social media, messaging, data-sharing, news and so on. So in this book I do not lump all “screens” or all “digital technologies” together. I deal with one such form: the moving image and its products, such as feature films, television series, home videos. The moving image is, after all, a major art form and an extremely important part of our culture. Games, apps, advertisements, YouTube, streaming and social media have extended our access to movies beyond feature films and broadcast television. This diversity of delivery systems is generating an increasingly wide range of stylistic and generic conventions. Mobile devices have enabled us all to make and share our own video material, and to explore those conventions creatively for ourselves. But despite this diversity, moving image media continue to share a common “language” of techniques, styles and storytelling conventions. For that reason, and also for brevity’s sake, I use the term “movies” in this book to refer to moving image media provided on any delivery system.

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I have taken the idea of a “secret language” from an essay by Virginia Woolf, in which she seems to have recognised that movies present a complex way of storytelling that is different from any earlier media. The films she saw in 1926 were considerably more developed stylistically than the single-shot films of 1895, but were still in monochrome and had no soundtracks, though they were almost certainly accompanied by live music. In her essay she asks whether movies might have “some secret language which we feel and see, but never speak?” (Woolf, 1926 (1994)). She perceived that the “language” of movies is one that is felt as well as seen: in other words, that they convey meaning by engaging our emotions as well as our perceptions. There is a widespread belief that movies are easy to understand. It is proudly asserted, especially by the mainstream film and television industries’ marketing departments, that their products are wonderfully lifelike and powerfully convincing. However, my argument in this book follows most film scholars in asserting that movies do not simply provide a transparent reflection of real life but use complex, multimodal ways of constructing meanings (see Chap. 4). Therefore at some stage we must have had to learn how to understand them (e.g. Bazin, 1967; Bordwell & Thompson, 1980; Eco, 1976; Metz, 1974; Monaco, 1981; Phillips, 2000; Spottiswoode, 1950, reprinted 1973; Wollen, 1998). Scholars have rarely asked how and when this learning happens: it is simply accepted that much of it must happen very early in life, certainly before the age of four (Monaco, 1981). Because of this, we have forgotten what it was like to encounter movies for the first time: we think we have always understood them. So in a sense, the “language” of movies really is a secret one: we’re not aware of it; we don’t talk about it. In their third year of life, children are voracious learners, discovering an astonishing range of new knowledge and skills. But new parents often approach the “terrible twos” with trepidation, consulting the numerous social media sites that provide advice on how to cope with tantrums, mood switches and insatiable curiosity. And it is when their children reach this age that many parents become anxious about “screen time” and “digital technologies” because of the effects that these are alleged to have on their children’s development. Many struggle to balance their fears of such effects against the convenience of having their toddlers sit still with an iPad or TV set while household chores get done or dinner is cooked, or of keeping them quiet and in one place with a smartphone when the family is eating out.

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There is less academic research on two-year-olds than there is on infants and pre-schoolers: I discuss the reasons for this in Chap. 2. Advice to parents of toddlers tends to rely on the so-called developmental milestones, based on Piaget’s theory that children go through four stages of cognitive development (Piaget, 1936) that mark the route to later learning, such as changes in cognition, more fluent speech, socialisation and increased dexterity. Worried parents are encouraged to look forward to these milestones, to be patient with the challenges that their toddlers present them with and to avoid the factors that might adversely affect their development—one of which is frequently asserted to be viewing “screens” for “too long”. The widely accepted “two-hour rule”—the maximum daily amount of television-viewing that any child of two or older should be allowed—was originally a recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1999 (Brown, 2011) although today many parents nervously try to adhere to it without knowing where it comes from or what the ill-effects of television-viewing are supposed to be (Blum-Ross & Livingstone, 2018). In Chap. 2 I identify some of the problems with the kinds of research the rule is based on and contest the “risks or benefits paradigm” that often verges on technological determinism and continues to dominate debates about digital media. In this book I propose a different way of interpreting children’s movie-­ viewing behaviour around the third year of life, and I demonstrate this through analyses of typical examples. My proposal is based on the assumption that, at this age, children are learning how to make sense of this complex, multimodal medium. Close analysis of children’s expressions, postures and verbal responses as they view movies, reveals that they are not “mesmerised”, “passive” or “addicted” but are engaged in intense, self-­ driven and purposeful activity. By acknowledging this we can interpret children’s viewing behaviour in more nuanced and respectful ways. This argument is illustrated throughout the book with accounts of movie-­ viewing scenarios, taken from my own research, that are likely to be familiar to anyone who has spent time with toddlers viewing movies, whether on a phone, tablet, desktop computer or TV set, and show how they can be interpreted as evidence of a learning process. In this way we can discover a new respect for children’s tenacity and curiosity, and may wish to ponder the longer-term implications for their later learning and their cultural needs.

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The book thus makes a case for broadening the research and debate agenda beyond its preoccupation with effects and risks, and towards more sensitive investigations of what toddlers are up to when they view movies. Although I am critical of much of the research on which the “risks or benefits paradigm” is based, and of the admonitions to parents about “screen time”, I do address issues that arise in most children’s movie-­viewing and that can cause concern. In Part II I discuss the fearful and distressed responses that children sometimes exhibit in their movie-­viewing and how they respond to sadness in a movie; whether they actually do get confused about the differences between “real” and “pretend”; how they learn to follow narratives, making inferences and predictions about how stories in movies will turn out; and how they learn from others in co-­ viewing situations. My interpretations of movie-viewing behaviour draw on the emergent theoretical field of embodied cognition, which I outline in Chap. 5. This challenges the notion that our minds operate separately from our bodily functions and instinctive behaviour. Instead, it sees our bodies and minds as intrinsically linked in complex ways, and that they have been so throughout human evolution. Taking account of this is a productive way of analysing two-year-olds’ unpredictable behaviour and volatile emotional states, especially as they encounter the densely multimodal narratives that movies present to them. Dozens of often complicated theories about movies offer numerous ways of defining how we view and interpret this amazing medium, so it is not surprising that toddlers are often unable to express verbally their own thoughts and feelings about the movies that they view. But through close observation and careful analysis of their behaviour and utterances, we can infer a great deal about the learning processes they are going through. Although these processes can include the acquisition of information from movie content (e.g. vocabulary, numbers, wildlife, good behaviour), that is not the focus here. This book is concerned with how children learn about movies—how they learn to make sense of these diverse, complex, fast-moving media—and with the role of this learning during their crucial developmental years. Learning to understand movies is not as difficult as learning to read, but it is, I will argue, a significant achievement.

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References Aubert, M., Ruastan, L., Oktavania, A. K., Tang, M., Burhan, B., Jusdi, A., … Brumm, A. (2019). Earliest hunting scene in prehistoric art. Nature, 576, 442–445. Bazin, A. (1967). What is cinema? University of California Press. Blum-Ross, A., & Livingstone, S. (2018). The trouble with “screen time” rules. In G. Mascheroni, C. Ponte, & A. Jorge (Eds.), Digital parenting. The challenge for families in the digital age. Nordicom. Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (1980). Film art: An introduction. Addison-Wesley. Brown, A. (2011). Media use by children younger than 2 years. Pediatrics, 128(5), 1040–1045. Eco, U. (1976). Articulations of the cinematic code. In B. Nichols (Ed.), Movies and methods. University of California Press. Metz, C. (1974). Film language: A semiotics of the cinema. Oxford University Press. Mithen, S. (2005). The singing Neanderthals. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Monaco, J. (1981). How to read a film. Oxford University Press. Phillips, P. (2000). Understanding film texts. British Film Institute. Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Spottiswoode, R. (1950, reprinted 1973). A grammar of the film: An analysis of film technique. University of California Press. Wollen, P. (1998). Signs and meaning in the cinema: Expanded edition. British Film Institute. Woolf, V. (1926 (1994)). The cinema. In A. McNeillie (Ed.), The essays of Virginia Woolf. The Hogarth Press. Wragg-Sykes, R. (2020). Kindred: Neanderthal life, love, death and art. Bloomsbury.

PART I

Background and Argument

These four chapters set out my argument for breaking with the “risks or benefits” paradigm that dominated research about children and movies for more than a century and continues to dominate public debate. I explain why and how I have adopted a different approach. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are each introduced by a “vignette” that illustrates a vivid—and to many people probably recognisable—example of two-year-olds’ responses to movies: focused attention (Chap. 3), sociable co-viewing (Chap. 4) and mimicry (Chap. 5). Chapter 2 explains what I regard as the problems of a “risks or benefits” perspective in researching children’s movie-viewing, both in terms of how research questions have been framed and in terms of some of the methods used, together with underlying issues about how movies are described and how child behaviour is interpreted. Chapter 3 describes the background to my own research, the findings of which are drawn on throughout the book. The dearth of research on two-year-olds is discussed: the rationales for this are acknowledged and a case is made for the alternative—longitudinal, ethnographically styled studies, preferably carried out by family members. The question of whether movies have a distinct “language” is considered, with reference to some of the numerous studies that have investigated it, and the chapter concludes with an account of a neuroscientific perspective on the type of focused attention displayed in Vignette A. Chapter 4 challenges the notion that the meaning of movies is obvious, through a summary of the codes and conventions through which they

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make meaning. Applying detailed textual analysis to part of what the children are viewing in Vignette B illustrates the stylistic complexity of an apparently simple and very short opening sequence; insights from other scholars on two-year-olds’ play and cultural encounters emphasise twoyear-olds’ interest in rules and conventions. Chapter 5 summarises the history and describes the key principles of embodied cognition, explaining its relevance to the study of two-yearolds. The significance of the mirror neuron discoveries in the 1990s is discussed, with their relevance to empathy and hence to narrative comprehension, as illustrated in Vignette C. Overall, the chapter builds the case for regarding toddlers’ instinctive responses to movies as meaningful and important, rather than trivial and transient.

CHAPTER 2

Beyond “Risks or Benefits”

My argument in this book starts from two propositions: that we have to learn to understand movies, and that this learning begins before the age of three. By acknowledging these, we can find fresh perspectives on early learning and on children’s relationship with movies. One common response to these two propositions is that they are simply wrong: it’s argued that movies are simple enough to understand, and if little children can’t understand a movie it will only be because the content is still too sophisticated for them. The other common response allows for the fact that very little children might find movies confusing at first, but as they learn to understand them very quickly and easily, there is little to investigate. Most people involved in research or policy to do with young children’s media experiences are not particularly concerned with whether or not children have to learn to understand movies: they prefer to argue that the primary purpose of studying children’s engagements with movies must be to find out what effects they have, which usually means “are they risky for children?” Some also ask whether movies are beneficial, but as this is usually an attempt to counter the more dominant concern about

Parts of this chapter have appeared in A. L-V Azcarate (ed.) Mind and Matter: Challenges and Opportunities in Cognitive Semiotics and Aesthetics. InTech Open 2021; in Brown (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Film (OUP 2022); and in Film Education Journal 1 (2018). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_2

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risk, it is therefore still part of an effects agenda. This “risks or benefits” paradigm has dominated research on children and media for a long time, although some are beginning to acknowledge that a different approach is needed: for example, that “for parents caught between fears of media harms and hopes for a digital future, a more nuanced consideration of the nature and purpose of screen media in different contexts is now urgent” (Blum-Ross & Livingstone, 2018, p. 185). This book does offer “a more nuanced consideration”, but the catch-all category of “screen media” here does not lend itself to nuance and is likely to encourage technological determinism by implying that it is the screens that cause harm, irrespective of what’s on them. Many forms of social interaction and cultural production now use screens: to aggregate them into a single concept, even when modified by the phrase “in different contexts” implies that one technological feature—the screen—plays the leading role in the way that they are consumed. We would probably not attempt to consider the nature and purpose of books, newspapers, packaging, Post-It notes, Christmas cards and till receipts under the general heading of “paper media”, except perhaps in the context of, say, a market trends analysis of the pulp and packaging industries. Texts, emails, ATMs, television series, Google searches, word-processing, CCTV, photographs, videos, advertisements, feature films and dozens of other forms and practices all use screens, but for an enormous range of different purposes. The comparatively limited category that this book examines is still quite broad, given that under the heading “movies” I am including television series, short and featurelength films, which can be viewed through several different types of devices and which include a huge range of genres and styles, even for the relatively small audience segment that I am considering. But I defend that generalisation with the argument that movies share many common features, demand at least the same basic set of interpretive skills and are not, as I demonstrate in Chaps. 3 and 4, either simple or necessarily easy to understand.

Risks or Benefits: Historical Perspective Of course, the risks or benefits paradigm is not new. The appearance of new communication technologies and cultural forms has always aroused fears about their potential threats to the established social order, especially in relation to population sectors that are seen as particularly vulnerable to seductively attractive sources of information or entertainment. For example, the expansion of literacy and new printing technologies gave rise to anxieties about the risks of reading for those, such as the working classes

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or women, who were deemed lacking in breadth of cultural experience and insufficiently armed with critical skills (see, e.g. Rose, 2001; Wollstonecraft, 1792). While these attitudes stemmed from dominant groups’ sense of entitlement, more systematic analyses appeared through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when political, economic and technological changes radically altered the ways in which cultural products were produced, circulated and consumed. In 1835, de Tocqueville’s study of democracy in the USA foresaw the increase of social mobility which would, he argued, cause cultural production to become interwoven with commercial interests on a huge scale and would therefore be corrupted and trivialised (Rebentisch & Trautmann, 2018, p. 19). From the 1930s, Frankfurt University’s Institute of Social Research, which came to be known as the Frankfurt School, developed a critique of the systems which had developed what by then had come to be termed “mass culture”. In their 1947 publication Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer established the deliberately oxymoronic term “the culture industry” and produced an analysis of mass culture under capitalism: Interested parties like to explain the culture industry in technological terms. Its millions of participants, they argue, demand reproduction processes which inevitably lead to the use of standard products to meet the same needs at countless locations. The technical antithesis between few production centers and widely dispersed reception necessitates organization and planning by those in control. The standardized forms, it is claimed, were originally derived from the needs of the consumers: that is why they are accepted with so little resistance. In reality, a cycle of manipulation and retroactive need is unifying the system ever more tightly. What is not mentioned is that the basis on which technology is gaining power over society is the power of those whose economic position in society is strongest. (Adorno & Horkheimer, 2002, p. 95)

The problem with Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis is that it takes no account of the ways in which cultural products actually are interpreted and evaluated by real audiences. Their position on this is not very different from eighteenth-century disdain or de Tocqueville’s cynicism: from each perspective, consumers are seen as inescapably passive creatures who will accept whatever they are given. This deeply pessimistic view was undermined by, amongst others, scholars at or associated with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in the 1960s. In his 1958 book The Uses of Literacy Richard Hoggart, who later founded the centre, described the working-class culture in Hunslet, Leeds, where he grew up (Hoggart, 1958). Although the book is nostalgic for an

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“authentic” culture and is highly critical of mass media, its detailed descriptions of working-class lives and concerns was influential in the development of cultural studies, and sociological studies of cultural consumption, which retrieved at least some of popular culture from snobbish dismissal. Hall and Whannel’s book The Popular Arts, despite its pessimistic attitude towards most popular music, undertook serious critical analysis of popular forms (Hall & Whannel, 1964) thus breaking new ground in fields soon to be occupied by thriving disciplines such as Media Studies, Film Studies and Cultural Studies. Children, however, are an audience sector conspicuously absent from all this. Philippe Aries’ important history, Centuries of Childhood, revealed that definitions of childhood as a distinct phase of life with its own special characteristics are relatively recent in European culture (Aries, 1962). A “culture of childhood” has been developing since the seventeenth century and is now stronger than ever. Whether they are seen as naturally innocent and vulnerable, or as little monsters in need of severe discipline, children are characterised as essentially different from adults, in need of special treatment in every area of life, including their consumption of cultural products. With the development of “mass media” from the late nineteenth century onwards, the risks or benefits paradigm, as a dominant agenda for the consideration of children’s relationships with modern media, soon began to grow. In 1917 an independent inquiry on children and the cinema, commissioned by the National Council for Public Morals, with the backing of the cinema exhibition sector (NCPM, 1917), concluded that “the cinema, under wise guidance, may be made a powerful influence for good; if neglected, if its abuse is unchecked, its potentialities for evil are manifold” (p. xxi). Much of the subsequent research on children and movies, at least in the Anglophone world, has taken place within the epistemological position marked out by that conclusion, in which movies are not considered as cultural products, individually worthy of serious critical assessment, but as an undifferentiated system. Research questions about them are positioned somewhere on a continuum between the risks that movies are assumed to present to children, such as poor Theory of Mind development (e.g. Nathanson et  al., 2013) and the benefits that they may offer, such as improved cognitive, logical reasoning skills (e.g. Lauricella et al., 2011). Larger surveys and reviews have tended to settle in the middle of this continuum, pointing out both benefits and risks, as the NCPM’s conclusion does. Ninety years later, Norma Pecora’s introduction to a review of

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five decades of US research on children and television (Pecora et al., 2007) struck a similar balance between risk and benefit: children “spend a great deal of time with content that has no known value to their development, but when they view programs designed to provide education and information, they can profit considerably” (p. 60). Similarly, Rideout et al.’s huge telephone survey for the Henry Kaiser Family Foundation (Rideout et al., 2003) assembled both positive and negative findings about parental behaviour and attitudes. But being in the middle of the continuum does not necessarily constitute neutrality: it is merely one of many possible positions in relation to risks or benefits. The risks or benefits paradigm has been underpinned by research in the field of developmental psychology, particularly in the USA, on children’s relationship to television. Linking questions of risk and benefit to television-­viewing, while ignoring film, may be attributed to several factors. One may be that the peak of risk-benefit anxieties in relation to film-­ viewing had long been passed. Staples’ Chapter, “Flagrant and Dangerous Evils” (Staples, 1997, pp. 29–41) describes the moral panics about children’s cinema-going that flourished in the UK in the 1930s. These diminished in the face of the growing popularity of children’s Saturday morning cinema clubs, and the success of films specifically aimed at child or family audiences. The major difference between cinema-going and television-­ viewing in this period is that the former had to involve deliberate choices such as going out and buying tickets, while the latter took place in the home. More recently, the practice of having the television on all the time has been seen by some researchers as particularly deplorable (e.g. Vandewater et al., 2005) and the implicitly passive term “exposure” was widely adopted by researchers in place of the more active “watching” or “viewing” (e.g. Christakis et  al., 2004; Mar et  al., 2010; Mistry et  al., 2006; Stevens & Mulsow, 2006), implying that television is an unavoidable presence, like the weather.

Research on Risks At the risk end of the continuum, studies of children’s television-viewing focused on effects in different areas. Many scholars claimed to have found evidence of negative effects on children’s physical and cognitive development, and behaviour (e.g. Kirkorian et al., 2008, 2009; Masur & Flynn, 2008; Mistry et  al., 2006; Zimmerman & Christakis, 2005). Others focused on television’s supposed negative effects on reading (e.g.

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Vandewater et al., 2005), theory of mind (Nathanson et al., 2013), reality judgements (e.g. Hui et al., 2015) and language development (Zimmerman et al., 2007). However, a subtext of suspicion was also evident in some research that claims a more “balanced” view. For example, John and Dorothy Singer’s overt position over many years of research (Singer & Singer, 2005; Singer, 1977) was that it is only the nature of some television content and excessive amounts of viewing that cause problems (Singer & Singer, 2005, p. 82), but nevertheless they contrasted the “ease of television or of the simple point-and-click video games” with “the more demanding but ‘internalising’ task and promise of reading” (p.  6: their emphasis); they asserted that television “competes for ‘channel space’ in the cognitive processes and internalisation of imaginative thought in children” (p. 8) but also that “when we read, a more complicated cognitive process occurs than when we view television” (p. 61). The Singers did not support these statements with neuroscientific evidence: they simply display a persistent conviction that, while allowing that some of its content may be educationally useful, most television and video games are shallow and meretricious, and therefore conclude that viewing and gaming need to be carefully managed to minimise their risk to children. A more nuanced “risk” subtext, simply acknowledging that some media-related behaviour could be detrimental to children, can be seen in major, well-researched studies, such as the large-scale EU Kids Online project and linked papers (Livingstone & Haddon, 2009; Livingstone et al., 2012, 2017b). In the context of the extensive media coverage that is given to more extreme publications about media risks to children (Keim, 2011; Sigman, 2007), such studies aim to place risk in a better-informed context. It is notable that since the development of social media and portable devices in the early twenty-first century, the focus of “risk” has shifted from television to digital technologies, conforming to Winston’s account of the technological determinist vision, in which popular discourse frames each new technology as a force “both elemental and unnatural” which somehow “emerges” of its own accord (Winston, 1996, p. 2). But it now seems possible that this may be beginning to change, perhaps at least in part due to the ways in which many more people were forced into using new forms of digital technology during the Covid-19 pandemic that started to spread globally in early 2020. Both in social and professional contexts, the affordances of distance learning software and programs such as Skype and Zoom refocused new users’ attention on the positive features and capabilities of digital technologies and encouraged more objective

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critical assessment. For example, Edwards et al.’s account of remote learning in the Early Childhood Education and Care sector during the pandemic draws upon the notion of critical constructivism from within the field of philosophy of technology to illustrate this shift of attitudes away from technological determinism and “towards using technologies aligned with their teaching and learning values, as opposed to viewing technologies as a tool for learning” (Edwards et al., 2022).

Research on Benefits At the “benefits” end of the continuum, research has focused on benefits that relate to established educational and social priorities: literacy (Browne, 1999; Marsh, 2000; Robinson, 1994), general learning and test scores (Bogatz & Ball, 1971; Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2006), family interaction (Brody et al., 1980; Frazer, 1981; Messaris, 1983), language acquisition (Lemish & Rice, 1986; Linebarger & Walker, 2005), theory of mind (Mar et al., 2010) and moral judgements (Mares & Acosta, 2008). Substantial amounts of research from the early 1970s onwards sought evidence that children could learn from “educational” television, particularly the Children’s Television Workshop’s The Electric Company and Sesame Street (Bogatz & Ball, 1971; Fowles & Horner, 1975; Lesser, 1972; Murphy, 1991; Salomon, 1974). Fowles and Horner (who were, respectively, CTW’s Associate Director of Research and Director of Research!) went further than most in making large claims for the impact of CTW programmes over the previous five years (Fowles & Horner, 1974). Asserting that the 1972 Stanford-Binet intelligence test had to be re-standardised because the average four-to-five-year-old now “knew more than did his 1960 counterpart” and that this was likely to be due at least in part to the introduction of Sesame Street (although they do not provide any evidence for this), they argue that “television may be altering the course of acquisition of the most basic cognitive operations in children. The rate at which and the order in which children acquire basic cognitions about the workings of the physical and social world … may have changed” (p. 4). After 1999, when the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that TV viewing for children under two should be discouraged (AAP, 2016) there was an increase, especially in the USA, of broadcaster-funded studies that sought to demonstrate the extent to which the special category of “baby TV” could still lay the foundations for later learning (Anderson & Pempek, 2005; Brown, 2011).

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A significant boost to research on infants and toddlers came from neuroscientific developments in the 1990s and 2000s that were popularly understood to stress “that infants’ experiences during the first 3 years of rapid brain growth have a unique and powerful impact on its development, one that cannot readily be duplicated or reversed later when the ‘sensitive period’ for neural plasticity has passed” (Courage & Setliff, 2010, p.  102). Courage and Howe point out that much of the public discourse oversimplified these findings (leading to the use of such terms as “hard-wired”); it certainly gave new life to the risks or benefits paradigm as teams of researchers sought to prove that “baby TV” either harmed or benefitted children’s development. I do draw upon neuroscientific research in this book but from an embodied cognition perspective and for a different purpose (see Chap. 5). The risks or benefits paradigm continues to frame public debate on “children and media”, although it is interesting to note that, while a Google search on the question “does TV present risks or benefits to children?” turned up about 700 million results in September 2017, the same search produced only about 119 million in January 2021. Whether or not that indicates a real decline, this book is positioned outside the paradigm, because I believe that it is an adult-centred agenda that limits our capacity to recognise children’s self-driven efforts to learn how to understand important cultural forms such as movies.

Past Attempts to Understand How Movies’ Formal Features Are Learned If we do recognise that such learning must take place, then we need to acknowledge that movies have distinctive formal features that learners must get used to if they are to fully understand what they are viewing (see Chap. 4 for examples). Although some developmental psychology scholars in the later twentieth century did recognise that research about children and television ought to include consideration of these, their knowledge of movies and of audience research was extremely limited. They asked the same questions that generated my own research: for example when Collins (1975) wonders “why … older children (say, 11 or older) show less pronounced attitudinal and behavioral effects of television than younger children” he suggests that “older children appear less affected than younger ones because they comprehend the complexities of

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television dramatic plots more effectively and, therefore, are more selectively affected by television portrayals” (Collins, 1975, p. 35). Although Collins’ focus is on the effects of these features rather than on the challenges of learning how to interpret them, he is implicitly acknowledging that television does have distinctive codes and conventions through which it constructs meaning and implies that it takes time to learn these fully. Wartella’s collection of texts on media and cognitive development (Wartella, 1979b) includes Collins’ account of further research on these lines, in which he admits that it is conceivable, of course, that important qualitative changes occur earlier in development and that the second graders … represent a transition from earlier developmental states. This hypothesis cannot be evaluated without data from younger children, who have not been included in the research program so far because the markedly different procedures needed to test them would make comparison with older groups difficult. (Collins, 1979, p. 37)

The fact that Collins thought it would be possible to test “younger children” still indicates that he wasn’t thinking of children as young as two, which is the age-group addressed in this book. Wartella herself seems to recognise this when she expresses concerns about the developmental models then widely in use and about the prominence of experimental methods: “obviously”, she says, “longitudinal studies would be most useful” (Wartella, 1979a) in attempting to study the development of younger children’s “communicative activities”—an observation that would be repeated by others in later years (Lemish & Rice, 1986; Linebarger & Vaala, 2010; Moses, 2008). But these scholars all accept the developmental approach which implies that becoming able to understand movies is part of a natural process of maturation, rather than depending on conscious efforts to learn. However, in another chapter in Wartella’s book, Salomon frames an intriguing set of questions about the specificities of television and their potential relationship to cognitive development, and does posit the possibility that the ability to interpret what he calls “symbolic modes”—a very wide generalisation which he uses in order to apply it across all art forms— is acquired through learning:

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What is the utility of specific skills which are cultivated by particular symbolic elements of the media? Do they develop at the expense of other skills? How can their development be facilitated? … If children can acquire particular symbolic modes by observational learning (say, as the result of imitating skill-supplanting elements) can they also learn to represent the world to themselves in terms of these elements? Thus, can some of the media’s symbolic elements become internalised and used as ‘tools of thought’? (Salomon, 1979, p. 80)

Salomon identifies some of the key singularities of movies, for example montage, and “the spatialisation of time” (p.  58); notes that children’s learning about media “is hardly ever accompanied by any tutoring” (p. 62) and asks questions about the further learning implications of children’s early media encounters. Bryant and Anderson’s edited collection of studies, drawn largely from developmental psychology in the 1970s and 1980s, addressed “the act of television viewing itself” (Bryant & Anderson, 1983, p. xiii) before the expansion of the domestic VCR market (in the UK) and cable (in the US) radically changed the nature of most children’s access to this medium, by enabling re-viewing at will. A key feature of this book is a determination to oppose the then dominant idea among developmental psychologists that visual attention in young viewers “is primarily reactive and controlled by the television set”, making the radical counter-argument that “visual attention is actively under the control of the viewer, and is in the service of the viewer’s efforts to understand the television program” (Anderson & Lorch, 1983, p. 1). One implication of this argument is that television has distinctive features that need to be understood, so several of the chapters address questions about the specificities of televisual codes and conventions. For example, Meringoff et al. are interested in “the distinctive cognitive consequences for children of their experience with television and other story-bearing media” (p. 151) and recognise the relevance of classical film theory to their research questions, although without any speculation about the age at which dissolves and jump cuts are understood: Descriptions of the specific ways that editing techniques are used to suggest associations between shots and to imply transitions in time and space have aroused our curiosity about children’s ability to ‘read’ across film and television story lines. For instance, dissolves and jump cuts imply the passage of time only to those audience members who understand the meaning of those conventions. (Meringoff et al., 1983, p. 157)

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But, like most of the book’s contributors, their investigation involved older children (in their case 6–7-year-olds and 10–11-year-olds). Huston and Wright ask (again, of older cohorts of children), “What’s attractive about television? How does the child learn the codes of television and become increasingly sophisticated in understanding its content?” (Huston & Wright, 1983). But they admit that “one interpretation of our failure to find large developmental differences might be that we have not sampled children early enough to locate the critical period for familiarisation with television” (Huston & Wright, 1983, p. 43). Like Collins in 1979, the contributors to Bryant and Anderson (1983) recognised the need to study younger children but clearly did not want to tackle the methodological challenges of trying to elicit evidence about awareness of movie codes and conventions from children who would be too young to articulate them. They were less conscious of the further limitations imposed on their inquiries by their very schematic accounts of what the “codes of television” are, as well as by their commitment to experimental methods, their cognitivist approach and their reliance on “age and stage” models of child development (see also Chap. 5).

Attentiveness or Inertia? Two theories that are still used in the developmental psychology literature on children and television are “attentional inertia” (i.e. that attentional engagement tends to deepen, the longer a gaze at the screen is sustained), and “the video deficit” (i.e. that infants and toddlers learn more readily from a live person than from television/video): both originated with Anderson (respectively, Anderson et  al., 1979; Anderson & Pempek, 2005). The research supporting the video deficit theory is almost entirely experimental, using imitation as evidence of learning, thus discounting a wide range of research that emphasises the social, intersubjective processes of infant and toddler learning from live people (reviewed by Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001; also see Chap. 9) and—I must add—the possibility that they might respond differently to mainstream TV programmes, which are very different from the made-to-order instructional videos used in the experiments. Doubleday and Droege do express some scepticism about the evidence for attentional inertia (Doubleday & Droege, 1993), although Richards’ account (Richards, 2010, p. 213) makes a more convincing case by suggesting that the alleged phenomenon might simply be that viewers’ attentiveness may well grow as their interest is aroused: the fact that

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Anderson et al. took no account of this possibility suggests that their low opinion of television led them to assume that nobody could really be that interested in viewing it for long. Nevertheless, both theories have continued to be accepted and used as the basis for research (e.g. Barr & Wyss, 2008; Pempek et  al., 2010) and for parental advice (e.g. Herdzina & Lauricella, 2020, p. 10). A general problem for this strand of research is the scholars’ tendency to regard television as a visual (rather than audiovisual) medium, whose defining features reside in the technology—in particular, the screen— rather than in the institutional and aesthetic features that distinguish, for example, different genres and intended audiences. In addition, they make little reference to toddlers’ own interests in re-viewing material (which of course would not be seen in experimental contexts), and discussions of “response” and “attention” focus largely on gaze, with little consideration of features such as bodily tension, posture, gesture (apart from pointing) and choice of position in relation to the screen. There is also some confusion between “television” (i.e. material that is broadcast, either live or pre-recorded) and “video” (i.e. pre-recorded material that was shown on a monitor via a playback device)—a crucial distinction in the context of family or peer-group viewing, where discussion or interruptions are more likely, but can be managed easily when viewing VoD, or when using a “smart TV” or portable device. Despite the problems that I have cited, about much of the developmental psychologists’ methods and findings on children and movies, I have discussed those examples of their work where they have addressed questions that are somewhat like mine but have arrived at very different—and often ambivalent—conclusions, given their very different methods and ontological positions. It is also significant work in that it has informed public discourse and parental attitudes, particularly in Anglophone countries. It is nevertheless a predominantly North American tradition, focused mainly on American movies for children, many of which differ markedly from those produced in other parts of the world.

Screen Time and Passivity A major focus of the “risk” agenda has been the amount of time that children spend with moving image media. This is reflected in everyday discourse, both face-to-face and online. It is widely assumed that television and other screen-based media are used as “child-minders”: that children

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are placed in front of them and kept quiet by their allegedly mesmeric effects. Social media discussions of children’s movie-viewing have many contributors who display a nervous subtext about the “risks” of too much “exposure”—the latter being a term widely used by researchers (e.g. Christakis et al., 2004; Mar et al., 2010; Mistry et al., 2006; Stevens & Mulsow, 2006; Vandewater et al., 2005). The choice of the term “exposure” is an interesting one, implying a complete denial of any process of interpretation being at work; it is an extreme version of the “movies are easy to understand” trope and carries strong connotations of risk, as in “dying of exposure”. The fundamental anxiety that underpins all these concerns is that time spent engaging with movies or “screens” will negatively affect children’s later ability to read, learn and concentrate; that it will model inappropriate behaviour or induce mental health issues such as depression, and the more time spent, the worse the effects—hence also the dominance of “screen time” as the latest assumed threat to children’s health and sanity, and the AAP’s “two hour rule”. It is the predominance and longevity of this belief that Blum-Ross and Livingstone found in the families they studied and led to their call for “a more nuanced consideration of the nature and purpose of screen media” (Blum-Ross & Livingstone, 2018). Although “more nuanced consideration” has emerged to some extent since the COVID-19 pandemic compelled millions of parents and carers to use—and encourage children to use—“screen media” more than they otherwise might have done, advice to parents still exhibits subtexts of suspicion. For example, the generally progressive and imaginative guidelines from the National Association for the Education of Young Children on “developmentally appropriate practice” warns that technological and interactive media “should not replace opportunities for real, hands-on experiences” (NAEYC, 2020) referencing a more explicit statement from Donohue and Schomberg that specifies what “real” and “hands-on” mean: “imaginative play, outdoor play and nature, creativity, curiosity and wonder” (Donohue & Schomberg, 2017). While I would not argue with the importance of these ideas or the frequent use in the advice literature of terms such as “active”, “self-directed” and “engaging”, one of my aims in this book is to demonstrate how children’s engagements with movies can often be interpreted in exactly the NAEYC’s terms. Another element that recurs frequently in the “risk” agenda and is almost a default claim about very young children’s movie-viewing is that it is “passive”. This judgement is more than just a careless observation of children viewing movies: it suggests an instinctive revulsion from the idea

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that a child’s entertainment might be supplied via an electronic technology, as opposed to the “natural” scenario of direct engagements between parent and child. It has played a powerful role since at least the 1970s in stoking up parental guilt about allowing children to view movies. The notion of “passivity” automatically excludes the concept that movie-­ viewing may involve the child actively trying to make sense of what he is viewing, by concentrating hard (see Vignette A, Chap. 3). In 1981, Frazer’s critique of this notion refers to the lack of research on children’s television-viewing in their normal social environments. His research on six families with children aged between three and six led him to challenge the belief that television-viewing is usually “passive” (although he does assume that not being passive must involve physical activity or social interaction, forgetting perhaps that quietly concentrating on a novel or a symphony are not usually seen as passive activities): Like any other object in the world of the child (for example, a cookie jar), television takes on contextual meaning based on the actions of those around it. There can be no question that the child is often active in the television environment, both physically and socially. The view of a passive receiver, even under the most sedate viewing conditions, is an underestimation of the abilities of the child to understand and shape experiences. (Frazer, 1981, p. 319)

Unfortunately little notice was taken of Frazer’s insights and the “passive viewing” concept has retained currency. In 2019 the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a guidelines app that encouraged parents to take a more active role in supporting the development of children under five. It used mainly neutral terminology to characterise three types of activity: Physical Activity, Sedentary Screen Time and Good Quality Sleep, specifying how much of each would be appropriate for children in different age-groups (WHO, 2019). Their press release was careful not to use obviously tendentious language, referring only to “prolonged restrained or sedentary screen time” (my emphasis) as presenting a potential threat to later physical and mental health. “Prolonged restrained” presumably only relates to being strapped into a car seat or a buggy, although that may lead one to wonder whether a bit of “screen time” in those circumstances really presents an additional threat to health. Most of us would be likely to retort that “it depends what they’re watching”: which is the crucial factor that the “screen time” mantra almost always fails to address.

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Media reports on the WHO guidelines homed in on the conventionally negative connotations of “sedentary” by reverting to the almost default combination of “passive” and “viewing” in popular discourse, claiming that the WHO was identifying passive viewing as a contributor to developmental problems (e.g. BBC News at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ health-­48021224; accessed 03-11-21). While plenty of adults (including me) may admit to often slumping in front of the television after a busy day at work and/or a few drinks, and barely following what they are viewing, passive viewing as a dominant characteristic of toddlers’ movie-viewing is a popular myth, readily reinforced by news media, rather than a product of serious research. It underestimates the extent of toddlers’ active learning, makes condescending assumptions about what is going on when they gaze open-mouthed at a movie, and adds another item to their parents’ burden of guilt. As I found in my interviews with parents in the course of my research, they were likely at first to use terms such as “mesmerised” or is “passively viewing” when referring to a child who might equally well be described as “focusing intently” on a movie. A similar phenomenon relates to occasions when a child insists on seeing something over and over again: parents tend to refer to this as an “obsession” or an “addiction”. The subtext of all these terms is the assumption that children don’t really understand much of what they’re viewing, which then fuels the anxiety that movie-viewing is never “self-­ directed” and may actually cause serious mental disorders. The fact that this contradicts everything we know about two-year-olds—that they are voracious, incessant learners—does not necessarily counter the belief that movies exert a dangerous attraction to which innocent, eager-to-learn toddlers are easy victims. However, in more extended conversations with the parents I interviewed, I invariably found that they were only using pathologising terms such as “passive” and “addicted” because they thought they were the “right” terms to use when talking to a researcher; as the interviews progressed they recognised my interest in what their children actually were doing and started referring approvingly to features such as intense concentration and obvious enjoyment.

A More Positive Attitude? While Blum-Ross and Livingstone do recognise that part of parents’ interest in letting children have access to “screens” is that it allows them to get on with other things like having a shower or cooking a meal, they are also

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concerned that, because the dominant research agenda in the USA and Europe is concerned with the negative effects of “screen time”, little attention is paid to the importance of digital media “not only for children’s leisure but also their learning, communication and participation” (Blum-Ross & Livingstone, 2018, p.  183). In their brief reference to research on video-viewing, they object that none of it “recognises children’s pleasure in singing and dancing along with a video, or enacting the drama on the screen also with their siblings in front of it” (p. 182)—note though that the evidence of “pleasure” that they refer to here is only what is easily observable. They also cite the positive arguments that parents usually present for allowing their children to engage with “screens”: they say that it helps children to learn, keeps them in contact with distance family members, provides opportunities for families to spend time together, and enables children to connect with their peers—all of which contradict the “passive viewing” stereotype so often linked to negative effects. This more positive attitude to children’s media consumption is a welcome development, as is the relatively recent tendency to refer to the “risks and opportunities” of children’s media consumption, rather than risks or benefits (e.g. Livingstone et al., 2017a). However, it is my aim in this book is to move closer to the ways in which we discuss other aspects of children’s cultural lives: for example there is little talk these days of the risks and opportunities associated with reading, or with the possible effects of viewing domestic abuse in a traditional Punch and Judy show. The vignette which opens Chap. 3,  of two toddlers viewing a short movie, illustrates the focused attention which was an important starting point for the research that led to this book, as described in Chap. 3.

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Y. Friesam, U. Raman, I. Kanizaj, & G. Y. Choi (Eds.), Routledge handbook of media education futures post-pandemic. Routledge. Fowles, B. R., & Horner, V. M. (1974). Visual literacy: Some lessons from children’s television workshop. Original publication: Children’s Television Workshop (now no longer available). Fowles, B. R., & Horner, V. M. (1975). A suggested research strategy. Journal of Communication, 25(4), 98–101. Frazer, C.  F. (1981). The social character of children’s television viewing. Communication Research, 8(3), 307–322. Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. M. (2006). Does television rot your brain? New evidence from the Coleman study. Retrieved from National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working paper no 12021. https://doi.org/10.3386/w12021. Hall, S., & Whannel, P. (1964). The popular arts. Hutchinson. Herdzina, J., & Lauricella, A. R. (2020). Media literacy in early childhood report. Retrieved from Chicago: Hoggart, R. (1958). The Uses of Literacy. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Hui, L., Boguszewski, K., & Lillard, A.  S. (2015). Can that really happen? Children’s knowledge about the reality status of fantastical events in television. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 139, 99–114. Huston, A. C., & Wright, J. C. (1983). Children’s processing of television: The informative functions of formal features. In J. Bryant & D. R. Anderson (Eds.), Children’s understanding of television: Research on attention and comprehension (pp. 35–68). Academic Press. Keim, B. (2011). It’s official: To protect baby’s brain, turn off TV. Wired Science. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/infant-­tv-­ guidelines/. Accessed 08 Nov 2021. Kirkorian, H. L., Wartella, E. A., & Anderson, D. R. (2008). Media and young children’s learning. Future of Children, 18(1), 39–61. Kirkorian, H. L., Pempek, T. A., Murphy, L. A., Schmidt, M. E., & Anderson, D. R. (2009). The impact of background television on parent-child interaction. Child Development, 80(5), 1350–1359. Lauricella, A. R., Gola, A. A. H., & Calvert, S. (2011). Toddlers’ learning from socially meaningful video characters. Media Psychology, 14, 216–232. Lemish, D., & Rice, M. L. (1986). Television as a talking picture book: A prop for language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 13, 251–274. Lesser, G. S. (1972). Learning, teaching, and television production for children: The experience of sesame street. Harvard Educational Review, 42(2), 231–272. Linebarger, D. L., & Vaala, S. E. (2010). Screen media and language development in infants and toddlers: An ecological perspective. Developmental Review, 30(2), 176–202. Linebarger, D. L., & Walker, D. (2005). Infants’ and Toddlers’ television viewing and language outcomes. American Behavioral Scientist, 48(5), 624–645.

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Livingstone, S., & Haddon, L. (2009). Kids online: Opportunities and risks for children. Polity Press. Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., & Gorzig, A. (2012). Children, risk and safety online: Research and policy challenges in comparative perspective. Polity Press. Livingstone, S., Olafsson, K., Helsper, E. J., Lupianez-Villanueva, F., Veltri, G. A., & Folkvord, F. (2017a). Maximizing opportunities and minimizing risks for children online: The role of digital skills in emerging strategies of parental mediation. Journal of Communication. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary. wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1460-­2466/earlyview Livingstone, S., Olafsson, K., Helsper, E. J., Lupianez-Villanueva, F., Veltri, G. A., & Folkvord, F. (2017b). Maximizing opportunities and minimizing risks for children online: The role of digital skills in emerging strategies of parental mediation. Journal of Communication, 67(1), 82–105. Mar, R. A., Tackett, J. L., & Moore, C. (2010). Exposure to media and theory-of-­ mind development in preschoolers. Cognitive Development, 25(1), 69–78. Mares, M.-L., & Acosta, E. E. (2008). Be kind to three-legged dogs: Children’s literal interpretations of TV’s moral lessons. Media Psychology, 11(3), 377–399. Marsh, J. (2000). Teletubby Tales: Popular culture in the early years language and literacy curriculum. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 1(2), 119–133. Masur, E. F., & Flynn, V. (2008). Infant and mother-infant play and the presence of the television. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(1), 76–83. Meringoff, L. K., Vibbert, M. M., Char, C. A., Fernie, D. E., Banker, D. S., & Gardner, H. (1983). How is children’s learning from television distinctive? Exploiting the medium methodologically. In J.  Bryant & D.  R. Anderson (Eds.), Children’s understanding of television: Research on attention and comprehension. Academic Press. Messaris, P. (1983). Family conversations about television. Journal of Family Issues, 4(2), 293–308. Mistry, K. B., Minkovitz, C. S., Strobino, D. M., & Borzekowski, D. L. G. (2006). Children’s television exposure and behavioral and social outcomes at 5.5 years: Does timing of exposure matter? Pediatrics, 120, 762–769. Moses, A. M. (2008). Impacts of television viewing on young children’s literacy development in the USA: A review of the literature. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 8(1), 67. Murphy, R. T. (1991). Educational effectiveness of sesame street: A review of the first twenty years of research, 1969–1989. Retrieved from Educational Testing Service Series 1991, Doc 2. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2333-8504.1991.tb01422.x. NAEYC. (2020). Developmentally appropriate practice position statement. National Association for Education of Young Children. Nathanson, A. I., Sharp, M., Fashina, A., Rasmussen, E., & Christy, K. (2013). The relation between television exposure and theory of mind among preschoolers. Journal of Communication, 63, 1088–1108.

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NCPM. (1917). The cinema: Its present position and future possibilities. Retrieved from London: http://archive.org/stream/cinemaitspresent00natirich#page/ n5/mode/2up. Accessed 08 Nov 2021. Pecora, N., Murray, J. P., & Wartella, E. A. (Eds.). (2007). Children and television: Fifty years of research. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pempek, T.  A., Kirkorian, H.  L., Richards, J.  E., Anderson, D.  R., & Lund, A. F. (2010). Video comprehensibility and attention in very young children. Developmental Psychology, 46(5), 1283. Rebentisch, J., & Trautmann, F. (2018). The idea of the culture industry. In P. E. Gordon, E. Hammer, & A. Honneth (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to the Frankfurt School. Routledge. Richards, J. E. (2010). The development of attention to simple and complex visual stimuli in infants: Behavioral and psychophysiological measures. Developmental Review, 30, 203–219. Rideout, V. J., Vandewater, E. A., & Wartella, E. A. (2003). Zero to six: Electronic media in the lives of infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Retrieved from https:// dcmp.org/learn/169-zero-to-six-electronic-media-in-the-lives-of-infants-toddlers-and-preschoolers#:~:text=Guidelines%20and%20Research-,Zero%20 to%20Six%3A%20Electronic%20Media%20in%20the,of%20Infants%2C%20 Toddlers%20and%20Preschoolers&text=This%20study%20has%20documented%20a,of%20electronic%20and%20interactive%20media Robinson, M. (1994). Making sense of stories: children’s developing understanding of television and reading. English and Media Magazine, 1(31), 29. Rose, J. (2001). The intellectual life of the British working classes. Yale University Press. Salomon, G. (1974). Internalization of filmic schematic operations in interaction with learners’ aptitudes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 66(4), 499–511. Salomon, G. (1979). Shape, not only content: How media symbols partake in the development of abilities. In E. Wartella (Ed.), Children communicating: Media and the development of thought, speech, understanding. Sage. Sigman, A. (2007). Remotely controlled: How television is damaging our lives. Vermilion/Ebury Publishing. Singer, J.  L. (1977, August). Television, imaginative play and cognitive development: Some problems and possibilities. Singer, D. G., & Singer, J. L. (2005). Imagination and play in the electronic age. Harvard University Press. Staples, T. (1997). All Pals Together: The story of children’s cinema. Edinburgh University Press. Stevens, T., & Mulsow, M. (2006). There is no meaningful relationship between television exposure and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Pediatrics, 117(3), 665–672.

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Trevarthen, C., & Aitken, K. J. (2001). Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory, and clinical applications. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 3–48. Vandewater, E. A., Bickham, D. S., Cummings, H. M., Wartella, E. A., & Rideout, V. J. (2005). When the television is always on: Heavy television exposure and young children’s development. American Behavioral Scientist, 48(5), 562–577. Wartella, E. (1979a). The developmental perspective. In E.  Wartella (Ed.), Children communicating: Media and development of thought, speech, understanding. Sage. Wartella, E. (Ed.). (1979b). Children communicating: Media and development of thought, speech, understanding. Sage. WHO. (2019). Guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep: For children under 5 years of age. Retrieved from https://apps.who.int/iris/bits t r e a m / h a n d l e / 1 0 6 6 5 / 3 2 5 1 4 7 / W H O -­N M H -­P N D -­2 0 1 9 . 4 -­e n g . pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed 08 Nov 2021. Winston, B. (1996). Technologies of seeing. British Film Institute. Wollstonecraft, M. (1792). A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Boston, Mass. Thomas & Andrews. Reprint 2004: London: Penguin Books. Zimmerman, F. J., & Christakis, D. A. (2005). Children’s television viewing and cognitive outcomes. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 159(7), 619–625. Zimmerman, F.  J., Christakis, D.  A., & Meltzoff, A.  N. (2007). Associations between media viewing and language development in children under age 2 years. Pediatrics, 161(5), 364.

CHAPTER 3

Two-Year-Olds’ Movie-Learning

Vignette A: Viewing Something New On a winter evening just a month before their second birthday, the twins Connie and Alfie are roaming around their living room and browsing their toys, while their mother is in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Impulsively I reach for a DVD and choose a simple short animated movie that I know they haven’t seen before: Laughing Moon (Nishimoto, 2000).1 It’s very different from anything they are used to and I am curious to find out what they make of it, so I decide to video their behaviour as they view it, although up to now, I have only videoed them viewing the sort of broadcast or VoD material that they usually see. I video with my iPhone as usual, holding it as unobtrusively as possible. The children are used to being videoed and photographed and, having been researching their movie-viewing behaviour for two months already, I know that they tend

1

 Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKoPh98zkhc; accessed 03-11-21.

Parts of this chapter have appeared in Sign Systems Journal 48 (1) 2020 and in A. L-V Azcarate (ed.) Mind and Matter: Challenges and Opportunities in Cognitive Semiotics and Aesthetics. InTech Open 2021 and in Green et al. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children, NYC and Abingdon: Routledge. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_3

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Fig. 3.1  Viewing Laughing Moon (aged 23 months)

to take little notice of phones and cameras, unless they spot an opportunity to get hold of one and play with it. The movie begins, before they expect it to, with a loud rattling sound followed by a big “pop!” and both children turn instantly to the screen. They see simple black geometric shapes against a white background, assembling into a figure something like a chicken, and hear a loud clucking on the soundtrack: they both freeze in mid-movement. Alfie is in the process of sitting down on a little chair: he continues to grip the chair with one hand while the other rests on the table in front of him as he lowers his bottom to the seat and views tensely. Connie stands partly turned away from the screen: her attention is divided between it and a picture book that is lying face-down on the table in front of her. She has been trying for a while to open the book backwards, which it won’t easily do, but keeps flipping down again whenever she lets go of it (see Fig. 3.1). Both children maintain these positions until the movie ends, six minutes later. Alfie, highly sensitive to sound and easily frightened by sudden loud noises, maintains his awkwardly seated position and his fixed gaze at the screen, jumping slightly when other loud sounds occur (e.g. rock music, dinosaur roar, dog bark, motorcycle crash). Connie continues to try and open the book but switches her gaze to the screen whenever another sound attracts her attention.

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At these moments her hands stay where they were (e.g. bending back the book cover, tweaking her sweater) but remain still, while she turns her head to the screen and views intently. The movie offers a kind of game: the black “tangram” shapes keep re-assembling as different characters while the soundtrack changes accordingly, and each character is teased by a little orange moon that keeps disguising itself (e.g. as a solid weight, a bouncy ball, a bird) and laughing as it escapes their grasp. Connie seems to get the point of this and begins to point, say “oh!” and glance at me when she recognises a character (e.g. fish, dog). When the movie ends, both children immediately start to swarm around the room again, exclaiming “More! More!” while I struggle unsuccessfully to operate the unfamiliar remote control. But then we are summoned to the kitchen for dinner and the viewing session is abandoned.

The Challenges of Studying Two-Year-Olds There is much more academic research on infants and pre-schoolers than on two-year-olds. Getting access to study two-year-olds at home is never easy, even when researchers just want to visit for, say, a few hours each month. In any case, from that amount of contact it is very hard to give a full picture of toddlers’ rapid development, to keep track of them as they move from one activity to another, or even just to understand their rapidly developing verbal language. The in-depth ethnographic research needed to capture these kinds of data is inevitably time-consuming, and very expensive in an academic climate where large samples are considered essential. Such studies inevitably involve “practical and logistical considerations including gaining access, involving children as active research participants and negotiating consents” (Plowman & Stevenson, 2013, p. 330). There are even fewer examples of studies that use ethnographic methods to investigate two-year-olds’ movie-viewing in their homes (e.g. Briggs, 2006; Rowe, 2008). And as I explained in Chap. 2, the dominant research focus on children and media has shifted in the twenty-first century from television to digital technologies (Gillen et al., 2019; Livingstone & Haddon, 2009; Marsh et al., 2017). Access and consent are only part of the problem: designing research strategies that can capture what Lemish and Rice, in their 6–8-month study of 16 children aged between 6.5 and 29.5 months, called “the richness of the interactions surrounding the television experience” is a major challenge (Lemish & Rice, 1986, and see Fig. 3.2). Nevertheless, many

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Fig. 3.2  “The richness of the interactions surrounding the television experience”. The twins (aged 23 months) find distractions while their mother Phoebe watches Monsters, Inc.

scholars have pointed out that longitudinal, home-based, ethnographically styled research is essential if we are to gain a fuller understanding of very young children’s engagements with moving image media, given that these typically take place in the home environment (Hancock & Gillen, 2007; Jordan, 2006; Moses, 2008; Plowman et al., 2012; Rowe, 2008; Storm-­ Mathison, 2016; Thomson et  al., 2012). But there is no denying that two-year-olds are lively and unpredictable, so their behaviour is hard to interpret if one doesn’t know them well, and parents can often find them difficult to manage: hence the popular “terrible twos” label. I was intrigued to find, when asking friends and colleagues from eight different countries, that the term “terrible twos” seems to be confined to Anglophone cultures such as the UK, US and Australia. Germans use the terms Trotzphase or Trotzalter (defiance phase) which is still somewhat negative, but is at least more child-centred, and refers to a slightly wider age cohort (two to four): it derives from Trotz, an old word with a wide

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range of meanings from “courageous resistance” to “stubbornness”, “spite” and “sulking”. German developmental psychologists would use Autonomiephase, equivalent to the Danish term uafhængighedsalderen (age of independence), which relates more accurately to the period in which children start to achieve autonomy and self-affirmation. In Spanish, French, Italian, Turkish, Amharic and Arabic (and probably many other languages that I didn’t check out), there seem to be no terms equivalent to “terrible twos”, although the wide circulation of English texts on child development and child-rearing, in both online and print publications, has ensured that other cultures have started to pick up the English phrase as a way of describing the stage when children’s discovery of the words “me” and “no” presents parents with some interesting challenges. Studying viewing behaviour with under-threes imposes some very particular requirements on the researcher, given the extremely rapid pace of development in the second and third years of life. A researcher making regular and frequent visits to families may be well-integrated with them, and her relationship with the children may be friendly and relaxed, but it will still not be the same as longstanding family bonds. This is why I saw the opportunity to undertake a case study of my own grandchildren as a unique opportunity to investigate their movie-learning in a context that was the nearest possible equivalent to what Plowman and Stevenson call “the quotidian in young children’s lives at home” (Plowman & Stevenson, 2013). The fact that the children concerned were dizygotic girl and boy twins was an added advantage, in that I did not have to deal with the dynamics of relationships between siblings of different ages, or with the particularities of monozygotic twins. This did not completely obviate the “visiting researcher” problems cited above, but it did minimise them, and in any case, most of the research took place during their weekly 24-hour stays at our house.

Studies of Children by Family Members Scholars who have studied their own children, such as Piaget, Britton, Halliday, Weir and Edmiston, have been deservedly influential in the fields of education, child development, language and literacy (Britton, 1970; Edmiston, 2008; Halliday, 1979; Piaget, 1928; Weir, 1970). While access, consent and ethical issues in these contexts are different, and perhaps more complex, than in conventional ethnographies, there is a strong case to be made for the value of parental case studies when the focus is on

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toddlers: children who are mobile, learning to talk, but whose language, and much of their behaviour, are idiosyncratic and hard for anyone outside the family to interpret. Similar arguments can be made in favour of studies by grandparents of their own grandchildren. Arnold’s study of her granddaughter’s development and learning from birth to age seven is a unique and detailed portrait, which situates dozens of behavioural examples within the wider Early Years research context (Arnold, 2021). Campbell studied his own granddaughter from a very early age, looking mainly at her experiences with written language and books (Campbell, 1999), but much of what he says was paralleled in my own research: demands for many repeats (i.e. readings of books), recognising the imminent endings of television programmes (see Chap. 6). Few parental or grandparental studies focus exclusively on the media experiences of children under three. Robinson and Turnbull produced a case study of their god-daughter/daughter Veronica from birth to age six, using observational methods in the home to focus on the development of literacy but taking in a wider sweep of her other textual experiences across a range of media (Robinson & Turnbull, 2005). Covering a six-year period in a single chapter, they use the “asset model” concept first proposed by Tyner, which “assumes that mass media and popular culture can work as a benefit to literacy instead of as a social deficit” (Tyner, 1998, p. 7), a necessary argument in the context of traditional literacy education, but essentially still locked within the “benefits” side of the risks or benefit paradigm (see Chap. 2). Briggs also used observational methods to study his own son’s encounters with Teletubbies for the child’s first 18  months of life (Briggs, 2006), in the context of a larger autoethnographic study of the ways in which his family’s television viewing was managed.

How My Research Began My interest in children’s capacity for learning about movies began with informal observations of my own children (born in 1974 and 1976). Having taught in London secondary schools since 1967, I was interested in every aspect of my children’s learning. But at the same time, I was involved in the early development of media education theory and resources for schools, and eventually started work as an Education Officer at the British Film Institute (BFI) in 1979. Inevitably, this also sharpened the focus of my attention on my own children. Certain unexpected moments have stuck in my mind ever since: my son as a baby, sitting on his father’s

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lap to view Top of the Pops (BBC 1964–2006) and pulling his head back when a singer’s face suddenly enlarged as the camera zoomed in; both children being terrified by a fight scene on TV in the film serial King of the Rocket Men (dir. Adreon, USA 1949), then finding that they could view it calmly once I had turned down the enervating music sound track; my daughter (aged four) at the end of her first experience of cinema—The Wizard of Oz (dir. Fleming, USA 1939)—kicking the seat in front in a fury and growling “I want more!” At the same age, when my son was viewing—on his own—an episode of Blue Peter (BBC, from 1958) that demonstrated how the programme was made, he ran out to the kitchen to tell me that nobody was allowed to look at the camera. When I asked why this was, he paused to think and then explained: “they want you to think you’ve just burst through the wall and found them making the programme!” Walking out of the cinema after seeing Star Wars (dir. Lucas, USA 1977), my daughter (aged seven) observed, unprompted, that “it’s like a fairy story: there’s a princess who’s got to be rescued”. As parents usually are, I was enthralled by what my children were able to understand, and intrigued by the unexpectedness of some of their comments. Their movie-related observations remained in my mind as my work in media education developed. Although my professional background was in secondary schooling, I had always been conscious that the teenagers I taught already had many years of movie-viewing experience behind them, and I came to believe that primary schools could be selling children short by neglecting their capacities for movie analysis and critique (Bazalgette, 1989, 2010b). For many years from 1982, my husband Terry Staples worked as the programmer of Junior National Film Theatre screenings, which took place every weekend. The children and I attended most of the screenings, so I had many opportunities to listen to children reacting to the movies. Terry rarely showed current mainstream children’s movies, drawing instead on adventure, comedy and costume dramas from the classical Hollywood period such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (Curtiz and Keighley, USA 1938) and The Crimson Pirate (Siodmak, USA 1952). When he also ran a Children’s London Film Festival for four years, he brought in a number of foreign-language films, particularly from Scandinavia and from Iran, which demonstrated that young children were perfectly capable of dealing with subtitles, even if some of them needed their parents to read them in a whisper. Like most of the parents who brought their children to the regular screenings and to the Festival, I was amazed and fascinated to realise

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that even very young children were enthralled by most of what was shown, and when they weren’t, one could easily tell by the frequency of toilet visits, fidgeting and talking. After our first grandson was born in 2001, I seized what opportunities I could to observe him engaging with moving image media. For example, when he was 27 months old, I viewed him for about an hour as he concentrated on selecting, viewing and re-viewing a section of Monsters, Inc. on video cassette (the scene where Randall tries to use the “scream extractor” on Mike2). I was impressed by his focused attention on this task, as well as by his unexpected technical skills, and used accounts of this experience in arguments to teachers about the value of recognising pre-­schoolers’ learning about movies (Bazalgette, 2003). But as he lived in Italy, I saw him rarely and could not build up a longitudinal picture of how this learning developed. But I did begin to note that the primary school teachers I met in sessions for professional development in teaching media literacy always expressed their amazement at how much their pupils already knew about movies and how eager they were to talk and write about them: in other words, the children must have gained a lot of informal prior learning (see also Chap. 10). When our daughter Phoebe gave birth to twins in December 2009, Terry and I soon became closely involved in their care, since they lived only short distance away. I began to consider the possibility of undertaking research on the twins’ encounters with movies, based on the assumption that their early viewing might reveal a learning process under way. I began my doctoral research when the children were 22 months old. By collecting more than 12  hours of video that showed their behaviour as they viewed, through talk with their parents, the other grandparents and friends who also had 2-year-olds, and by combing through social media, I assembled a repertoire of viewing behaviours by the time they reached the age of 42  months, which offers clues to toddlers’ interests and feelings about what they view and their techniques for dealing with what disturbs or puzzles them. My research took the form of a case study, as described by Gerring (2017, p. 40), in that although I looked at a very small sample, I identified features of behaviour that are widely described by others—largely in news  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIH8OLT7XWA&list=PL2AjRdH2TDdQeJU8dj eM9dmJrQfWaQDUg (accessed 03-11-21). 2

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and social media, given that, as far as I have been able to discover, no other scholars have studied two-year-olds’ relationships with moving image media. A footnote in Branigan’s 1992 book Narrative Comprehension and Film implies that the narrative functions of the meaning-making devices of movies are learned by children long before they are able to name them (if they ever are) and wonders why this process has not been investigated: It seems remarkable that no one has undertaken to discover what special problems of narrative comprehension may be posed to a child by filmed narratives. For example, when and how do children understand an eyeline match, screen direction, cross-cutting, an unusual angle, off-screen space, or non-diegetic sound? (Branigan, 1992, p. 225)

For a while I thought that this “when and how” question was what my research had to answer. But I quickly found that it is not possible to establish whether a two-year-old can understand specific devices of the sort that Branigan names, given her level of verbal fluency and still-developing powers of abstract thought. Indeed, it is hard to be precisely clear about what might be meant by “understand” in this context. We can infer that if a child of, say, three can enjoy a complex full-length feature film such as one of the Pixar titles, then she certainly must be able to take these devices in her stride as she follows the narrative—though she may well want to view it again, perhaps more than once, in order to get everything out of it (see Chap. 8). Many teachers told me that when they discussed movies with older children and teenagers, they found that their students could identify and describe the functions of these devices without being able to name them, even if they had never been invited to do this before (see also Bearne & Marsh, 2008). It is certainly obvious that my “sample” of two white middle-class London children (albeit living in a highly disadvantaged area and socialising with children from very diverse backgrounds) is by no means typical of the wider two-year-old population. But what I was seeking was not to establish behavioural typicality: it was to find out whether the case could be made for interpreting the behaviour I did observe as indicative of learning processes under way, by drawing on embodied cognition theories (see Chap. 5) as the basis for my analyses, and on film theory (see Chap. 4) for indicators of what was being learned. According to Shatz—whose book A Toddler’s Life is one of the few in-depth studies of this age-group—“a case study can best be used, not as a proof of a theory, but as a basis for

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generating ideas about the nature of an adequate theory of development” (Shatz, 2012): that is, ultimately, what this book is intended to achieve. In the preface to the second edition of his book How To Read A Film, James Monaco asks, “Is it necessary, really, to learn how to read a film?” (Monaco, 1981, p. 17). He immediately answers the question: “Obviously, anyone of minimal intelligence over the age of four can – more or less – grasp the basic content of a film, record, radio or television program without any special training”. Monaco was a film critic, not a child development specialist: he could be forgiven his easy equation between learning and training, and for forgetting that we all also learn the much more complex systems of verbal language without any special instruction. But his comments also echo the widely held view that movies are easy to understand and that their meaning is obvious: a view upheld by the 10–11-year-olds who told Gavriel Salomon that “television is easy” and thus demands little invested mental effort compared to print, which is “tough” (Salomon, 1984). But the dismissive tone of Monaco’s remark distracts attention from its important subtext: that understanding these media does involve some specific skills, and that these skills must be acquired before the age of four. This generates immediate questions: what are these skills? When, before the age of four, do children start to acquire them, what kind of learning do they have to undertake in order to achieve this, and is it possible to demonstrate this?

Movie-Learning Versus Language Learning Few would claim that children’s early engagements with movies involve anything like what Britton calls the “astonishing feat” of language learning (Britton, 1970, p. 37). But observing that “knowing about television is not seen as particularly culturally valuable in our society, and tele-literate individuals are not considered to be in possession of specialised skills”, Davies counters this view by suggesting that the challenge of learning the “codes” of television is similar to that of learning a language (Davies, 1997, p.  37). The age-range I studied—20–40  months—is the period during which most children become fluent enough in verbal language to be understood by others outside their immediate family, thus gaining access to “the uses of language as reflecting and reproducing the accounts, stories, symbols, representations and legitimation processes of the culture” (Bruner & Haste, 1987, p.  21). Does learning to make sense of movies offer a similar kind of cultural access? Could the concept of

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“language” really be expanded to include the “cues” that Bordwell says films offer: “a film ‘cues’ the spectator to execute a definable variety of operations” (Bordwell, 1985, p. 29), and the “secret language” hypothesised by Virginia Woolf? Could we envisage an equivalence between movies and written language, so that learning to understand movies and learning to read could be discussed as analogous processes? In the context of public polemic, my colleagues and I often argued in the past that by the time they start school, children “have learned to decode the language of moving image media” (e.g. Bazalgette, 2004): in doing so we assumed an easy equivalence between, for example Bruner and Haste’s account of language and our own shorthand use of the same word to refer to the moving image’s meaning-making processes, in order to advocate acceptance of the concept that both have to be learned in order to be understood. And the teachers we trained were keen to claim an equivalence between linguistic and movie “grammar” as a way of gaining respectability for teaching about movies in the classroom. However, the concept of “the language of film”, while well-established in basic film study courses and given some credibility at that level by, for example, Bazin (1967) and Monaco (1981), has been debated extensively by film theorists (Metz, 1972, 1974; Spottiswoode, 1950, reprinted 1973) in order to try and establish agreed analytic terms, analogous to the grammar of verbal language. Most of this debate ends up admitting that, while film does present us with “something like a language” (Woolf, 1926 (1994)), it does not and cannot have a fully developed language with credible equivalents of vocabulary and syntax. However, this book is based on the principle that there are syntactical rules in movies that do have to be learned in order to make sense of movie narratives: an awareness of which is absent from most of the research on children and media (see Chap. 2). It is this absence that motivates this book’s subtitle: for many, the “language” of movies remains secret and unexamined.

Learning the Formal Features of Movies Messaris argues that many filmic devices, including eyeline matches, jump cuts and point-of-view shots, actually mimic people’s everyday perceptions and instinctive behaviour (Messaris, 1994). He therefore suggests that “research with children is of questionable relevance to the issue of a specifically cinematic literacy”, pointing out that “the children who participate in these studies are already veterans of many an evening spent in front

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of the tube” (pp. 71–72). This would indicate that, if “cinematic literacy” exists at all, it is acquired effortlessly at a very early age. I reject the implicit conclusion here, that if learning is independently acquired and happens early on, it must also be so simple as to be not worth investigating, but I do accept Messaris’ argument about the instinctiveness of many responses to film (see also Chap. 5). The parallel between the instinctive intersubjectivity between infants and close family adults, and our instinctive understanding of a movie device such as the point-of-view shot, is well illustrated by Bruner’s account of how, even at nine months old, a child “looks out along the trajectory of an adult’s ‘point’ and, finding nothing there, turns back to check not only the adult’s direction of point but the line of visual regard as well” (Bruner, 1990, p. 75). Messaris’ argument does not, however, indicate that the meanings of movies are fully accessible to anyone who has never seen a movie before, whatever age they are. It is in fact impossible to produce hard evidence that toddlers learn these syntactical rules—perhaps better termed “formal features”—before they can articulate their interpretations of movies with any fluency. But we can infer that they do, given the number of mainstream, feature-length titles that are enthusiastically recommended for toddlers by numerous online sources.3 My research was therefore based on a hypothesis: that from at least some time in their second year of life, children who view movies must be starting to understand the strategies that moviemakers use to present characters, to establish diegeses and to construct narratives, and that we can collect evidence that indicates processes of learning. This provides an alternative to the working hypotheses that underpin most research on children and movies and indeed the work of many moviemakers: that as an iconic medium, movies look and sound like real life (Pierce, quoted by Wollen, 1998, p. 83) and constitute “a message without a code” (Barthes, 1977, p. 17). The famous—and probably exaggerated—accounts of audiences recoiling or screaming when in 1896 or soon afterwards they saw the Lumière brothers’ 50-second movie L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat formed, as Loiperdinger argues, the ‘founding myth’ of moving image media: that viewers are supposed to instinctively believe they are viewing ‘real life’ (Loiperdinger, 2004). 3  For example https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g25436424/ best-toddler-movies/; https://www.womansday.com/life/entertainment/g22880236/ best-toddler-movies/ (accessed 03-11-21).

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Throughout their history, the movie industries have enthusiastically encouraged this supposition, in their constant search for new technologies that would make the viewing experience increasingly realistic: for example colour processes (from 1908 onwards); synchronised sound (1929); widescreen aspect ratios (from 1927 onwards); CinemaScope (1953–67); immersive sound systems (1970s onwards); Imax (1970s onwards). It can therefore be argued that we interpret movies automatically, on the basis of our perceptions of the real world. From this perspective, it is alleged that movies can—with some adjustments to content, pace and frames of reference—be made directly comprehensible to 18-month-olds and even younger (at least according to the vast collection of “baby videos” on YouTube). But if movie narratives really are that easy to understand, then children in the age-group that I have studied would not be expending time and effort in viewing and re-viewing them with such extreme concentration, as in Vignette A. Nor would they, as I later discovered, be seeking out—and re-viewing—movies that challenge their capacity to understand them (see Chap. 8). Film theory recognises the immensely complex, multimodal nature of movies, and there is no shortage of books that discuss what “making sense” of a movie actually does involve (e.g. Bateman & Schmidt, 2011; Bordwell, 1985; Branigan, 1992; Carroll, 2010; Coegnarts, 2017; D’Aloia, 2012; Eco, 1976; Frampton, 2006; Gallese & Guerra, 2012; Grodal, 2009; Keathley, 2006; Metz, 1974; Platinga & Smith, 1999; Sobchack, 1992; Wollen, 1998). Textual analysis of movies—exploring the detailed ways in which these modes are combined to generate meanings—was particularly prevalent in film studies during the 1970s and 1980s, following the first publication of Wollen’s influential book Signs and Meanings in the Cinema (Wollen, 1969), and it remains a significant tool of film studies, particularly at introductory levels of study where it functions to open students’ eyes to the densely multimodal nature of movie texts and the wealth of resources available to moviemakers (e.g. Phillips, 2000). Most studies tend to deal only with visual modes such as lighting, framing, colour, depth of field, camera angles and movement, mise en scène and editing (e.g. Bazin, 1967; Branigan, 1992; Eco, 1976). Studies that additionally provide more than occasional glances at equally vital modes such as performance, costume, dialogue, music, sound design, duration and, in some cases, animation styles, are rarer (e.g. Bordwell & Thompson, 1980; Chattah, 2015; Chion, 1994; Feagin, 1999; Lambert, 1966). That each of the 15 modes that I have listed in the last two

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sentences is the basis for a large and fertile field of critical inquiry serves to emphasise the limitations of designating movies by simplistic labels such as “visual media”, and of the short and somewhat arbitrary lists of “formal features” that have been used in developmental psychologists’ experiments on children’s comprehension of movies (see Chap. 2). It also indicates the nature of the hermeneutic challenge that even apparently “simple” movies present to their viewers, even including television programmes made for very young children (see Chap. 4). My hypothesis therefore avoids the notion that movies literally have a language whose features can be matched with those of verbal language. But it is based on the recognition that the multimodal complexity of movies does mean that learning how to understand them must be happening at the same time as language learning. Some of this may be in social contexts with older siblings and/or adults (see Chap. 9), but it has nothing like the same level of support and reinforcement that children receive in their learning of verbal language.

Situating This Book’s Project This book, then, is not about “proving” that toddlers learn to understand movies. Nor does it argue that movies are “good for your kids” (Davies, 1989) or that it is fine for toddlers to view television all day. I do not engage with arguments about “screen time” because I believe that most parents are pretty good at organising their children’s activities and that those who are not have other problems to contend with, such as poverty or other stressful situations. I aim to demonstrate the difference it would make to research and debate, if we were to study children’s movie-viewing behaviour as an aspect of learning. This is learning that is not included in discussions of “school-readiness” or equivalent to learning socially valued conventions like saying “please” and “thank you” but learning that the child has himself identified as important, having observed the place that it occupies in his family’s cultural practices. Given that movies do at least have distinctive modes of meaning-­making that are not immediately comprehensible to a one-year-old but are fairly well understood by three-year-olds, it must be assumed that two-year-olds not only have to go through a learning process before they can fully follow and enjoy movies, but also that they want to learn how to understand this medium (see Chaps. 4 and 8 for what drives this desire). Based on these premises, I present examples and analyses of behaviour that only make

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coherent sense if we see them as related to learning. Clearly, toddlers’ comprehension of movie narratives is not just developed through their own efforts to learn: these efforts are complemented by the social contexts in which at least some of their viewing takes place (see Chap. 9), which in turn may be complemented by their day-to-day sociocultural learning. But I argue that the assumptions that are commonly made about children’s movie-viewing—that it is passive, time-wasting and possibly risky—are not only erroneous but also demeaning. Considering toddlers’ movie-viewing behaviour as learning-related is not only illuminating and thought-­ provoking: it also respects their human dignity. The book is therefore also based on claims about the fundamental importance of children’s rights. As I have argued in Chap. 2, the risks or benefits paradigm, and the technological determinism that is often invoked to support it, take little account of the distinctiveness of movies as a medium, lumping them in with apps and games that function in fundamentally different ways, using a quantitative measure—“screen time”—as the key factor in risk, and considering benefit largely in terms of informational and thematic content. In the following chapters, I look at children’s efforts to learn how to understand movies not as merely as a desirable side-effect of viewing, but as the central reason: part of children’s self-­ driven search for meaning and their “need to learn a culture” (Trevarthen, 1995). The tradition of respecting the rights and interests of learners dates back at least to Comenius in the seventeenth century (Pinder, 1987). But in the field of research on children and media it now features most often in sociocultural scholars’ emphases on the importance of validating children’s interest in “popular culture”: a very broad and often ill-defined category. As examples of popular culture, Marsh refers to the texts “embedded within children’s literacy practices in the home” and contrasts these with what they are expected to engage with in school (Marsh, 2004). Buckingham offers a more politically pointed version of this contrast in his argument for the importance of popular culture as “a key focus of [the] struggle for control” both of schools and of the curriculum (Buckingham, 2007, p. 97), and several scholars stress the importance of respecting children’s own cultural preferences, including “popular cultural forms”, as a legitimate aspect of formal schooling (e.g. Kissel, 2011; Marsh, 2000; Marsh & Millard, 2005; Shegar & Weninger, 2010). I find this term problematic when it is simply used as a synonym for movies and computer  games, and when it is implicitly contrasted with “high culture”,

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given that both are rather vague concepts. Where I need to make a distinction between big-budget popular films and television and those that appeal to certain smaller audiences, I prefer to use the term “mainstream” for the former and “non-mainstream” for the latter. But my concern about the ways in which the term “popular culture” is deployed stems from the fact that, both in my professional career and in my research, it was constantly obvious that many children with a considerable amount of movie-­viewing experience behind them are hungry for more challenging movies (see also Chap. 10). This wasn’t usually explicitly declared, though a nine-­year-­old in Peterborough, summarising her attitude to her age-group’s mainstream movie fare, did say to me in reference to mainstream movies, “we’re sick of magic, Miss!” (Bazalgette, 2010a) after her class had enthusiastically viewed (with subtitles) the Dutch film about a refugee child, The Boy Who Stopped Talking (Sombogaart, Netherlands 1996); and a year-­group of six-year-olds in a Wirral primary school were mortified when a fire alarm interrupted their viewing of My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki, Japan 1988): they couldn’t wait to get back to reading the subtitles and finding out what happens. This impatience with stylistically similar and narratively predictable entertainments may also explain why young teenagers are often keen to see movies that are certified for older audiences, often those that have more explicit sexual and/or violent content. For many educators, the problem with asserting a need for children to be introduced to movies that are different from what they are used to is that it sounds like the kind of high cultural, canonically based prescriptions for schooling that Education Secretary Michael Gove insisted upon in 20144 or even renewed sympathy with left-wing views such as the Frankfurt School’s rage at the “culture industry” (Adorno & Horkheimer, 2002, and see also Chap. 1). But it is generally taken for granted that most parents and teachers see it as the role of schools to introduce children to other things they haven’t encountered before, such as music genres, works of art, historical events, scientific ideas, other places and cultures. The idea that this principle should not apply to “mass media” forms smacks of condescension. Children undoubtedly do have cultural preferences, which I discuss— and respect—but I share Hammersley’s view that “most of the variation [in children’s experiences and perspectives] will reflect characteristics that 4  https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/25/mockingbird-mice-andmen-axed-michael-gove-gcse (accessed 5 November 2021).

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they share with adults” (Hammersley, 2017, p.  115), at least until they become teenagers. In pointing out the continuities between infants and young children and adults in the development of social understanding and behaviour, Daum et al. indicate that the distinction between children and adults may be less sharp than is often supposed (Daum et al., 2009). In particular, two-year-olds’ cultural preferences are exercised almost entirely amongst products and activities that have been selected by adults such as toys, clothes, DVDs, music, television programmes, outings, play dates, cereals and snacks. We could therefore reasonably add, to the “nested” ecological settings which Bronfenbrenner argues for in the study of human ontogeny (Bronfenbrenner, 1977), the enormous, powerful setting constituted by the commercial world of child-oriented products which is initially negotiated by children’s primary carers. Another way of positioning the argument I am making in this book is by using Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) to provide an analogic perspective (Vygotsky, 1978). Vygotsky uses this term to designate the gap between what a child already knows and can do, and what she can nearly do but needs guidance to achieve. In Vygotsky’s scenario, the guidance comes from an adult or older child. But the same concept can, I think, apply to how a child learns to understand movies: accumulating knowledge of formal features, for example, generic tropes, and so on: it is the availability of movies for repeated viewings that functions as a guiding process. Because the child can nearly understand the movie, or is simply intrigued enough to know that a second (or third, or fourth) viewing will yield more meaning, she wants to see it again. So when a child is focusing intently on a movie she is in a ZPD in which the movie itself functions as the guide, giving up its secrets through multiple re-viewings. This is what the twins did when they saw Laughing Moon for the first time, as described in Vignette A, and I was distressed that I could not enable them to do so. But they did view it again two weeks later, three days before their second birthday. My video shows Alfie leaning against the sofa at our house, in a tense posture with a serious expression and pursed lips, while Connie sits attentively in the armchair, her head slightly forward (i.e. not resting on the back of the chair); her jutting jaw possibly indicating her own tension, although Phoebe suggested later that this could also have been due to teething (see Fig. 3.3). At this point Alfie had already jumped twice at loud noises (the loud rattle and pop, at the beginning, and a little later, rock music) and seemed

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Fig. 3.3  Viewing Laughing Moon for the second time (aged 23 months)

to be tensely waiting for the next loud noise—remembering, perhaps, that there would be more. Connie was following up her initial recognition of the film’s project: the audience has to guess, from the sound track as well as from the semi-abstract images, what each figure is meant to be. In Fig.  3.3 she can be seen identifying the figure of a dog: she is using Makaton sign language, of which Phoebe had taught them the basics some time before and which they still relied on at this time (as often happens with twins, their language development was slightly slower than average). As the movie continued, both got a little more used to its playful “what next?” project but retained some signs of tension as they viewed it attentively right to the end. Alfie then asked for “more!” as the movie finished. This is one of many little examples where one could argue that they are visibly in their Zone of Proximal Development as they intently scour the movie for meaning.

Focused Attention When I first began observing the children, using unobtrusive filming to record their behaviour as they viewed, I was immediately struck by their intense attention to the screen, which was well-established by the time of the viewing described in Vignette A. Investigating this phenomenon, I

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came across the work of the Estonian neuroscientist and psycho-biologist Jaak Panksepp, who specialised in cross-species affective neuroscience and was interested in how the evolution of neural systems has resulted in some neurological features being common to all mammals (Panksepp, 2004): see also my account of embodied cognition in Chap. 5. Here I will just focus on one of the four emotions that he says are likely to have arisen from basic environmental challenges: fear, panic, rage and “seeking”, which remain deeply embedded in what he calls “the ancient circuits” of our brains because they continued to be of survival value over millions of years, as humans evolved from earlier mammalian species. Panksepp identifies feelings of engagement and excitement—the feelings that generate curiosity, anticipation and investigation—as an emotion, which he calls “seeking”. It would have been essential to early humans and indeed to their evolutionary predecessors, not only to get them doing things like foraging and finding shelter, but also as an essential generator of logical thought and reflection: it “helps cement the perception of causal connections in the world and thereby creates ideas” (Panksepp, 2004, pp. 144–149). In other words it has been perhaps the most important emotion for us because it has driven human ingenuity and development (for both good and ill). In their fascinating but very cautious exploration of neural evidence about emotional responses to music, Panksepp and Bernatsky also consider that “seeking” could be associated with the effort of following the rhythmic structures of music: this suggests to me that it might also be associated with efforts to follow the pace and sequence of shots in a movie narrative: Such basic brain mechanisms for anticipatory eagerness may generate ‘seeking’ states which may promote various musical expectancies, especially those related to rhythmic movements of the body which may be ancestral pre-­ adaptation for the emotional components of music. (Panksepp & Bernatzsky, 2002, p. 136)

So we could bear this in mind when we see a two-year-old intently gazing at a screen. Rather than simply dismissing her behaviour as “mesmerised” or “zombie-like”, it makes better sense to interpret it instead as “seeking”: as an intense process of trying to make sense of what she is viewing. Panksepp does not refer to any physical signs that would indicate the presence of this emotion, but Damasio’s account of consciousness, citing wakefulness and attention, encouraged me to see the focused attention of

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the kind shown in Vignette A as a key sign of “seeking”—even though this is not a word that he uses: Consciousness results in enhanced wakefulness and focused attention, both of which improve image5 processing for certain contents and can thus help optimize immediate and planned responses. The organism’s engagement with an object intensifies its ability to process that object sensorily and also increases the opportunity to be engaged by other objects  – the organism gets ready for more encounters and for more-detailed interactions. (Damasio, 2000, pp. 182–3)

The important point here is that “seeking”, like all emotions, generates intentions: “getting ready”, so I sometimes explain it as “the emotion that gets you out of bed in the morning”. Attention and the thought-processes it engenders are not simply about making sense of immediate stimuli. Seeing focused attention as the physical evidence of “seeking” enables us to see it as involving reflection and anticipation rather than passivity: triggering questions such as “what next?” and “therefore…?” So the familiar trope from traditional pedagogy—that “paying attention” is simply about the obedient reception of information and instruction—is pitifully inadequate. The concept of “seeking” as an important emotion can be linked to Lesley Lancaster’s remarkable study of a two-year-old engaged, with her father, in making drawings and marks. As I have done, she observes, “physical and bodily actions [as] visible indicators of the course of abstract reasoning used whilst engaging with the difficult business of finding out about how a system of symbolic representation works” (Lancaster, 2001, p.  132). She describes all of the child’s efforts to understand what her father is doing and to make her own meaningful marks on the page, as “characterized by an expectation of significance about the semiotic objects encountered. Children are introduced to them, one way or another, as having a social or affective purpose: the cartoon makes you laugh; the soft toy comforts; writing can entertain and inform” (p. 136). I find the phrase “expectation of significance” highly illuminating in the context of trying to understand what two-year-olds are up to, and in relation to the concept of a “seeking” emotion. It enables the crucial distinction between 5  Damasio does not mean visual images, but “neural patterns or maps based on the momentary selection of neurons and circuits engaged by the interaction”.

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assuming that children’s focused attention is merely “being mesmerised” and recognising that it is a sign of learning in progress. Observing attentive behaviour was the starting-point of my analysis of the children’s movie-viewing behaviour. It was also the starting-point of Maria Montessori’s life’s work as an educational innovator and one of the founders of what later became called “child-centred education”: She devotes a great deal of time to studying this form of attention. The children, traditionally considered restless and fickle, show themselves to be capable of levels of attention far greater than those of adults. They concentrate on the material and repeat each exercise until they are satisfied. When in this state, there is nothing that can distract them…. She observes other children and takes notes. There is something in front of her which in actual fact is under the nose of any adult: who has never noticed how children, when viewing a presentation they are interested in, are almost bewitched, deaf to the world? Her great intuition lies in the way she isolates this detail, gives it a name and makes it the starting point for the development of her method: ‘That was the first opening that formed in the depths of the unexplored infantile soul.’ She senses that an enormous potential for attention lies within children, one which emerges as soon as they are placed in an environment designed for them and not for adults. (De Stefano, 2022)

Anyone who has tried to persuade a toddler to stop investigating something really interesting like an electric socket or a lipstick in favour of a routine requirement like putting shoes on will be familiar with their capacity for totally focused attention. We all know what it feels like to be attentive to something, but from actually observing and reflecting on what toddlers do when they are really focused on some unfamiliar object or event, I could see how extreme their attentiveness can be: Vignette A includes some examples of the physical signs that show this. For example, a toddler who wants to maintain an absolutely steady gaze at something that is not actually in his hands (a television screen for example) may well have to brace himself against a handy object such as a chair or even an adult’s leg; in Vignette A, Alfie retains the half-seated position he was in when the film began, by bracing himself with one hand on the table and the other on the chair seat. Studies of human movement and balance point out that a toddler’s centre of gravity is higher than that of older children and adults (Huelke, 1998; Jensenius et al., 2014) and that in any case, most people can never maintain total stillness for very long. So two-year-olds have to find ways of supporting themselves if they want to

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maintain steady visual contact, especially with a large area of moving images, as on a flat-screen TV set. Thus, bracing is often just an essential response to keep the body stable. From other observations, I noted that if there isn’t a handy support, the child may stiffen his body and hunch his shoulders in the effort to maintain a steady position and may even have to pause now and then for a couple of seconds’ relaxation before having to resume the rigid pose. An adult with an attentive toddler on their lap will be able to feel the child’s bodily tension and perhaps his grip on their limb or clothing as he maintains his gaze. If the child is also apprehensive or excited about what he is looking at, the grip is likely to be tighter. Of course, if a child is sitting down viewing a movie on a tablet or smartphone, keeping still is not such a problem. It is also interesting to observe what a toddler does with her hands while viewing attentively, if they are not already in use as part of the “braced” posture. It is likely that wherever the hands were before her attention was focused, they will remain in that position—so continuing to grip a bottle, cup or toy for example, or perhaps simply remaining placed on a nearby piece of furniture. So Alfie’s’ hand remains on the table, helping to brace his not-quite-seated position; and because Connie was touching her jumper when her attention was switched to the screen, her hand stays there for the period of her gaze. There are parallels here with the way in which a predator such as a cat will instinctively “freeze” when it spots a movement that could be potential prey (and, we must assume, experiences something like the “seeking” emotion): if the cat is walking when this happens, one paw may remain raised so that no movement takes place that might alert the prey. Besides posture, I found that the other obvious physical feature of focused attention is facial expression. These can be extremely fleeting, and in the case of toddlers with their relatively plump faces, it can be difficult to spot some expressions such as a frown. Connie tended to chew the inside of her cheek when anxiously attentive, but it was only possible to notice this when it was captured on video and had been recorded when the lighting cast enough shadow to show the subtle change in the shape of her cheek (see Fig. 6.1). More notably, both the twins tended to jut their jaws forward, and sometimes also purse their lips, when they were not only concentrating but also a bit apprehensive. The major facial characteristic of more relaxed but still focused attentiveness in toddlers is commonly an open mouth, often accompanied by the typical toddler runny nose. Viewing attentively for several minutes with one’s mouth open leads to

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dry lips, so lip-licking will happen regularly, and perhaps also some hasty nose-wipes with a handy sleeve. If a child is viewing something attentively while drinking from a bottle or feeder cup, he may have to hold it to one side in order to maintain a gaze on the screen (see Fig. 9.5). Especially focused attention—in viewing something suspenseful, for example–may be accompanied by deeper breathing—indicated by chest movements. Spotting the tiny rim of tears around a child’s eyelids when he is moved by something sad in a movie, is difficult in a live situation but can be seen on video (and see Fig. 6.2). It is when one realises how much energy has to be committed to maintaining this level of attention for any length of time that it becomes apparent how completely inappropriate terms such as “passive” and “mesmerised” are as characterisations of children’s focused attention. If an adult tries standing rigidly still, holding tightly to a piece of furniture, frowning, breathing deeply and gazing open-mouthed and fixedly at something for, say, six minutes, they will get some idea of how much physical energy a two-year-old can invest in maintaining focused attention. For a two-year-old, any learning is a very serious business, and the world is full of new things to discover and understand. Additionally, my earlier parallel with a cat’s hunting pose indicates that this kind of attentiveness must have deep evolutionary roots, recalling Panksepp’s account. The early humans who survived their dangerous environments no doubt did so because they were as good as their non-human ancestors at concentrating very hard, quickly identifying and assessing potential threats or opportunities, and reacting appropriately. And just because it originated as a survival mechanism doesn’t mean that toddlers’ focused attentiveness can, as sometimes happens, be dismissed or even laughed at, as a sign of naivety. We all need to be extremely attentive sometimes. Highly focused attention can often be observed when children see something new—so long as it appeals to them. Tastes will differ: the claim that “all children will love this” is, as we know, not necessarily reliable, and it is difficult—often impossible—to figure out what governs a two-year-­ old’s preference for one movie over another, just as his preferences for particular clothes, books, toys and foods may seem idiosyncratic. We can infer, however, that children’s preferences are based on important desires: in particular, recognition that the preferred object or experience has more to offer than can be discovered in a single encounter. Perhaps the most remarkable and fascinating thing about two-year-olds’ learning is their capacity for “expectations of significance”: their ability to judge that

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something is worth further attention because it will yield further meaning. The twins would usually view a movie for several minutes even if they were not attracted to it; then they would turn away or ask for it to be turned off. If they decided that they were interested, they would continue to view it through to the end and would probably demand to see it again—for the same reason: they had decided that more meaning could be extracted from it. While parents may fear that this is worrying evidence of obsession or addiction, it can more plausibly be seen as evidence of self-driven learning.

Summary While Chap. 2 provided a critique of the dominant themes of research on children and media, this chapter has gone back to the origins of my own research, in my experiences as a parent and as a media education specialist. Starting from the challenges that are encountered by anybody studying two-year-olds, I situated my research in relation to debates about film language, the need to learn how to understand the meaning-making devices that movies employ, and the central hypothesis of the book: that from at least some time before or during their third year of life, children who view movies must be learning to understand these devices. I situated this in relation to wider discussions about children’s rights and dignity, the concept of popular culture and how this has been deployed in relation to children and education, and a proposal that Vygotsky’s concept of the Zone of Proximal Development might be used in relation to toddlers’ movie-viewing. Describing the focused attention that the twins display in both viewings, I explained Panksepp’s account of the “seeking” emotion and linked it to Lancaster’s concept of “expectations of significance”. An account of the physical features of focused attention showed how large a commitment of energy it involves and suggested that this can be seen as an indicator of self-directed learning. What may be the focus of that learning is introduced by Vignette B and is the subject of Chap. 4.

References Adorno, T. W., & Horkheimer, M. (2002). Dialectic of enlightenment: Philosophical fragments (E. Jephcott, Trans.). Stanford University Press. Arnold, C. (2021). Observing Gabby: Child development and learning, 0–7 years. Open University Press.

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Barthes, R. (1977). Image – Music – Text. Fontana Collins. Bateman, J., & Schmidt, K. H. (2011). Multimodal film analysis: How films mean. Taylor and Francis. Bazalgette, C. (Ed.). (1989). Primary media education: A curriculum statement. British Film Institute. Bazalgette C. (2003). The children are watching. Conference paper. Kaleidoscope. Bazalgette, C. (2004). Literacy and the media. Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Bazalgette, C. (2010a). We’re sick of magic!’ Extending children’s experience of film. In C. Bazalgette (Ed.), Teaching media in primary schools. Sage. Bazalgette, C. (Ed.). (2010b). Teaching media in primary schools. Sage. Bazin, A. (1967). What is cinema? University of California Press. Bearne, E., & Marsh, J. (2008). Moving literacy on: Evaluation of the BFI lead practitioner scheme for moving image media literacy. UKLA. https://ukla.org/ ukla_resources/moving-­literacy-­on/ Bordwell, D. (1985). Narration in the fiction film. Routledge. Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (1980). Film art: An introduction. Addison-Wesley. Branigan, E. (1992). Narrative comprehension and film. Routledge. Briggs, M. (2006). Beyond the audience: Teletubbies, play and parenthood. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 9(4), 441–460. Britton, J. (1970). Language and learning. Penguin Books. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32, 515–531. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Harvard University Press. Bruner, J., & Haste, H. (1987). Making sense: The child’s construction of the world. Methuen. Buckingham, D. (2007). Beyond technology: Children’s learning in the age of digital culture. Polity Press. Campbell, R. (1999). Literacy from home to school: Reading with Alice. Trentham Books. Carroll, N. (2010). Movies, the moral emotions, and sympathy. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 34, 1–19. Chattah, J. (2015). Film music as embodiment. In M. Coegnarts & P. Kravanja (Eds.), Embodied cognition and film (pp. 79–105). Leuven University Press. Chion, M. (1994). Audiovision: Sound on screen. Columbia University Press. Coegnarts, M. (2017). Cinema and the embodied mind: Metaphor and simulation in understanding meaning in films. Palgrave Communications, 3, p. 1–15. D’Aloia, A. (2012). Upside-down cinema: (Dis)simulation of the body in the film experience. Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image, 3, 155–182. Damasio, A. (2000). The feeling of what happens. Vintage. Daum, M. M., et al. (2009). Becoming a social agent: Developmental foundations of an embodied social psychology. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39(7), 1196–1206.

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Davies, M. M. (1997). Fake, fact and fantasy: Children’s interpretations of television reality. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Davies, M. M. (1989). Television is good for your kids. Hilary Shipman Ltd. De Stefano, C. (2022). The child is the teacher. Penguin Random House. Eco, U. (1976). Articulations of the cinematic code. In B. Nichols (Ed.), Movies and methods. University of California Press. Edmiston, B. (2008). Forming ethical identities in early childhood play. Routledge. Feagin, S.  L. (1999). Time and timing. In C.  Platinga & G.  M. Smith (Eds.), Passionate views: Film cognition and emotion. Johns Hopkins University Press. Frampton, D. (2006). Filmosophy. Wallflower. Gallese, V., & Guerra, M. (2012). Embodying movies: Embodied simulation and film studies. Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and Film Studies, 3, 183–210. Gerring, J. (2017). Case study research: Principles and practice (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Gillen, J., Matsumoto, M., Aliagas, C., Bar-Lev, Y., Clark, A., Flewitt, R., … Yome, V. (2019). A day in the digital lives of 0–3s full report. Retrieved from http://digilitey.eu/wp-­c ontent/uploads/2019/03/0-­t o-­3 s-­F INAL-­ Report-­v3.pdf. Accessed 08 Nov 2021. Grodal, T. (2009). Embodied visions: Evolution, emotion, culture and film. Oxford University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1979). One child’s protolanguage. In M. Bullowa (Ed.), Before speech. Cambridge University Press. Hammersley, M. (2017). Childhood studies: A sustainable paradigm? Childhood, 24(1), 113–127. Hancock, R., & Gillen, J. (2007). Safe places in domestic spaces: Two-year-olds at play in their homes. Children’s Geographies, 5(4), 337–351. Huelke, D.  F. (1998). An overview of anatomical considerations of infants and children in the adult world of automobile safety design. Annual Proceedings of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, 42, 93–113. Jensenius, A. R., Bjerkestrand, K. A. V., & Johnson, V. (2014). How still is still? Exploring human standstill for artistic applications. International Journal of Arts and Technology, 7(2–3), 207–222. Jordan, A. (2006). Make yourself at home: The social construction of research roles in family studies. Qualitative Research, 6(2), 169–185. Keathley, C. (2006). Cinephilia and history, or the wind in the trees. Indiana University Press. Kissel, B. T. (2011). “That Ain’t No Ninja Turtles”: The Prevalence and influence of popular culture in the talk and writing of prekindergarten children. NHSA Dialog, 14(1), 16–36. Lambert, G. (1966). Sight and sound. In R. D. McCann (Ed.), Film: A montage of theories. Dutton.

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Lancaster, L. (2001). Staring at the page: The functions of gaze in a young child’s interpretation of symbolic forms. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1(2), 131–152. Lemish, D., & Rice, M. L. (1986). Television as a talking picture book: A prop for language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 13, 251–274. Livingstone, S., & Haddon, L. (Eds.). (2009). Kids online: Opportunities and risks for children. Polity Press. Loiperdinger, M. (2004). LUMIERE’S ARRIVAL OF THE TRAIN: Cinema’s founding myth. The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, 4(1), 89–118. Marsh, J. (2000). “Teletubby Tales: Popular Culture in the Early Years Language and Literacy Curriculum, in Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 1(2). Marsh, J. (2004). “The Techno-Literacy Practices of Young Children” in Journal of Early Childhood Research, 2(1). Marsh, J., & Millard, R. (2005). Popular literacies, childhood and schooling. Routledge/Falmer. Marsh, J., Hannon, P., Lewis, M., & Ritchie, L. (2017). Young children’s initiation into family literacy practices in the digital age. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 15(1), 47–60. Messaris, P. (1994). Visual literacy: Image, mind and reality. Westview Press. Metz, C. (1972). On the notion of a cinematic language. In B.  Nichols (Ed.), Movies and methods. University of California Press. Metz, C. (1974). Film language: A semiotics of the cinema. Oxford University Press. Monaco, J. (1981). How to read a film. Oxford University Press. Moses, A. M. (2008). Impacts of television viewing on young children’s literacy development in the USA: A review of the literature. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 8(1), 67. Nishimoto, K. (2000). Laughing Moon, Japan. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKoPh98zkhc. Panksepp, J. (2004). Affective neuroscience. Oxford University Press. Panksepp, J., & Bernatzsky, G. (2002). Emotional sounds and the brain: The neuro-affective foundations of musical appreciation. Behavioral Processes, 60(2), 133–155. Phillips, P. (2000). Understanding film texts. British Film Institute. Piaget, J. (1928). The child’s conception of the world. Routledge and Kegan Paul. Pinder, R. (1987). Why don’t teachers teach like they used to? Hilary Shipman. Platinga, C., & Smith, G. M. (Eds.). (1999). Passionate views: Film, cognition and emotion. Johns Hopkins University Press. Plowman, L., & Stevenson, O. (2013). Exploring the quotidian in young children’s lives at home. Home Cultures, 10(3), 329–347.

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CHAPTER 4

The Nature of the System

Vignette B: Viewing In the Night Garden In the Night Garden (Ragdoll/BBC 2006–2010) was the first children’s TV series that the twins saw, starting when they were three months old (Phoebe reported at the time that “they were gobsmacked”). My research videos of their viewing behaviour began when they were 22 months old. They were still viewing an In the Night Garden episode as broadcast, at 6.20 pm every day, as their usual bedtime ritual: this continued when they began to have weekly sleepovers at our house. For my first recording, I had set up my iPhone as a fixed camera (see Fig. 9.5) later, I almost always held it unobtrusively so that I could follow the children’s movements. For the first few sleepovers at our house, my daughter Phoebe was there as well, to help us follow the bedtime rituals. So there were three adults in the room with the children for much of the first viewing, and because it was coming up to bedtime, there was constant movement: fetching bottles of milk; getting the children’s beds ready; finding a potty and positioning it ready for use. The children were also moving around the room and viewing the TV intermittently. It was exciting for them to be in our living Parts of this chapter have appeared in Sign Systems Journal 48 (1) 2020, in Brown (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Film (OUP 2022) and in Green et al. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children, NYC and Abingdon: Routledge. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_4

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room with the TV on at bedtime: there was so much to explore and so much choice about where to stand or sit when viewing, although they were desperate to get close to the screen. At first we tried to block their access, but soon gave up and positioned a footstool so that they could get as close as they wanted; they could not do this at their own house as the TV was on a higher shelf. We adults exchanged comments as well as addressing the children, either through direct comments or instructions, or through their own child-directed vocalisations. It was a rich experiential environment in which the role of the television programme was one, albeit often important, element. Adult talk at various levels formed part of the aural environment, along with the voices, sounds and music emanating from the television (see Chap. 9). As every In the Night Garden title sequence ended, a familiar ritual was played out as the voice-over began with “Iggle piggle, iggle onk, we’re going to catch…” followed by the theme music for one or the other of the Night Garden vehicles: the children had to guess whether it was the Ninky Nonk train or the Pinky Ponk airship that were going to appear. Encouraged by Phoebe, the children delighted in identifying each vehicle by its theme tune, using invented signs, complementing the limited range of Makaton signs they had been using for many months: “up” for the Pinky Ponk, and “down” for the Ninky Nonk. In my second video of them viewing In the Night Garden, Alfie is sitting in an armchair as the programme begins; he views intently then shrieks “Oh!” pointing dramatically at the screen. Phoebe (sitting behind him) shouts “It’s the Ninky Nonk!” and Alfie gestures a round-and-round movement, imitating the circular path of the Ninky Nonk as it appears on screen. Phoebe chortles with delight and he looks round to soak up her approval, grinning widely. At the beginning of the third In the Night Garden viewing video, both children are involved, jiggling around in front of the screen and turning to Phoebe to make the downward-pointing sign, to her excited approval. This was a well-established family routine. In the Night Garden viewings continued every week for two months, during which time I made four videos of the twins viewing it. One or other of them, and occasionally both, would choose to sit close to the screen for part of the programme, studying the screen intently (Fig. 4.1). Sometimes one of them would be touching something on the screen that particularly intrigued them: in Fig. 4.2 Alfie is touching a toucan’s beak: he then turns to me and explains “B-I-G beak!” with wide eyes and arms stretched out.

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Fig. 4.1  Closely studying the screen (aged 23 months)

Fig. 4.2  Touching the screen (Alfie aged 23 months)

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Capturing Reality? Why should it be necessary to learn how to understand movies? After all, the conventional view is that movies (at least, live-action ones) simply “present” or “capture” reality. This is understandable, given that one of movies’ many pleasures is their similarity to real life—although critical debate has raged for more than a century about the philosophical status of this similarity (see, e.g. Wollen, 1998, Chap. 3). Within the movie industries, technological developments such as synchronised sound, colour, larger screens, immersive sound systems and denser pixellation have all been driven by the desire to heighten the illusion of reality and have become a normal feature of cinema exhibition and of television. But at the same time, developments in animation, computer-generated images, editing techniques and sound design have created convincing fictional worlds that owe as much to fantasy, dreams and indeed nightmares as they do to real life. Movies are a unique and densely multimodal art form, full of rhetorical devices that cannot reproduce our daily perceptual experiences (see Chap. 5). Although they do not have anything like the grammar and vocabulary of verbal language, movies do have rules that govern the way they are made, which we can call “formal features” and which we do have to understand in order to make sense of movie narratives. Monaco argues that what we do need to learn is “how they tell us what they tell” although his view is that learning how to read films properly is a task for older people, while children can be satisfied with apprehending their “basic content” (Monaco, 1981, p. 17). Messaris asserts (Messaris, 1994) that movies are not that difficult to understand, given that many filmic devices are similar to people’s everyday perceptions (see, e.g. Bruner’s account of how infants can follow the direction of an adult’s point, in Chap. 2). In the context of following a narrative, filmic devices also work because they satisfy the viewer’s desire to find out what happens next. They don’t mimic them exactly, but they do satisfy the desire to respond to phenomena such as a surprised or frightened gaze, a hand reaching out, or even just a moving vehicle. Experienced viewers know (or think they know) that the shot that comes after a shot of a gaze or a reaching hand will show what the characters are looking at or reaching for (i.e. a point-of-view shot), and that the moving vehicle shot will not necessarily precede other shots of the same journey or of the interior of the vehicle, but can be followed immediately by a shot of the vehicle arriving at its destination (i.e. a jump cut). The instinctive desire to

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find out the object of the gaze, the objective of the reaching hand, or the destination of the vehicle, is usually sharpened by our narrative expectations: our familiarity with movie narratives enables us to anticipate what is coming next. If we are wrong—for example if a surprised or frightened gaze is simply followed by the end-credits of an episode in the TV series we are following, then our frustration may be tempered by eager anticipation, and speculation about what the character may have seen, while we wait for the next episode. But all these interpretive strategies are based on an extended experience of viewing movies: they are not necessarily immediately clear to very young children. It is children’s accumulated viewing experience that eventually enables them to acquire enough generic knowledge to be able to, for example, anticipate narrative outcomes such as happy endings, or to recognise that a movie’s intentions are light-­ hearted or fanciful. This book is based on the hypothesis that by the age of two, children who view movies must be starting to understand the strategies that moviemakers use to present characters, to establish “story-worlds” and to construct narratives. This hypothesis provides an alternative to the assumptions that underpin most research on children and movies: that anyone can interpret movies easily, because they correlate with their perceptions of the real world. A four- or five-year-old might comment that “they put some scary music in there”—showing, in other words, that she knows that the characters in the movie can’t hear the scary music, indeed that she knows that movies are made by people, even if she is probably not very clear about who “they” are and may have picked up the idea from co-viewers. What she cannot do yet is say much more about the practice of creating non-diegetic sound—adding atmospheric music and sounds to an otherwise lifelike scene—but that doesn’t affect her ability to understand and enjoy the movie. But are toddlers really encountering interpretive challenges in the movies that are on offer to them, given that these are usually supposed to be very simple?

Making Movies for Children There is plenty of industry opinion about what special stylistic devices may be needed for children of different ages, which comes partly from developmental psychology but also, especially in the UK, from producers’ own instinctive feelings about what will appeal to children. Jeannette Steemers’ book on children’s television includes an interview with a BBC editor who

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identified rapid editing and technical tricks such as panning and zooming, confusing shots, bizarre camera angles, multi-cutting and “anything that messes with time” as elements that children’s programming should avoid, in favour of wide shots “to establish where everybody is in relation to everyone else”, and close-ups to focus attention or provide clarity (Steemers, 2010). Events must happen on screen, it was argued, so that children can develop a sense of cause and effect, and characters must be seen speaking, not just heard—although in fact many children’s TV series use voice-over commentaries, with no explanation of who is speaking. However, Steemers also interviewed a writer for children’s television who claimed that wide shots confuse two-year-olds because there is too much in the frame and they can’t see it all, and that close-ups are confusing because they “break the rules”. Where producers do discuss factors like this, it is clear that, at least to some extent, they are adopting a deficit model of early childhood, are judging from an adult point of view what may and may not be “confusing” and basing their comments on first viewings rather than on the repeated viewings that children will undertake when they find something that interests them. Although some production companies do use videos in their audience research to see what children do when viewing their programmes (e.g. Ragdoll Productions), they cannot afford to spend time on longitudinal studies to see how individual children’s viewing practices develop over time. The same writer (interviewed by Steemers in 2007) claimed that most “pre-school” television is actually pitched at “a generic four to five age range” which must have meant children likely to be attending nursery school, who could converse with adults and other children outside their immediate family. However, an acknowledgement of the different needs of younger children had emerged a decade earlier, when Ragdoll Productions created Teletubbies for the BBC, specifically aimed at an audience aged between two and four. Although this stirred up much debate about its appropriateness, or lack of it, for this age-group, and indeed about whether they should be viewing television at all (see Buckingham, 2002a; Linn & Poussaint, 1999), this was then the BBC’s most profitable programme in world markets, with 365 episodes backed up by huge merchandising (Briggs, 2007). It was followed in 2007 by In the Night Garden, a 100-programme commission, also marketed worldwide, and also aimed at two- to four-year-olds. Both programmes were co-created and written by Andrew Davenport with Anne Wood, who established their own rules about appropriate production styles for these age-groups. These

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include the use of static camera, long shots, keeping the action all within the frame, and making relatively few cuts (Steemers, 2010). Although David Buckingham remarks that “what amuses and engages a two-year-old is, by definition, unlikely to hold much interest for us” (Buckingham, 2002b, p. 48), Ragdoll’s productions do offer quite complex interpretive challenges, as some scholars have noted (e.g. Bignell, 2005). Sue Howard and Susan Roberts’ observational study of Australian children aged between 14 and 24 months viewing Teletubbies (Howard & Roberts, 2002) includes detailed analyses of the episode that they used and confirms the cognitive challenges that required the children “to exercise developing theories of cause and effect, prediction and inference” (p. 334). But the title sequence of In the Night Garden is, in my opinion, a masterpiece of dreamlike modal and diegetic shifts, and heightened emotion. Given that this programme had formed a major part of the twins’ viewing experience from the age of 3 months, at 22  months, when I started my research, they were still ritually viewing the broadcasts each evening (see Vignette B); it is worth taking a closer look at this sequence, using a different kind of approach from those of the theories cited by Howard and Roberts. Steemers has also described the sequence in her book, but she focuses on providing her own account of its emotional impact: in what follows I will concentrate on particular moments when the sequence may be offering interesting perceptual challenges to very young viewers, so that constantly re-viewing it could be pleasurable and satisfying.

In the Night Garden Opening Sequence Every In the Night Garden episode1 begins with an image of the night sky, dotted with stars. Six musical notes (C–G–B, A–C–B) are heard: they are played slowly (one per second) on a glockenspiel. As each note plays, a star on the screen “lights up”: the spatial positioning of these animated stars in the sky suggests the differences in pitch between the six notes. Thus, in the first eight seconds of the programme, viewers are presented with quite a complex set of perceptual demands. This visual/aural pattern can in itself be regarded as a miniature narrative. It presents possible relationships between the notes and the stars, which might be causal (do the notes make the stars light up? Do the stars make the notes when they light up?) or 1  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00796cb/in-the-night-garden-series1-1-makka-pakka-washes-faces?page=1 (accessed 05-11-2021).

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metaphorical (the “flaring” of each star matches the duration of each note as it strikes and fades). It is likely that even infants are able to remember this sequence (A. N. Meltzoff, 1994) and to enjoy seeing and hearing it played out again through repeated viewings. As the notes start to repeat, a female voice (CeCelia Wickham-­ Anderson) begins singing: “The night is black, and the stars are bright, and the sea is dark and deep”. At the word “black”, there is a slow crossfade to a head-and-shoulders close-up of a real child in bed, warmly lit from a light source that casts clear shadows. The child may be tracing a circle on his/her palm or watching an adult’s hand doing this (a different child is shown in each episode; an adult hand is sometimes present and sometimes not). When the singer finishes the phrase, she starts to hum the tune and a male voice (the actor Derek Jacobi) speaks the rest of the verse: “but someone I know is safe and snug, and they’re drifting off to sleep. Round and round, a little boat, no bigger than your hand, out on the ocean, far away from land”. Several potential questions and expectations could be generated here. Is this an image of real stars? What is the spatial or temporal relationship between the night sky and the bed? Where do these voices come from? Are they part of the same world? Can the child on the screen hear them? “Someone I know” could suggest, for children who can understand those words, that Jacobi could be there, out of frame, but present in the same scene: perhaps even that the camera represents his point of view; the presence of the woman’s voice, humming as Jacobi speaks, could mean that she is there too. For many children, this could also be a phrase that they have often heard, referring to them, as in “someone I know is getting a bit tired/being naughty/needing the potty”; thus the voice-over may encourage the idea that the child in the sequence is, if not actually “me”, then “like me”. The fact that, over time, many different children have played this role, dressed in different colours and with different bedclothes, and that the movements get performed in a slightly different way for each episode, might throw into doubt the invitation to identify with the child and to recognise the setting; alternatively it may present a comforting similarity, more interesting than mere repetition, suggesting that “lots of children [like me?] do this”. I am not suggesting that a two-year-old could articulate these questions, but they do at least illustrate the point that movies are not necessarily “lifelike” in their handling of time and space. In its slowness and quietness, the sequence is also very different from the

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opening sequences of most other children’s movies, which tend to be brightly coloured and fast-moving. As Jacobi speaks the last two lines of the verse, the camera very slowly zooms in on the child’s hand, and as Jacobi’s voice starts the third line— “Take the little sail down, light the little light”—there is another cross fade to the fluffy blue Iggle Piggle character (here, an animated doll) sitting in a boat with a red sail, floating on the rolling swell of a dark, pleated texture, CGI “sea”. Initially, while the crossfade completes, only the waves and the sail are slightly moving; then the waves, boat, sail and Iggle Piggle all start to move, but in a series of stills linked by fades, rather than in smooth animation, accompanied by a soft rippling sound of water and the continuing musical theme, in which the glockenspiel is accompanied by Wickham-Smith’s humming. It is only after Jacobi completes the last line—“This is the way to the garden in the night”—that Iggle Piggle stands up, making frequent glances to camera (i.e. to the viewer) as, apparently following the imperatives in the earlier voice-over, he takes down the sail, hauls up a light on the mast, switches it on and then snuggles down under the rustling sail and closes his eyes. The tempo of the movements initially matches the rhythm of the music; after the sail drops (at one minute into the whole sequence) the first eight bars of the programme’s main theme tune are played on guitar and glockenspiel; as the boat turns to float away on the dark blue, matt-surfaced “waves” that represent the sea, the theme is repeated in crescendo by an orchestra, and the light on the mast diminishes until it is indistinguishable from the other stars. At the same time, several new stars appear in time to the music, one of which glows blue. The potentially confusing introduction of a third “world”—or reversion to the first, if the night sky behind the boat is recognised as re-framed version of the opening shot—has been signalled in advance by the singer’s reference to the sea and the voice-over reference to the boat, and is softened by the use of a slow crossfade, which graphically matches the palm of the hand to the boat on the sea, even though the scene does not conform with the voice-over’s earlier command to take down the sail. The crossfade here is a classic movie device for the introduction of a dream sequence, taking us as it does from a live-action bedroom scene of a child going to sleep to a much less realistic outdoor setting. So we are not, as in many other children’s programmes, being arbitrarily whisked away into another world: we are gently invited to believe, without being explicitly told, that we are drifting into a dream.

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The introduction of an adult human voice, according to media conventions, provides a narrator. Here, however, there are two voices: the female singer and the male speaker. In the Night Garden (like Ragdoll’s later Abney and Teal) privileges the male voice: Jacobi’s commanding yet tender tones—and posh accent—override and take over (in mid-sentence, with the word “-but”) from the wistful female singer, and his next words are a first-person statement (“someone I know”), which establishes his authority as an adult guide to what is going on. The recipient of his commands (“Take the little sail down, light the little light”) is initially unclear, given that the live-action hands are still in view on the word “take”. It is several seconds later that Iggle Piggle does these actions: so does Jacobi command them, or predict them? Throughout every programme in the series, Jacobi provides instructions, questions and information to the viewer: “Catch the Ninky Nonk!”, “Who’s here?”, “The Pontipines are friends of mine” and so on; but he also expresses surprise: “Oh dear!” and often speaks directly to the characters, as in “Are you going to wash their faces, Makka Pakka?” He also sings the nonsense songs that introduce the characters. Anne Wood, Ragdoll’s CEO, states that they wanted “a grandfatherly voice” for the programme, and that Jacobi fitted this requirement; presumably also having a well-known and respected actor doing the voice-­ over is calculated to appeal to those adults who are trying to decide whether to let their babies view television at all. As Iggle Piggle’s boat disappears towards the horizon, the swelling theme tune coincides with the blue star suddenly glowing more brightly and rising into the black sky. The camera seems to crane up with the star and then follow as it leaps away into the distance. The star diminishes in size, apparently flying much faster than the pursuing camera; however, other white stars now start appearing, which glow brightly before bursting out into the shapes of flowers. The screen quickly becomes a mass of flowers with white and pink petals, unfolding like butterfly wings. Switching from animation to live-action images, the camera plunges downwards into the blossom, which immediately starts opening up to the sound of birdsong, revealing a high-angle view of sunlit grass and then a garden, and in the distance a round gazebo with a pointed roof that has a glowing blue star on top of it, towards which leads a pathway of stepping-stones. Iggle Piggle (now in his main guise as an adult actor in a fluffy blue body suit) carefully bounds along the pathway, one stone at a time, carrying the red cloth that was both sail and blanket.

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The camera descends past apple boughs in blossom and a shower of petals. The other characters—Upsy Daisy, Makka Pakka and the Tombliboos (all actors in body suits)—can be glimpsed in the far distance, waiting excitedly in the gazebo: the theme tune reverts to keyboards and their distant voices can be heard; the resonance of the sounds in the sea sequence has given way to the “flatter” atmosphere of an ordinary outdoor scene. But the camera continues to descend past a thick green hedge which soon completely obscures the view of the garden. It comes to rest on an area of grass in front of the hedge, thus apparently completing the forward-­ moving “arc” which began in the ocean sequence. The title “In the Night Garden” in formal, white, Roman lettering fades in across the screen, through a left-right wipe, superimposed on the hedge, with the “i” of “Night” briefly dotted by a glowing blue star, and Jacobi’s voice reading out the words of the title. There is a three-second pause. As Jacobi starts to utter his next lines, in a much more excitable tone, the title fades. Jacobi says: “Iggle Piggle, Iggle Onk, we’re going to catch –” and a sound effect begins before he continues with the next words. At this point, one of two different scenarios ensues: more commonly, the sound effect is a rustling which starts before the squeaking, rattling, train-like but toy-sized Ninky Nonk bursts through the hedge and circles around on the grass in front of the camera. Jacobi says “ – the Ninky Nonk!” and after it has completed two turns on the grass and halted in front of the camera, he adds in a comical tone “Oh no! It’s the Ninky Nonk!” After a beat, he cries, “Catch the Ninky Nonk!” and it turns back, diving into the hedge. The camera rushes towards the hedge: there is a fast fade to a split second of black screen, followed by a cut to a low-level wide shot of the garden, but facing a different view than in the earlier high angle. Scattered trees in a sloping grassy glade, dappled with slanting sunshine and clumps of flowers, spread into the distance, while the Ninky Nonk, now apparently much bigger than “we” are, rattles into shot from the right. In the alternative scenario, the post-title sound effect is a breathing, farting, squeezing and tinkling noise; the camera tilts upwards to reveal the airship-like Pinky Ponk gliding above the hedge with a mass of trees behind it: Jacobi announces “ – the Pinky Ponk!” As it descends laboriously a few feet below the top of the hedge, Jacobi calls, kindly but a little impatiently, “Hurry up, Pinky Ponk!” whereupon the vehicle flies up again and over the top of the hedge. Before it has quite disappeared, there is a cut to a high-angle travelling shot on the other side of the hedge,

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following the now much larger Pinky Ponk as it flies amongst the trees (see also a Netmums’ discussion—quoted in Chap. 6—for the potential scariness of this sequence!) The disparities of scale between the “toy” vehicles when they are seen outside the Garden, and their apparent almost adult scale when they are inside it, can seem quite puzzling to an adult viewer. These disparities often reappear within the Garden itself. The full-size, real-life trees and the buildings in the Garden—the bridge and the gazebo—maintain their relative size and scale throughout, as do the characters played by adults in body suits—Iggle Piggle, Ups-a-Daisy, Macca Pacca and the Tombliboos— of whom we see many different shots, establishing their adult human size. But the relative size of the structures with which the characters sometimes engage—the Pinky Ponk, the Ninky Nonk and the Tombliboos’ bush-­ shaped dwelling—varies between different scenes, depending on whether any characters are in the scenes as well. So we may for example may see a mid-shot of the apparently full-size body-suit actors disappearing into a door in the side of what we recognise as the Ninky Nonk, though of which only a section is visible, or into a hole in the base of the Tombliboos’ bush, followed immediately by a long shot of the whole Ninky Nonk or the full-­ size bush with tiny animated figures trooping into it one by one. Then we may see a very small Ninky Nonk, now apparently only about a foot long, clattering along the underside of one of the tree branches. This systematic breaking of scale-consistency may be intended to correspond to the efforts children make to enter the story-worlds of their play with toys: as when a child lies down by a toy train track, for example, to attain the perspective of an inch-high protagonist, viewing the train go by (see Fig. 4.3). As they create fictional play worlds, children often attempt to coordinate different scales: trying to get dolls of different sizes to fit inside a dolls’ house, for example.

Movie “Rules” and Play Rules It is one of the notable achievements of In the Night Garden that, through its mix of real-life and constructed settings, it acknowledges and represents children’s capacity for establishing their own sets of rules for play scenarios. In his book The Work of the Imagination, Paul Harris explains that pretend play starts in the second year of life, drawing on “the causal understanding of the physical and mental world that [toddlers] have already built up during infancy” (Harris, 2000, p. 9). In pretend play, rules are

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Fig. 4.3  Creating a low-angle perspective (Alfie aged 26 months)

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established about what can and cannot happen, which are consistent within what Harris calls “the play framework” but don’t necessarily correspond to the physical and social rules of the real world. The subjective camera movements that form the main part of this sequence are of the type called “impossible” (rule-breaking, in other words) in the sense that they move in an apparent single shot through vast changes of scale and accelerated time, providing points of view that no character in the sequence could have. Indeed, the characters of In the Night Garden are not included in, or even witness to, the arc through space that the camera appears to follow: when we get to the Night Garden, Iggle Piggle is there before us, and we never see (either at the beginning or the end) where the sea is in relation to the garden, or how he gets from one to the other. The camera’s arc is remarkably complex and potentially ambivalent: do we plunge into the flowers, or do they rise to meet us? How come it is dark one minute and sunlit the next—albeit with a slanting, early summer evening light? Both shots serve to draw the audience “into” the story-world: they present an elaborate version of what is a common device in many children’s television series which use subjective shots in their opening sequences as a way of suggesting to children that they can themselves magically enter the world of the programme. But unlike many other children’s programmes, the sequence is gentle and leisurely, and it is not accompanied by a loud and catchy theme song: it gives the viewer time to take in and ponder each shot, movement and change of scene. And as in dreams—as well as in toddlers’ play—the rules of normal life need not apply. These forward-moving shots recall the strangely hypnotic quality of the “phantom rides” that were a popular feature of early cinema. Shot with a fixed camera on the front or rear of trains, buses and trams, phantom rides did not reveal the modes of transport they used, thus providing the viewer with a dreamlike subjective trajectory through streets and landscapes. The appeal of the phantom ride was popularly assumed to be its lifelike sensation of movement, and it has thus been revived whenever a technological innovation promised to offer even more thrillingly “lifelike” experiences: in the rollercoaster ride in Cinerama Holiday (Bendick, USA 1955,) for example, in flight simulator attractions and in many computer games. The importance of subjective travelling shots like these has been underlined by experiments in neuroscience that demonstrate how strongly viewers respond to them. Gallese and Guerra—a neuroscientist and a film scholar— develop this finding to argue that

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the moving camera not only implements our experience by adding kinesthetic, bodily, tactile cues as well as the sense of balance and gravity, but also gives the impression that the movie is to some extent live, that there is an intentionality which endows it with peculiar bodily functions and subjectivity. (Gallese & Guerra, 2014, p. 106)

This emphasis on the viewer’s physical experiences ignores equally important questions of narration and how the forward movement may be interpreted. Is the viewer being “impelled” or “drawn”? What motivates this forward movement and what is the destination? However, for little children who are used to travelling in a buggy, sling or an adult’s arms, the experience of moving forwards to an often-unknown destination is commonplace and probably reassuringly familiar. They will later rediscover the travelling shot and be able to manipulate it themselves when they start to play computer games such as Minecraft. In the case of In the Night Garden, Jacobi’s statement “This is the way to the garden in the night” (spoken in distinctively dramatic, almost chanting tones) offers an answer as well as an invitation to the audience and an instruction to Iggle Piggle. Other programmes address children much more directly, urging them to “come and join in the fun”. This is a preamble to the dominant mode of direct address, performance to camera, exhortations to the audience to get involved, and the multiplicity of merchandising—toys, clothes and other products with logos—that encourage children to continue inhabiting the story-world in their imagination.

Types of Simplification Fantasy settings, animation, puppets and live actors inside puppet-style body suits feature widely in movies for children, all of which appear in a hugely diverse range of styles. This rich modal diversity is clearly interesting for children. But in the niche sector of movies for pre-schoolers, producers often also use simplified faces, figures and backgrounds to ensure what they regard as accessibility. Some of this simplification relies on the drawing styles favoured by slightly older children. Figures  4.4 and 4.5 indicate the level of this kind of simplification: the smiley mouth that appears in both of the children’s drawings appears also in many illustrations for children. But, as in most drawings by children of these ages, the eyes are rendered as dots: this convention is overruled by research on the importance of particular facial features for infants and toddlers (e.g.

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Fig. 4.4  “Face”, by Alfie, aged 44 months

Farroni et al., 2002) which has shown that large eyes, a typical feature of infant animals, including humans are attractive to children. So facial representations tend to compromise between “childish” and lifelike representations. But as the semiotician Gunther Kress points out, when children draw they do not merely simplify: they “choose one aspect of the thing they want to represent as being criterial at that moment for the representation of an object; they then choose the most plausible form which is available to them for its representation”—his example being a child’s drawing entitled “car”, in which numerous rough circles represent not only wheels, but also their importance and movability (Kress, 1997, pp.  14–15). In Connie’s elephant drawing, it’s the elephant’s big ears, long legs and tuft on the end of its tail that are significant for her at this moment, not the

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Fig. 4.5  “Elephant”, by Connie, aged 55 months

tusks or the trunk: despite the numerous elephants she had seen in pictures and nature films, and her own two elephant toys (see Chap. 9).

Understanding the Nature of the System In Lesley Lancaster’s study of a two-year-old making drawings with her father, she observes that drawing is “a hermeneutic process […] in which children use all the semiotic ‘tools’ at their disposal” (Lancaster, 2001, p. 132). She challenges the notion of “simplification”, pointing out that it is “something socially and technically constructed” (p. 134), as we can see from the varied graphic styles that appear in hundreds of other movies, books, toys, apps and packaging aimed at toddlers and pre-schoolers. In any case, children seem to quickly assimilate and understand each stylistic trope on its own terms, learning, with the help of adults (and, in the case of movies, also from voice-over commentary and/or dialogue) how to

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name each character, prop and setting. In relation to children’s thinking about the semiotic codes of drawings, Lancaster quotes Ferreiro and Teberosky’s account of children’s early reading: “Children pose deep questions to themselves. Their problems are not solved when they succeed in meaningfully identifying a letter or string of letters, because they try to understand not only these elements or the results but also, and above all, the nature of the system” (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982, p. 172). We could extend this concept of trying to understand the nature of the system to the work that children must be doing when trying to make sense of movies. Given that all visual representations involve myriad choices by the image-makers from the sign systems at their disposal, animated movies—with their hugely diverse styles even within the pre-school movie sector—present children with fascinating interpretive challenges. It is not surprising, therefore, that when they do encounter more conventionally realistic images, they can be just as interested in figuring out what it is that they are looking at. One of the earliest instances of unexpectedly close attention that I observed in the children—at 16 months, before I began this research—was when I read them Astrid Lindgren’s The Tomten and the Fox (Lindgren, 1992): they seemed to be greatly intrigued by Harald Wiberg’s subtly coloured, dim-lit, realistically detailed snowy landscapes, in which the characters are not placed centrally, in mid-shot or close-up (as they generally are in pre-school television or indeed in many children’s books) and are not simplified. The children stared hard at each one for a minute or more before letting me turn the page. Another interesting aspect of children’s television is how the programmes play with filmic conventions. Many of these conventions serve to create and maintain the important concept of diegesis or “the story-­ world”. But as Edward Branigan points out, this concept is a fuzzy one: if we accept that elements such as mood music, which we know are not experienced by the characters, are nevertheless “about the diegetic world of the character and are meant to aid the spectator in organizing and interpreting that world and its events”, an alternative view might be that the diegetic/non-diegetic differentiation, though crucial, cannot always be sharply defined, and perhaps especially not in movies for children. Branigan nevertheless argues that “the spectator’s organization of information into diegetic and non-diegetic story worlds is a critical step in the comprehension of a narrative and in understanding the relationship of story events to our everyday world” (Branigan, 1992, p.  35). This organisational process—whether it involves a sharp differentiation or a more nuanced

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reflection on possibilities—is likely to be an important one for children in making sense of what they view, given that movies for children offer a very wide range of settings that are deliberately fanciful and governed by a wide variety of “laws”. The processes involved in figuring out the “rules” of each story-world, and thinking about them, bear a close and important relationship to what is going on in much of two-year-olds’ play. Harris points out that in pretend play, objective truth can be suspended in favour of make-believe truth. For example, in a game that involves pretending to wash a teddy-­ bear, the participants in the game will accept the “rule” that the teddy-­ bear really is wet (Harris, 2000, p. 10). The development of play, he says, is an important way of developing understanding of fictional narratives: “it is not a distortion of the real world but an initial exploration of possible worlds” (pp. 27–28). So the proliferation of fantasy worlds in children’s movies offers children opportunities to extend these explorations, not—as is often assumed—confusing them about the difference between fantasy and reality (see also Chap. 7). Harris argues that when we engage with fiction, we adopt a point of view that is inside an imagined world, accepting its “rules” and responding to its events as if they were real, but at the same time recognising that they are make-believe. In 1817, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase “willing suspension of disbelief” to describe the mechanism through which we manage our engagements with fictional works of art (Coleridge, 1817 (2004)). Both in their play and in their engagements with fictional narratives—whether in books or movies—children become adept at suspending their disbelief (but see also Torben Grodal’s alternative application of Coleridge’s phrase, in Chap. 7). A more prosaic but significant, and, for a very young viewer, potentially puzzling feature of television’s relationship with the viewer is its extensive use of direct address, both visually, as when a presenter looks into the lens, and aurally, as when a commentary is either provided by a visible person or simply heard as a voice-over. Live programmes such as news presentations or sports commentaries which address the audience directly and make efforts to draw us into the programmes through their introductory sequences can also be seen as extending the story-world into our own living rooms and encouraging us to think of ourselves as part of a much bigger audience, in many different settings. In addition, direct address, being apparently “live”, invites audience judgements that they are “real” and perhaps even “true”, even when—as often happens in children’s

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programmes—it is an animated character who addresses the camera: Peppa Pig, for example, starting each episode with “Hallo! (snort) I’m Peppa Pig!”. Given that live presenters often have apparent eye contact with viewers and will use phrases like “see you tomorrow”, children may for a while believe that the presenters can actually see them, but soon develop alternative theories about this rather odd behaviour. For instance, Alfie at age 32  months speculated that the presenter of Planet Jammbo on the Milkshake channel, who spoke direct to camera and addressed the viewers as “Milkshakers”, was not speaking to him, but to “her children”, whom he could not see but who were probably, he said, “waiting outside” (see Chap. 7). By this age he was used to the demeanour of nursery teachers addressing a class of children, and solved the ambiguity of the presenter’s role by identifying her simply as another of those adults who speak authoritatively to groups of children. The channel hopes to convey viewers’ sense of solidarity with a wider viewing community by using the term “Milkshakers”, but when working in primary schools, I found out that the idea of an audience—as a larger group of people that you can’t see, and don’t know—is quite sophisticated even for six-year-olds. To investigate children’s early engagements with movies does invite analogies with what James Britton called the “astonishing feat” of language learning (Britton, 1970, p. 37), when we acknowledge the complexity and enormous variety of movie material that two-year-olds may be viewing. We also need to acknowledge that even the most apparently simple films, apps and television programmes for toddlers can still present challenges to an inexperienced viewer viewing them for the first time. A glance at, for example, the series and other material offered by the BBC’s CBeebies channel (which is aimed at children under six, but a search term such as “programmes for toddlers” will narrow down the range on offer) may at first seem to be dominated by common features such as smiley faces, animals, direct address and bright colours, but on closer inspection will reveal a wide variety of features: live action, adults in costume and in ordinary clothes, puppets, different settings, and many different animation and musical styles, off-screen voices (both adults’ and children’s) and sound effects. Every time a child encounters a series for the first time, he has to make sense of the “rules” of that particular show and to decide whether he wants to go on viewing it or not: if he does, he is likely to try and negotiate opportunities for viewing more episodes and for re-viewing ones that he

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has seen. A child with older siblings is likely to be seeing an even wider variety of material: he may or may not choose to go on paying attention and may be faced with more challenging negotiations to get access to what he wants to view. In Chap. 9 I return to the question of how co-viewing situations can contribute to a child’s developing skills in interpreting movies. In the next chapter, I explain the theoretical framework on which my analyses of children’s movie-learning are based.

References Bignell, J. (2005). Familiar aliens: Teletubbies and postmodern childhood. Screen, 46(3), 373–387. Branigan, E. (1992). Narrative comprehension and film. Routledge. Briggs, M. (2007). Meaning, play & experience: Audience activity and the ‘ontological bias’ in children’s media research. Particip@tions, 4(2). Britton, J. (1970). Language and learning. Penguin. Buckingham, D. (Ed.). (2002a). Small screens: Television for children. University of Leicester. Buckingham, D. (2002b). Child-centred Television? Teletubbies and the educational imperative. In D.  Buckingham (Ed.), Small screens: Television for children. University of Leicester. Coleridge S.T. (1817(2004)). Biographia Literaria. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Project Gutenberg. Farroni, T., et al. (2002). Eye contact detection in humans from birth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 99(14). Ferreiro, E., & Teberosky, A. (1982). Literacy before schooling. Heinemann Educational Books. Gallese, V., & Guerra, M. (2014). Embodying movies: Embodied simulation and film studies. Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and Film Studies, 3, 183–210. Harris, P. L. (2000). The work of the imagination. Blackwell. Howard, S., & Roberts, S. (2002). Winning hearts and minds: Television and the very young audience. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 3(3). Kress, G. (1997). Before writing: Rethinking the paths to literacy. Routledge. Lancaster, L. (2001). Staring at the page: The functions of gaze in a young child’s interpretation of symbolic forms. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1(2), 131–152. Lindgren, A. (1992). The tomten and the fox. Floris Books. Linn, S. E., & Poussaint, A. F. (1999). The trouble with Teletubbies: The commercialization of PBS. The American Prospect, 1999, 18–25. Meltzoff, A.  N. (1994). Imitation, memory and the representation of persons. Infant Behavior and Development, 17, 83–99.

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Messaris, P. (1994). Visual literacy: Image, mind and reality. Westview Press. Monaco, J. (1981). How to read a film. Oxford University Press. Steemers, J. (2010). Creating preschool television. Palgrave Macmillan. Wollen, P. (1998). Signs and meaning in the cinema: Expanded edition. British Film Institute.

CHAPTER 5

Evolution, Neuroscience and Embodied Cognition

Vignette C: Mimicry The twins (aged 26 months) their mother Phoebe, myself and their grandad Terry are viewing a short, animated movie version of the Eric Carle story Papa, Please get the Moon for Me, in which a little girl (Monica) persuades her father to climb up into the sky and fetch the moon for her. As this is quite a challenging task, Monica has to plead with him, and at one point she clasps her hands as she does so: a somewhat archaic gesture that toddlers might well not be familiar with. The twins have already viewed the movie several times and have asked to view it again. Alfie is just relaxing sleepily on Phoebe’s lap, but Connie is sitting close to the screen and is clearly anticipating moments that she can remember. The characters do not have their own voices: the story is told, and the dialogue spoken in voice-over by one person, the actor Juliet Stevenson. When the voice-over starts to speak Monica’s words “Papa, please get the moon for me”, Connie opens her mouth wide and claps her hands, then places her fists together in an approximation of Monica’s supplicatory gesture (Fig. 5.1). Phoebe grimaces when she notices what Connie is doing and tries to correct her. “Is that how she does it, Connie?” Phoebe asks, and as Connie Parts of this chapter have appeared in Green et al. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children, NYC and Abingdon: Routledge, and in Film Education Journal 1 (2018). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_5

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Fig. 5.1  Connie (aged 26 months) tries to imitate Monica’s gesture

Fig. 5.2  Connie tries to imitate Phoebe’s clasped hands

turns to her, Phoebe clasps her own hands, with fingers correctly interlaced, saying “She says, ‘Pleeease get the moon for me,’ doesn’t she?” Connie opens her hands, looks down at them and attempts (unsuccessfully) to clasp them in the same way (Fig. 5.2).

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Our Ancestors Human brains have a long evolutionary history. The remains of some primates who lived some 4.4 million years ago in the Afar region of what is now known as Ethiopia have been classified as a newly discovered species. The paleoanthropologists who discovered them called them Ardipithecus ramidus and designated them as part of the Hominidae family, to which we also belong. Although these individuals would have looked a lot like chimpanzees, the fact that their skeletons show that they were at least partly bipedal was a crucial factor in considering them to be very early human ancestors (White et al., 2015). The concept of embodied cognition, which I discuss in this chapter, has drawn on our increasing knowledge about the evolution of Homo sapiens. Bipedality was a crucial factor because of its eventual effects on brain size and infant development and, in the longer term, human music, language and narrative. Knowing that we retain some characteristics and—as I shall show—even some aspects of behaviour from our pre-human ancestors such as Ardipithecus may enable us to look at some toddler behaviour as an essential part of their humanity and as evidence of their extraordinary capacity for learning which has been essential to the development of H. sapiens. Primates who developed the ability to walk and run on two legs did so in a context of climate change, where those who could cross the ground more rapidly could search wider areas and had a better chance of finding food and running for shelter from predators, and were therefore more likely to survive and have offspring (W. R. Leonard & Robertson, 1993). But being bipedal forced a sequence of physical adaptations that led eventually to human societies and cultures. Feet, hands, pelvis size, gait and skull positioning all evolved to meet bipedalism’s complex demands on balance, vision and locomotion. For the same reason, brain size increased as these changes demanded more management and coordination. Perhaps less obviously, the positioning of the skull on top of a vertical spine (instead of at the front end of a curved-forward spine, with the spinal cord entering the skull from behind, as in apes) led to a change in the space available for the larynx, which meant that the vocal tract become longer and thinner. This softened but also increased the range of sounds the vocal cords could produce, eventually enabling the huge variety of vocalisations used in human languages and hence humans’ ability to convey a wide range of meanings, not only through speech but also through song (Mithen, 2005, pp. 145–147).

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I am noting these distinguishing features of early human development because they are relevant to infants’ and toddlers’ development and to their social and cultural learning. The rhythms of music-making and dance have their roots in the many different speeds and gaits that are afforded by bipedality. Human foetuses can sense their mother’s two-footed gait, hear her voice, and listen to the music and movie soundtracks she listens to. From birth, human babies can sense the gait of anyone carrying them, and soon become familiar with forward movement through different environments. Because bipedality also resulted in humans’ narrower pelvis size as well as our larger brains, our babies have to be born long before they are developed enough to fend for themselves. No other mammals have offspring that are as helpless as human babies. Even chimpanzees have babies who quickly develop survival skills such as the ability to support their own body weight (hanging on to their mothers’ hair) by three months of age and moving around (quadrupedally) by five months (Bard et al., 2011), whereas human babies take much longer to become mobile and dextrous and to be able to eat food other than their mothers’ milk. This in itself has had enormous consequences for human gender roles and power structures. But its importance for my argument here is that, in compensation for being physically almost helpless, human infants have a huge and vital capacity for social learning. From the moment they are born they start to become social beings, communicating emotionally in enjoyable, intersubjective exchanges with their carers, through mutual gazes and shared expressions (A.  N. Meltzoff & Moore, 1983; A. N. Meltzoff et al., 2017). As Trevarthen argues, “From birth, a child’s learning depends upon sharing his or her impulsive acting and thinking with other familiar persons, who themselves are experimenters, discoverers, and communicators, eager to share what they think and do” (Trevarthen, 2005, p.  58). This forms the foundation for their later learning, as they become mobile and begin to be fluent in verbal language at around 12–18 months. And if they have access to books, pictures and movies, this is when their interest in the meaning-potential of these media starts to grow exponentially. Even so, humans do share many similarities with chimpanzees, given that we differ from them genetically by only 1.06% or less of our DNA (Mikkelson et  al., 2005). Although almost everybody now accepts Darwin’s proposition that modern humans and apes evolved from a

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common ancestor, discoveries about how much of our neural system is also shared with chimpanzees and bonobos have stirred up a great deal of debate and millions of online searches.1 Since the 1980s, an enormous amount of research in neuroscience, and the transformation of palaeoanthropology through carbon dating and DNA analysis, have contributed to our growing awareness that humans are not a unique species and that at least some of our cognitive abilities are similar to those of non-human primates. This has contributed to the relevance and influence of twentieth-­ century scholars who have argued for closer attention to the evolutionary, and thus physical and environmental, factors that underlie human cognition (e.g. Anderson & Anderson, 1996; Gibson, 1986 (1979); Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Merleau-Ponty, 1962) and has started to indicate a paradigm shift, at least in some disciplines, towards what is now called embodied cognition. As my research drew on embodied cognition theories, and as these theories are only starting to be considered in studies of early childhood and learning, it will be appropriate to outline the development of their arguments here, and to explain their relevance to the study of children’s early movie-learning.

Summary of Embodied Cognition Theories “Embodied cognition” refers to theories that have developed out of debates in several disciplines that began to appear in the late twentieth century, often drawing on the works cited above. Two of these books that were published at almost the same time made significant contributions to these debates and are cited in much of the literature: Gibson’s The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (Gibson, 1986 (1979)) and Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Gibson was a psychologist who argued that visual perception depends on a lot more than data supplied by the eye to the brain (scorning textbook accounts of this as merely locked into “snapshot vision”, or “aperture vision”). Instead, he proposes terms such as “ambient vision” and “ambulatory vision”, which allow for the inclusion of proprioception as part of perception: what we perceive does not depend only on our eyes, but also 1  E.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5110243/; https://www. livescience.com/28986-humans-evolved-asymmetric-brains.html; https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524141534.htm, and some 3 million other results from searching “difference between humans and chimps” (accessed 5 November 2021).

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on our bodily awareness of the environment; our own body weight, positioning and movements; our awareness of surfaces and textures and the array of structures and/or landscape features around us. Lakoff and Johnson (a linguist and a philosopher) do not cite Gibson, even in the 2003 edition of their very successful book, but they effectively extend the implications of his argument into their own fields by proposing what has come to be referred to as Conceptual Metaphor Theory (or CMT): that all abstract thought has to depend upon metaphorical concepts that are drawn from our own bodily experiences of the physical world, such as movement through the environment and awareness of physical features around us, as well as from our shared experiences of major phenomena such as commerce, disease and war. Many of these concepts are so embedded in everyday discourse—as in “the infection rate is going up” or “he won the debate” that the origins of the underlying metaphors in lived experience (in these examples, increase~up and argument~war) are forgotten. Both these books suggest ways of considering the relationship between brain and body which contradict widely and long-held views, going back at least as far as Descartes’ account of the relationship between the “soul” (or mind) and the body in his treatise The Passions of the Soul (1649). He proposed that sensations, originating in what we would now call the nervous system, cause “passions” (or emotions) to occur in the mind. While acknowledging that there are many emotions, he identified six—wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness—out of which he claimed all the rest are composed. He acknowledged the importance of emotions but also warned that we should learn to control them rather than being ruled by them. Descartes’ proposition that in humans, mind and body are distinct entities with different, though interacting roles—the superior role being that of the rational mind—has been a powerful concept in Western thought, as well as in religious beliefs about the immortality of the human soul and the mortality of the body. The publication of On the Origin of Species (Darwin, 1859) provided a radically new way of thinking about humanity’s place in the world, but theistic evolutionists’ rejection of the idea that humans are related to apes rather than having been directly created by God drove them to find ways of continuing to support the concept of humans as spiritual, and therefore unique, beings (e.g. Collins, 2007). And from the 1870s onwards the emergent theories that came to be called Social Darwinism used the theory of natural selection to justify the dominance of

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the strong or “racially pure” (T. C. Leonard, 2009). We can trace links between these notions and the condemnations of instinctive behaviour such as anger or panic—in crowds, for example—which often include terms such as “mindless violence”; and the tendency to characterise shocking physical attacks as “animal-like” or “savage”. It is commonplace to associate such phenomena with an assumed “animal” or “primitive” side of human nature, contrasting this with the need for humans to rationalise and control instinctive behaviour through rational thought and the systematic application of knowledge. Attitudes deriving from this model thus include anxieties about being “too emotional”, of “letting our hearts rule our heads”, and being “carried away” by our emotions, and were also used to justify slavery and colonial policies by attributing these characteristics to exploited populations, as well as concocting a rationale for the oppression of women because of our supposed emotional susceptibilities. Attitudes to child-rearing (perhaps especially in anglo-saxon cultures) tend to take it for granted that babies’ and toddlers’ emotions are more overwhelming than ours, and that it is the role of parents and teachers to help children learn how to control their emotions, to behave in socially acceptable ways, to develop their skills in acquiring knowledge and to organise and remember what they have learned. And when they fail to meet these expectations, their behaviour provokes negative reactions. Public figures such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson who are seen as irrational, impulsive and over-emotional have been frequently referred to as babies or toddlers and depicted as such in cartoons. As I suggested in Chap. 2, there is some affinity between these attitudes and anxieties about children being vulnerable to movies’ emotional appeal. But as I outlined in Chap. 3, recent neuroscience offers a different way of understanding emotions: as a much wider range of instinctive feelings that play a key role in initiating action and in learning (Panksepp, 2004). Debates about embodied cognition and its potential role in transforming ideas about the mind-body relationship have continued since the 1980s. For example, in 1991, Varela, Thompson and Rosch signalled in their book The Embodied Mind that “a new interdisciplinary matrix” was drawing together “not only neuroscience but cognitive psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and, in many centers, philosophy” (Varela et  al., 1991, p. xvi). In 1997, Andy Clark’s book Being There linked embodied cognition concepts into, amongst other fields, robotics and artificial intelligence (Clark, 1997). Around the time of the millennium, several new books and journal papers presented extended arguments for

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embodied cognition and related areas of research. Barsalou’s paper “Perceptual Symbol Systems” presents a new approach to theories of knowledge which draws on developments in cognitive science and neuroscience—though objecting to Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory for providing what he saw as an inadequate account of abstract concepts. He offers a new account of perceptual processes, arguing that “cognition is inherently perceptual, sharing systems with perception at both the cognitive and the neural levels” (Barsalou, 1999). In the following year, Damasio’s book The Feeling of What Happens provided a widely accessible account of emotion and consciousness (Damasio, 2000); it was followed up with a new edition of his 1994 book, Descartes’ Error (Damasio, (1994) 2006). In 2002 the journal Cognitive Systems Research published a special issue on situated and embodied cognition. Ziemke, the editor, points out in his introduction that at that stage, there was more agreement about the need to move on from the cognitivist tradition—in which cognition was seen as analogous to computation, with the brain as the computer—than there was about what embodied cognition actually constituted. The issue included papers on robotics and on the socially embedded nature of cognition, and Ziemke points out a lack of agreement on “what exactly the fundamentals of the new approach are” (Ziemke, 2002). Embodied cognition is still better described as a cluster of related and still-developing theories rather than as one fully worked-out theoretical position.

Embodied Cognition and Film Theory In her book The Address of the Eye, Sobchack discussed the phenomenological implications of embodiment for film theory, drawing on Merleau-­ Ponty’s work in particular (Sobchack, 1992), as making a significant contribution to what she has called “a renaissance of phenomenological work in film studies” (Sobchack, 2017), which continues to flourish. In Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, Bordwell and Carroll’s collection of texts that demand a rethink of film theory (Bordwell & Carroll, 1996), Anderson and Anderson’s chapter cites Darwin and Gibson in castigating theories of film spectatorship for their tendency “to address the so-called higher processes [i.e. interpreting the meaning of films] while ignoring the basic perceptual processes altogether” and calls for a “consistent and coherent metatheory that can incorporate both” (Anderson & Anderson, 1996, pp. 365–6). In the same year Tan states, in the preface to

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his book on emotion in narrative film, that “the awareness provided by a motion picture is an emotional one in the first place. In the face of this simple fact, the lack of psychological research is rather astonishing” (Tan, 1996, p. x). However, interesting as these developments in film theory are, they do not challenge the dominant perspectives adopted by most film scholars, which exclude children by privileging the adult viewer and endorse a definition of movies as a visual medium. One valuable exception to this is Michel Chion’s book Audiovision. In the foreword, Walter Murch points out that “we begin to hear before we are born, four and a half months after conception” (Chion, 1994, p. vii) and claims that the primacy of sound over images constitutes a “biological” approach which had triggered both his and Chion’s interests in film (p. xv). Their readiness to explore neglected aspects of film studies may well be based in their professional experience: Murch is a film editor and sound designer, and Chion is a composer as well as a film scholar. Juan Chattah, who works in cognitive psychology and as a composer, performer and theorist of music, draws on Lakoff and Johnson’s theories of metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) in basing his account of the relationship between music and emotion in movie-viewing on their arguments relating metaphoric thinking to humans’ awareness of their shared physical environments (Chattah, 2015). Although much of his discussion of metaphor relates mainly to discourse about music, he includes examples (pp. 83–84) that link tempo to speed of movement (as in chase sequences) and pitch frequency to motion in vertical space (as in the descending “swanee whistle” note that accompanies falls in many animated movies), both of which can be seen as having a metaphoric function. Similarly, he explains how composers may increase the musical tempo in suspenseful scenes to simulate the sound of increased heartbeat, increase volume to represent a character’s increased psychological tension, and introduce dissonance to indicate feelings of stress or anxiety (pp.  86–87). All these devices not only represent characters’ states of mind, but also cue the audience’s own bodily responses to the movie. As such, they are also likely to be accessible to toddler viewers. Mark Ward’s account of the role of sound in movies is based on his professional experience as a sound designer, in other words not just on music but on how the complex layers and modulations of both diegetic and non-diegetic sound are designed and constructed. He makes the important point that “audition has the capacity to shape visual

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perception” (Ward, 2015, p. 161) and challenges what he calls the “ocularcentric” bias of film studies. Much of sound design is concerned with the creation of “atmospheres”: Ward describes this process as “a playful combination of auditory and visual fragments and a heightened manipulation of auditory spatialisation, temporal resolution and timbre” resulting in what the ordinary viewer might refer to as “background sound”. We may often be relatively unaware of atmospheres in movies, but they play a key role in manipulating our emotional responses and can be extremely subtle: for example simply creating distinctions between interior and exterior scenes, or emphasising the emotional force of a scene, by manipulating resonance effects (see also the analysis of In the Night Garden in Chap. 4 and the discussion of Baboon on the Moon in Chap. 6). Gaudin and Roche went further in their proposal for a symposium in 2022 to discuss another area neglected by most scholars: the role of film sound in the perception of space: The question of space in film and audiovisual productions should clearly not be limited to what our eyes can see: the decisive role of sound gives way to another experience in which the audio and the visual together produce a global sense of space that affects and engages our bodies (by calling on proprioceptive, tactile, thermal and other dimensions). (Gaudin & Roche, 2021)

While film studies has so far tended to neglect this aspect of audience experience, the film industry certainly has not: modern cinemas have multiple loudspeakers installed at different locations and different heights in order to enhance viewers’ sense of immersion in a three-dimensional space, thus extending what is merely shown by the camera (Sbravatti, 2016) and of the aural differences between, for example, interior and exterior spaces, provided by the films’ multiple soundtracks. The industry’s decision to invest in the aurally immersive aspect of movies indicates the power of what Ward describes as “perceptual immersion”, an unconscious process that abstracts and simulates physical experience, with the term “immersion” stressing the multidimensional context of viewing, as opposed to the traditional critical assumption of forward-facing spectators. Ward contrasts this with “narrative immersion”, a conscious process that abstracts and simulates social experience (p.  164). The work of Chion, Chattah and Ward is as relevant to children as to adults, given that sounds, and the aural dimensions of spatial awareness, are important to humans of any age. For toddlers, movie soundtracks make a vital contribution to their

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comprehension of what they are viewing and to building up their understanding of the medium. And in Chap. 9 I include the aural environments of shared viewing experiences, where children may be picking up on the comments and non-verbal responses of other viewers in the room.

Mirror Neurons and Infant Development Despite the continuing influence of Cartesian theories, the idea that the brain-body relationship might be much closer and more complex than many had assumed never went away and continued to be addressed by philosophers (e.g. Heidegger, 2010; James, 1884; Merleau-Ponty, 1962). An intriguing intervention came in 1992 from neuroscientists at the University of Parma, whose research on macaque monkey brains revealed the presence of what they called “mirror neurons”. While these neurons were already known to “discharge during goal-directed hand movements such as grasping, holding, and tearing”, these scholars discovered that “many of these neurons become active also when the monkey observes specific, meaningful hand movements performed by the experimenters” (di Pellegrino et al., 1992). They noted that the position of these neurons in the macaques’ brains corresponds to Broca’s area in the human brain: the area whose functions include the management of locomotion, language and music. The activation of these neurons didn’t mean that the monkeys literally mirrored the observed action: simply that the observation stimulated these neurons. In 2003, research by Carr et al. finally demonstrated from MRI studies that a system with similar functions to the macaques’ mirror neurons also exists in humans (L. Carr et al., 2003). But debates continue about the wider relevance of the mirror neuron discoveries (e.g. Caramazza et al., 2014; Lieberman, 2012), and their relevance to the role of mimicry in human behaviour, especially in infants’ and children’s learning (E. Carr & Winkielman, 2014; Duffy & Chartrand, 2015). So what exactly is the significance of the discovery that we share this neural apparatus with macaque monkeys? In their huge review of the literature on infant intersubjectivity, Trevarthen and Aitken draw extensively on neuroscience and cite the Parma research findings in their speculations about infants’ “mirroring and interacting with gestural and linguistic expressions of other individuals” (Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001, p.  23). Gallese and Goldman suggest that by adopting an evolutionary frame of reference when we study the behaviour of humans today, we can start to understand the immensely gradual processes through which, in the case of

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mirror neurons, earlier beings’ need to understand the actions and purposes of others. Initially this was in order to survive, but they argue that it must have led to complex capabilities such as empathy (Gallese & Goldman, 1998, p. 493). “Other individuals” must include those represented in movies: not only the realistic characters seen in live-action movies, but also in even quite fanciful animated and costumed figures in movies for children, since characters’ facial expressions and bodily movements are frequently exaggerated to display their emotional states and their motivations. Parents often notice their toddlers deliberately imitating the actions of characters on screen, but other, less obvious versions of mimicry can also be observed. Our understanding of the role of mimicry in social life can be enhanced if we reflect on our own behaviour. Scholars who investigate mimicry in modern humans stress its subtle and complex role in building and maintaining social relationships: It is a common phenomenon during social interactions: without noticing, we copy our interaction partner’s behavior or accent. This tendency to spontaneously and unconsciously copy or “mimic” others’ behaviors has been shown to play an important role in enhancing social affiliation. For example, it contributes to the development of liking and rapport between strangers and makes social interactions more smooth and enjoyable. Although this mimicry behavior is typically not under conscious control, it has been suggested that it is nevertheless strategically employed to enhance social affiliation. (C. de Klerk et al., 2020)

In an earlier study, de Klerk and colleagues had built on Meltzoff and Moore’s 1983 study of neonates’ imitative abilities (A.  N. Meltzoff & Moore, 1983) to demonstrate that by four months, infants have become more selective about what facial expressions they imitate: only those accompanied by direct gaze (C.  J. M. de Klerk et  al., 2018). In other words, there is a sense in which infants’ development reveals traces of our evolutionary past as they rapidly learn from their caregivers and from their surroundings as well as from their own physical experiences, about how to survive and grow as social beings.

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The Relevance of Embodied Cognition to the Study of Toddlers’ Movie-Learning Studies of children’s learning have begun to use embodied cognition approaches to explore ways of extending pedagogical practice through, for example, emphasising and valuing physical activity and handling of objects (e.g. Danish et al., 2021; Donohue & Schomberg, 2017; Edwards, 2016) or by investigating the role of embodied cognition as part of learning (e.g. Kosmas & Zaphiris, 2020; Wellsby & Pexman, 2014; Whitmore et  al., 2019). Although these are related endeavours, given that both draw upon embodied cognition scholarship, it is the latter area that I am focusing on in this book, although the difference here is my focus on the self-directed learning that toddlers undertake if they are allowed to view movies. There is also the added difference that many of the images they see in movies are likely to bear some resemblance to human beings and/or animals and to activities that they may also recognise, which can give them a flying start in exploring what meanings movies may yield if studied closely. An awareness of embodied cognition theories also encourages us to focus on toddlers’ sometimes minute and fleeting physical signs of instinctive emotional responses, to look for what may have generated them, and to try and interpret them within the context of human ontogeny and evolution. My analysis of the focused attention phenomenon in Chap. 3 demonstrates this. I reject the assumption that movies must have a mesmerising effect on a two-year-old and start instead from the premise that instinctive responses are valid, even if the stimuli might be regarded quite differently by an older child or adult. My accounts of the “fear and distress” incidents described in Chap. 6 are further examples of this approach: the children’s responses to apparently innocuous scenes in movies are valid because they make sense in terms of the children’s states of knowledge at the time. Because their self-driven “expectations of significance” urge them to make sense of the medium, they will in time gain the generic and social knowledge they need in order to make more informed interpretations. This is why two-year-olds’ “misreadings” are so interesting: they can be seen as proof that we do have to learn how to understand movies.

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Mimicry and Cultural Learning: Vignette C Even in infants, mimicry of others is an important contribution to socialising and cultural understanding, enabling them to recognise other people’s actions and feelings (Daum et al., 2009). But I also observed the twins making tentative and, occasionally, obvious imitations of the behaviour of characters they saw on screen. They could also be seen simulating aural and visual clues from others present (see Chap. 9). Playful appropriations and imitations of movie characters and situations would accord with Gallese’s argument that the physical experience of simulating particular gestures, expressions or postures can give one an idea of the feelings that generate them and may also arouse feelings of empathy. But imitating characters in a movie may also help them follow the narrative, by enabling them to recognise motivation. This phenomenon is also exploited as a conscious technique in dance therapy and theatrical performance (Thom, 2010; Wojciechowski & Gallese, 2011). The episode described in Vignette C is an interesting example of “mirroring” behaviour. In Vignette C, Connie’s excited anticipation of the clasping gesture, revealed in her mouth-opening and hand-clapping as the moment approaches, suggests that she remembers from previous viewings the gesture and its association with the pleading tone, which could in turn stimulate her expectation of the next scene in the narrative. Unfortunately, this was the only video I made of them viewing the movie, so I cannot produce evidence of what she had done in earlier viewings, but I am certain that she recognised the sequence and knew what was coming. This is confirmed by her father’s account of the first viewing (see Chap. 7). The mirror neuron research indicates that mirror neuron responses are instinctive, so this would suggest that they will vary in intensity according to the salience of the action as far as the observer is concerned. Connie is clearly intrigued by the gesture and its clear association with a strong pleading emotion. Although her father does not mention any imitation happening on the first viewing, it was clearly salient enough for her to remember it this time, anticipate it and attempt to mimic it (see also my discussion of salience in Chap. 8). This may be an example of her recognising and appropriating an important aspect of human social behaviour: the uses of expression and gesture to reinforce not only the meaning of utterances but also their emotional force. I had observed another occasion two weeks before this event, when she was viewing a movie that included a shot of someone playing a cello: her

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hand, dangling by her side, seemed to instinctively, for a couple of seconds, semi-imitate the cellist’s grasp of the bow, curling her fingers and swivelling her hand. I was fairly sure that she wasn’t consciously aware of doing it: it seemed that as an unusual gesture, she instinctively “tried it out”. I observed a similar phenomenon when I used a wrist-turning action to open a lever-type door handle while carrying a five-month-old. She viewed my hand and wrist movement intently, so I reinforced her interest by doing it again and responding to her verbally. She started to imitate it then and repeated it often for some days afterwards, especially when she saw me. To what extent are these similar to the experiments with the macaques, where the imitated action was food-related? The big difference here is that Connie and the baby were both interested in gestures that they hadn’t seen before, while the macaques were doubtless already familiar with the likely outcomes of nut-cracking hand movements. But in all three cases, it would seem that the observed hand movements were of high salience to the observer. It seems plausible to argue that it is normal for macaques to be interested in food, just as it is normal for a human child to be interested in social and cultural learning. In the baby’s case, she seemed to be just intrigued by what was to her an unfamiliar way of opening a door; in the 27-month-old Connie’s case, her interest was intensified by an awareness of Monica’s emotional appeal to her father and its role in the narrative. It is possible that the urge to imitate something new also relates to Lancaster’s concept of the “expectation of significance” (Lancaster, 2001, p. 132, and see also Chap. 3). On the occasion described in Vignette C, the additional factor of her mother’s intervention (Fig. 5.2) shifts Connie’s “mirroring” instinct away from the movie, drawing her attention to the gesture that she has just made. So there are several potential consequences for Connie here: Phoebe ratifies her attention to Monica’s gesture, but also demonstrates with her own handclasp that Connie hasn’t got it right; Connie is alerted to the possibility that this is a socially recognised gesture, not just some odd quirk of Monica’s behaviour. So she has several motivations for then also trying to mimic her mother’s version of the handclasp. This is a tiny example of the almost invisible moments of learning about social conventions that two-year-olds (and even infants) accumulate voraciously, every day, and demonstrates how instinctive actions can be recognised as part of a learning process.

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In his paper “The Child’s Need to Learn a Culture” (see also Chap. 9), the developmental psychologist Colwyn Trevarthen asks two enormously important questions: when we try to understand how young children, who are not realistic or logical in their thinking, come to learn about the culture they have been born into, we have to ask what makes them want to see things our way. Why do they eagerly learn the language and all the other peculiar habits and beliefs of our community, when no other species can do it? And, why was this remarkable human intelligence, and its emotional underpinnings, not understood? (Trevarthen, 1995, p. 7)

Addressing these questions in terms of his title’s claim that “being part of a culture is a need human beings are born with”, Trevarthen draws on his studies of infant intersubjectivity to argue that from birth, infants begin to demonstrate an “amazing appetite for common knowing”, which is motivated by their ability to “read emotions in the face or voice with surprising precision and can even hear and learn to prefer subtle differences in speech that identify their mothers and even the language that she speaks” (ibid., p. 9). This observation is less surprising when the functions of mirror neurons are taken into account: in 1995 these were not recognised as part of human brain functions. Given Panksepp’s explanation of how neural activations can trigger emotional responses that in turn generate actions (Panksepp, 2004, and see also Chap. 3), we can see how mimicry may be linked to affect. Trevarthen and Aitken’s review on infant intersubjectivity refers to Panksepp’s work on the neuroscience of the emotions and includes the comment that “emotions hitherto deemed complex, nonbasic, and acquired will have to be reinterpreted as primary and necessary to the child’s entry into the social/cultural world, with all the rational, linguistic and pragmatic conventions that the world offers” (Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001, p. 20). This convergence between sociocultural and neuroscientific research has interesting implications for the study of infancy and early childhood. As the American psychologists Semin and Smith point out, we now know that “nervous systems have evolved for the control of bodies, because organisms must adapt their behavior to meet bodily requirements in a rapidly changing environment. With this recognition, psychological theory and research has increasingly focused on the interdependence between

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cognition and motivation, affect, and action” (Semin & Smith, 2002, p.  390). Perhaps understanding this could help to assuage the anxieties and frustrations that parents and carers often experience when trying to deal with toddlers’ apparently random demands. Various versions of Piaget’s four-stage model of development (Piaget, 1936) still influence parents’ and educators’ belief that children’s development can be predicted and measured in ages and stages.2 Embodied cognition theories invite us to look at development more flexibly. They enable us to recognise that we share, even with infants, the evolved, instinctive, bodily responses to our environments and to other people that initiate our emotions and actions—and, inevitably, our learning. With this in mind, we may be more willing to try and understand a child’s behaviour from their point of view. The fact that they have less experience than us does not mean that their thoughts and theories are irrational or fanciful: in their terms, they make sense.

Summary In this chapter I have explained how and why I drew on embodied cognition theories in my research, including Panksepp’s account of affective neuroscience (see Chap. 4), because I found them useful in adopting a new perspective on pre-verbal children’s movie-viewing behaviour and how it may indicate aspects of their learning. It is possible to attribute greater significance to their focused attention and instinctive responses than has been the case so far in most research on children and moving image media, if we accept that these are not fleeting and trivial but grounded in long-established processes of learning and interpretation that we all share. By recognising that the roots of instinctive behaviour lie in our ancient evolutionary history, we can see that it remains an essential element of human thought and action. We can recognise what may at first sight be very fleeting, idiosyncratic moments in children’s behaviour as indicators of learning processes, and therefore grant them greater respect. Through self-reflection we can also recognise that there are deep continuities between toddlers and ourselves in the ways that we relate to movies. They may express their immediate emotional responses more flamboyantly 2  E.g. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/index.html; https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/ages-stages/#gs.qccno1; https://www.nhsggc.org.uk/kids/childdevelopment/ etc. (accessed 5 November 2021).

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than we do, but this does not mean that these responses are trivial, or a sign of serious disturbance. As I argued in Chap. 2, using experimental settings to observe children’s reactions as they engage with moving image media cannot contribute much, if anything, to understanding their real relationships with these media. I admit that I did in a sense “experiment” with the twins in deciding to show them Laughing Moon, but then parents and grandparents do experiment with their children all the time, as in “I wonder whether she’d like this toy” and “Let’s see if he’ll eat some pasta”. When I refer to experimental research settings I’m referring to researchers setting up a viewing session for children, with or even without their parents, in a university room, which may be adapted to look “home-like” but it isn’t the child’s real home. This is very different from observing viewing events in home environments and when possible, recording them; and following children’s own choices about what and how to view, including decisions about whether to bother looking at what an older family member has chosen for them. Although we cannot ask toddlers to reflect on their viewing, except through very occasional, opportunistic questions (see my question to 30-month-old Connie about her modality judgement, in Chap. 7), we can look for the bodily evidence of their emotional states: not only facial expressions but also, for example, bodily tension, breathing rates, hand positions, gaze and posture. We cannot always “read” these in a simple sense; but, correlated with what they are viewing at the time, we can speculate about the nature of their responses and at least identify the moments when their attention is highly focused and learning is likely to be taking place. The next two chapters, therefore, deal with examples of emotional responses to movies and what these may signify.

References Anderson, J., & Anderson, B. (1996). The case for an ecological metatheory. In D.  Bordwell & N.  Carroll (Eds.), Post-theory: Reconstructing film studies. University of Wisconsin Press. Bard, K.  A., Brent, L., Lester, B., Worobey, J., & Suomi, S.  J. (2011). Neurobehavioural integrity of chimpanzee newborns: Comparisons across groups and across species reveal gene–environment interaction effects. Infant and Child Development, 20(1), 47–93. Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 577–660.

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Bordwell, D., & Carroll, N. (Eds.). (1996). Post-theory: Reconstructing film studies. The University of Wisconsin Press. Caramazza, A., Anzellotti, S., Strnad, L., & Lingnau, A. (2014). Embodied cognition and mirror neurons: A critical assessment. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 37, 1–15. Carr, E., & Winkielman, P. (2014). When mirroring is both simple and “smart”: How mimicry can be embodied, adaptive, and non-representational. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Carr, L., Iacoboni, M., Dubeau, M.-C., Mazziotta, J. C., & Lenzi, G. L. (2003). Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: A relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100(9), 5497–5502. Chattah, J. (2015). Film music as embodiment. In M. Coegnarts & P. Kravanja (Eds.), Embodied cognition and film. Leuven University Press. Chion, M. (1994). Audio-vision: Sound on screen (C. Gorbman, Trans.). Columbia University Press. Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting mind, world and body back together. MIT Press. Collins, F. S. (2007). The language of god: A scientist presents evidence for belief. Simon & Shuster. Damasio, A. ((1994) 2006). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason and the human brain (Revised ed.). Vintage. Damasio, A. (2000). The feeling of what happens. Vintage. Danish, J. A., Enyedy, N., Saleh, A., & Humberg, M. (2021). Learning in embodied activity framework: A sociocultural framework for embodied cognition. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 15(1), 49–87. Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species, by means of natural selection, and the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. John Murray. Daum, M. M., Somerville, J. A., & Prinz, W. (2009). Becoming a social agent: Developmental foundations of an embodied social psychology. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39(7), 1196–1206. de Klerk, C. J. M., Hamilton, A. F. d. C., & Southgate, V. (2018). Eye contact modulates facial mimicry in 4-month-old infants: An EMG and fNIRS study. Cortex, 106, 93–103. de Klerk, C., Albiston, H., Bulgarelli, C., Southgate, V., & Hamilton, A. (2020). Observing third-party ostracism enhances facial mimicry in 30-month-olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 196, 104862. di Pellegrino, G., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., Gallese, V., & Rizzolatti, G. (1992). Understanding motor events: A neurophysiological study. Experimental Brain Research, 91, 176–180.

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Donohue, C., & Schomberg, R. (2017). Technology and interactive media in early childhood programs: What we’ve learned from five years of research, policy, and practice. Young Children, 72(4), 72–78. Duffy, K.  A., & Chartrand, T.  L. (2015). Mimicry: Causes and consequences. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 3, 112–116. Edwards, S. (2016). New concepts of play and the problem of technology, digital media and popular-culture integration with play-based learning in early childhood education. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 25(4), 513–532. Gallese, V., & Goldman, A. (1998). Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2(12), 493–501. Gaudin, A., & Roche, D. (2021). Sound & space: Sonic spaces in films and audiovisual productions. International Symposium: Call for Papers. Ecole Louis-­ Lumière. Paris. Gibson, J. J. (1986 (1979)). The ecological approach to visual perception. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Heidegger, M. (2010). Being and time. State University of New York Press. James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9(34), 188–205. Kosmas, P., & Zaphiris, P. (2020). Words in action: Investigating students’ language acquisition and emotional performance through embodied learning. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 14(4), 317–332. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. Lancaster, L. (2001). Staring at the page: The functions of gaze in a young child’s interpretation of symbolic forms. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1(2), 131–152. Leonard, T. C. (2009). Origins of the myth of social Darwinism: The ambiguous legacy of Richard Hofstadter’s social Darwinism in American thought. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 71(1), 37–51. Leonard, W. R., & Robertson, M. L. (1993). Rethinking the energetics of bipedality. Current Anthropology, 38(2), 304–309. Lieberman, M. D. (2012). A geographical history of social cognitive neuroscience. NeuroImage, 61(2), 432–436. Meltzoff, A.  N., & Moore, M.  K. (1983). Newborn infants imitate adult facial gestures. Child Development, 54(3), 702–709. Meltzoff, A. N., Murray, L., Simpson, E., Helmann, M., Nagy, E., Nadel, J., … Ferrari, P. F. (2017). Re-examination of Oostenbroek et al. (2016): Evidence for neonatal imitation of tongue protrusion. Developmental Science, 21(4), e12609. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). The phenomenology of perception. Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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Mikkelson, T. S., Hillier, L. W., Eichler, E. E., Zody, M. C., et al. (2005). Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome. Nature, 437(7055), 69–87. Mithen, S. (2005). The singing Neanderthals. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Panksepp, J. (2004). Affective neuroscience. Oxford University Press. Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. Routledge and Kegan Paul. Sbravatti, V. (2016). Story-music/discourse-music: Analyzing the relationship between placement and function of music in films. Music and the Moving Image, 9, 19–37. Semin, G. R., & Smith, E. R. (2002). Interfaces of social psychology with situated and embodied cognition. Cognitive Systems Research, 3(3), 385–396. Sobchack, V. (1992). The address of the eye: A phenomenology of film experience. Princeton University Press. Sobchack, V. (2017, December 6). The journeys of a film phenomenologist: An interview with Vivian Sobchak on being and becoming/Interviewer: J. Hanich. NECSUS Journal, Amsterdam. Tan, E. S. (1996). Emotion and the structure of narrative film: Film as an emotion machine. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Thom, L. (2010). From simple line to expressive movement: The use of creative movement to enhance socio-emotional development in the preschool curriculum. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 32(2), 100–112. Trevarthen, C. (1995). The child’s need to learn a culture. Children and Society, 9(1), 5–19. Trevarthen, C. (2005). Stepping away from the mirror: Pride and shame in adventures of companionship. Reflections on the nature and emotional needs of infant intersubjectivity. In C. S. Carter, L. Ahnert, K. E. Grossman, S. B. Hardy, M. E. Lamb, S. W. Porges, & N. Sachser (Eds.), Attachment and bonding: A new synthesis. Dahlem workshop report 92 (pp. 55–83). The MIT Press. Trevarthen, C., & Aitken, K. J. (2001). Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory, and clinical applications. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42(1), 3–48. Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. The MIT Press. Ward, M. S. (2015). Art in noise: An embodied simulation account of cinematic sound design. In M. Coegnarts & P. Kravanja (Eds.), Embodied cognition and cinema. University of Leuven Press. Wellsby, M., & Pexman, P. M. (2014). Developing embodied cognition: Insights from children’s concepts and language processing. Frontiers in Psychology. White, T. D., Lovejoy, C. O., Asfaw, B., Carlson, J. P., & Suwa, G. (2015). Neither chimpanzee nor human, Ardipithecus reveals the surprising ancestry of both. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(16), 4877–4884.

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PART II

Aspects of Movie-Learning

The chapters that follow demonstrate the use of embodied cognition perspectives on four phenomena that are commonly observed when toddlers view movies. Chapter 6 explores what may be going on when they express the powerful emotions that often give rise to parental concern: fear, distress and sadness. Several examples from my research are discussed, ranging through the twins’ development from 13 to 41 months, with detailed descriptions of their responses, what seemed to trigger them and in some cases their own strategies for managing them. Chapter 7 starts from the widespread assumption that children are liable to confuse reality and make-believe, arguing instead that they are deeply concerned with exploring and playing with real/pretend boundaries. The concept of “modality judgements” is introduced, and “expectation of significance” is again invoked as a likely factor in repeat viewing. In Chap. 8 I discuss the challenges involved in learning to follow narratives and describe how this develops, with re-viewing and memory being important factors, and children’s ability to follow more complex narratives being reflected in their choices for moving on to more challenging material. Chapter 9 is about co-viewing, for example with siblings, family or friends, with a discussion of what children may learn in these contexts. Different types of co-viewing situations are described, with an emphasis on the informal and often unconscious ways in which co-viewers support children’s movie-learning through their own instinctive responses and in modelling their viewing practices.

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Chapter 10 starts with a table of “response features” that organises the observed features of toddler movie-viewing described in Chaps. 5, 6, 7 and 8 into a chronological sequence and discusses their value in the wider context of children’s later learning. Using examples from my own teacher-­ training and advocacy experiences, I argue that UK schools are selling children short by failing to address—and build on—this important aspect of their cultural learning.

CHAPTER 6

Fear, Distress and Sadness

Fear is one of the most basic and ancient emotions, essential to humans’ early survival: it is primarily associated with the instinctive response to recoil or run away (Panksepp, 2004, p. 50). Movie-viewers of any age may deal with it by tensing their bodies or clinging to someone else; younger ones are more likely to curl up and scream, hide behind the sofa or even run out of the room. Responses such as these are a major stimulus for parental anxiety and frenetic media debate (e.g. Palmer, 2006; Sigman, 2007); they are also a topic for much amused, wondering and sometimes anxious conversation on parental social media, as I shall show in this chapter. Although screaming and running away to hide is usually interpreted as fear, I am also using the term “distress” at points in this chapter where it is possible that it could be the more appropriate interpretation: that is not fear of personal danger, but empathetic anguish about a character’s predicament, or even about a disruption of “normality”.

Parts of this chapter have appeared in Brown (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Film (OUP 2022). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_6

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“Inappropriate” Fears? It was the twins’ first full-scale movie-viewing fear episodes that were part of the stimulus for undertaking my research. The first took place when Connie and Alfie, aged 13 months, were completely terrified by what most people would think of as an odd, but completely innocuous and playful scene in an episode of In the Night Garden (Rag Doll Productions, 2007–2010). The episode involves the Pontipines, a puppet family who feature in many of the narrative sequences that form part of every episode of the series. In this episode, Mr Pontipine’s big black moustache suddenly detaches itself from his face and flies around the Night Garden like a moth,1 and the whole family has to try and catch it, chasing all over the Garden as it flies from place to place. Although they had seen the episode before, this time the twins both suddenly reacted strongly—Connie by screaming violently, Alfie by holding his body rigid—although both continued to stare at the screen. I was intrigued by this at the time because I thought it was evidence of undeveloped generic awareness, but once my research was under way, I realised that there could be different, or additional, explanations. For the next four months, Phoebe ensured that they didn’t see the episode, but there were several occasions when they would become fearful when they saw a sequence showing the Pontipines assembling for a meal in their front garden—something that happens quite frequently in the series—as it is in such a sequence that the moustache first escapes. Before I began my research, when the twins were 17 months old, I asked Phoebe to let me video them as they viewed the episode again. As the moment approached during the Pontipines’ garden tea-party when the moustache detaches itself, they both clearly knew what was coming and started to breathe deeply in nervous anticipation. Once the moustache had started its adventures, Alfie continued to sit tensely on Phoebe’s lap, while Connie stood up on the sofa behind them and screamed loudly, before getting down to go and hide behind the sofa. As Phoebe and I are both supportive of the principle that viewing something scary through to the resolution is a better way of dealing with fearful responses rather than stopping at once, we had agreed that she would just go on trying to comfort the children while the episode continued. So she went to sit on the floor beside Connie, 1  “Mr Pontipine’s Moustache Flies Away”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ4GZj7 KfBs (accessed 5 November 2021).

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bringing Alfie with her. Connie stopped crying and both children maintained their intent gaze at the screen, peering round the corner of the sofa, with Phoebe reminding them that it would be all right in the end. When the moustache was finally restored to its usual place, Connie clapped tentatively, and both returned to the sofa to view the rest of the episode. In analysing the video, it looked as though what had upset them more than the actual detachment was the “swanee whistle” sound that accompanied the moustache’s swooping flights, which perhaps accentuated the suddenness and randomness of its trajectories. Connie also swiped her hand in front of her body several times, as though she feared that the moustache might be coming into the room. When I showed my video to them four years later (to their amused and condescending reactions), Connie’s comment on this gesture was that at the time she had thought the moustache was a bat. This may well have been the guesswork of a five-­ year-­old rather than actual memory, given that at 17 months they hadn’t been at all familiar with bats, but Connie’s swiping movements did suggest fear of something swooping towards her. So at 17 months she may have been expressing an instinctive, innate fear of unpredictable flying creatures rather than a conscious recognition of a specific type of creature. Rapid depth of field movement like this is unusual in television for children of this age. But conceivably she might just have been using a hasty version of the Makaton sign for “stop” (holding up the hand in a “blocking” gesture). Alfie’s negative responses to TV during this period were less flamboyant than Connie’s but may well have been just as intense and perhaps longer lasting. A day or two after the initial Pontipine Moustache event, Alfie (then aged 13 months) viewed another episode of In the Night Garden in which Macca Pacca’s Og-Pog ran away downhill.2 Macca Pacca is a small, rotund troglodytic creature who likes to collect smooth round stones, and to wash these as well as the faces of other characters. To facilitate this, he has a kind of bicycle-cum-shopping trolley, called an Og-Pog, on which he carries a large sponge and a trumpet, and which he laboriously pushes everywhere he goes. On this occasion he parks the Og-Pog at the top of a slope and, while he is otherwise engaged in washing some stones, the Og-Pog starts to roll away downhill. All the other characters in the Night Garden join in the chase to catch up with the Og-Pog. Alfie became upset 2  “Runaway Og-Pog”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY7zbe4F8OI (accessed 5 November 2021).

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at this, cried bitterly and scrambled to Phoebe for comfort; Connie was indifferent. When we all viewed the episode again a day or two later, his distress was more contained. He didn’t cry but snuggled up to Phoebe to view the rest of the episode over his shoulder. Four months later, I videoed Alfie and Connie viewing this episode again. Alfie showed a little nervousness when the Og-Pog commenced its roll—turning to Phoebe and clinging to her again—but was otherwise untroubled and viewed the whole programme attentively. By this time he was also able to point to things on the screen and vocalise sounds expressing surprise and recognition, and to respond to music with rocking and swaying.

Managing Fear: Or Distress? The Peppa Pig “Sports Day” Episode Connie’s next response to something apparently innocuous was after my research had begun. It was just two weeks after their second birthday, and they were well into repeat viewing of library DVDs rather than just ­viewing broadcast or streamed TV programmes. Peppa Pig (Astley Baker Davies for Channel 5, 2004–2009) had become a new focus of interest. Phoebe signalled to me that Connie had been upset by one episode on this DVD, so when I came to the house on 24 December to deliver Christmas presents, I also took the opportunity to video the twins re-viewing this episode for what was by then at least the fifth time. The episode in question was “Sports Day”. Peppa Pig episodes contain several constant features: interactions between Peppa Pig and her friends (each of which is a different animal), and between Peppa Pig and her parents, and Peppa Pig’s tendency to chatter a lot. Each episode ends with all the characters falling down and laughing. The animation is two-­ dimensional and in soft colours with very basic backgrounds; the characters are simply drawn and have little detail. The focus of attention is on the characters’ mouths, which are quite large and more carefully animated to match the audio track of characters’ speech, which is very clearly and naturalistically performed by children and adults. All the programmes include quite a lot of talk—including a male voice-over—so following the programme can involve listening to the voice-over and both listening to and viewing the characters speaking, so can therefore be promoted as a

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stimulus to language learning.3 In “Sports Day”, Peppa and her friends take part in various sporting events such as the relay race and the high jump. Daddy Pig is also there: Peppa constantly wastes time talking to him and thus keeps on failing to win any prizes. The last event of the day is the tug-of-war between the girls and the boys, who all line up and start to pull on the rope. A close-up on the rope shows it starting to fray and the voice-over warns that they are tugging so hard that the rope may break. It does break with a twang, and all the characters fall over, laughing. For the viewing that I videoed, Alfie positioned himself right in front of the TV in the “braced” position, his hands resting on the shelf. He glanced from time to time at Connie, apparently aware of what was going to happen. Connie stood about two feet from the TV, and in a slightly less “engaged” pose (see Fig. 6.1). She was gazing slightly to her left in order to view the screen. For most of the programme she maintained this position, gazing intently at the screen with a very serious, almost frowning expression, licking her lips from time to time and chewing her cheek,

Fig. 6.1  Waiting for the rope to break in Peppa Pig: “Sports Day”: note cheek-­ chewing! (Connie aged 24 months) 3  See for example https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=10596; https:// www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Search:peppa%20pig%20language (accessed 5 November 2021).

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betraying her apprehension. As the rope-breaking moment approached, she half-turned to her right (where Phoebe was sitting), as if anticipating the crisis moment, but then turned back again to the screen, apparently realising that she’d got the timing wrong. When the rope finally did break, she immediately turned to her right, away from the screen (glancing at my camera as she did so) and swept her left arm around at shoulder height, bending her knees and dropping dramatically to the floor, so that she ended up on her knees, her back to the screen, emitting a loud scream, shaking her hands as she screamed and then gathering breath for the next scream. Phoebe reached down for her: she scrambled up to cling to Phoebe sitting on the couch, and continued to cry violently, her mouth big and square, tears flowing freely, but still glancing at the screen. Phoebe cuddled her and said, “you don’t like it when the rope breaks, do you?” Connie gasped, “Yeah!” and immediately started to calm down; Phoebe continued to wipe away her tears and cuddle her, and Connie relaxed viewing the TV again as the episode finished. This entire sequence took about one minute. In contrast to her continuing fear of seeing the Pontipine moustache again, Connie chose to re-view this episode frequently, and her distressed responses—which already had acquired a performative, histrionic air when I videoed them—gradually diminished. Three months later, when the twins were 27 months old, Phoebe told me what had been happening: P She got less and less upset by it. She would – yes that’s it – one time I was watching her through the back of the tent, so she had no clue that I was watching her. CB Through the what? P We have a tent, ok, and there’s a flap, and she was lying on her tummy watching the telly out of the flap, and in the back there’s a little window, and I could see her, she couldn’t really see me at all, I was way behind her and right out of sight. She was watching the telly and I was like, I’m just going to watch what she does, when this bit comes up, so I was watching her, and the rope snapped, and she went “snnff-­ huhhh” [breathes in and out very deliberately]. She sighed, and then she bit herself. CB Where? P  On her hand. And I went “don’t bite!” and she went “OOH!” [laughter] I went “Connie, don’t bite” and she went “Ooh, who’s that? Watching me?” [laughter again] and I was a bit ... saddened by

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that – she does … turn things inward like that; I don’t like it, but … she doesn’t have a way of expressing herself about it yet, she doesn’t, she’s not as confident with speaking as Alfie is.

These episodes correspond with many others recounted by parents on social media. Here for example are four people on Netmums sharing similar accounts: I really would like some advice on what’s been happening with our son for the last month. I first noticed him run and hide away from his favourite tv show (in the night garden) looking worried and when I asked him if he was ok and tried to take him from the corner he resisted so I didn’t push the matter further. Since then its now turned into adverts he dont like (nothing particularly scary at all! muller yogurt advert and ribena) and he shields his eyes and runs to the corner until its over. I know it might sound silly but I am getting slightly concerned. Has any mums experienced this and should I be worried??? (Sarah E, Netmums, 27-09-2014, 22.48) My two year old first started with macca pacca, it was generally just when he played his trumpet thing, but now it’s as soon as he comes onto the screen, then it was Raaraa the lion, kinda got that because of his constant noise, but now it’s turned into all cartoon lions, like the one on Tynga tales (which I love), there’s no consoling her though, she just cries and desperately try’s to turn the tv off or change channel, it doesn’t even make a difference if the sound isn’t on. I have also noticed that she has started to do it with adverts too. Again no particular reason :/ odd. X (Jo A, Netmums, 27-09-2014, 23.46) Don’t worry, it’s just a phase! DS14, niece and nephew at the age of 2–3 all went through a phase of being scared and refusing to view programmes they used to love for no apparent reason! Nephew took an intense disliking to the ninky nonk but was ok if ING started with the pinky ponk floating over the bush instead. It was the only one we could pin down to anything specific. There was a whole range of programmes between the 3 of them – Balamory, Numberjacks, In the Night Garden, Driver Dan... If it doesn’t affect the other children then it’s easier just to turn over/ rewind and repeat a previous programme till it’s finished (if you can). They do grow out of it, eventually. (Karen S, Netmums, 28-09-14, 09.59) 4

 DS is social media code for “Dear Son”.

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Yeah my ds did this for a bit with certain shows or adverts at about 18 months zingzillas petrified him for a bit mainly the bit with the giant stone heads counting the coconut clock it just came on as suddenly as it stopped. Def think its a phase. (Alexandria M, Netmums, 29-09-14, 15.51)

One notable difference between Phoebe’s handling of these episodes and the mums’ accounts above is that Phoebe, having lived as she had with both parents involved in programming and investigating movies for children, did what we would have done, which was to encourage frightened children to view something scary right through to the end if at all possible, perhaps cuddled up on a lap, in order to find out that the problem is resolved. She also recognised the importance of acknowledging their fear if she could, as in “you don’t like it when the rope breaks, do you?” rather than trying to persuade a child that it wasn’t that frightening really. This may have encouraged Connie to go on viewing the notorious “Sports Day” episode until she had, as it were, exorcised her fear. It is not surprising if children sustain their fears and even expand their range of scary movies, when parents react to their fright by immediately switching off the TV or turning to another programme (as Karen S advises), and perhaps show anxious concern to comfort the children, as in Sarah E’s efforts to find out whether her son “is OK”. Both of these strategies confirm to the child that the movie really is too frightening to view, and by implication, justifies their fear of something even worse being about to happen in the movie.

Attachment and Disorder It is notable that the Netmums discussants all interpret their children’s behaviour in these episodes as fear-related (i.e. “scary”), as I did at first. But fearful responses to movies are either related to the viewer’s instant feeling of personal danger (as in, e.g., seeing point-of view shots of an intruding monster or a precipitous drop) or to a deeply empathetic fear on behalf of a character they have identified with, who faces sudden danger. It is arguable that in all three of the events I have described so far, the children’s responses could more properly be described as “distress”. It is of course not easy to handle children’s sudden extreme reactions to apparently innocuous material, and it is certainly not easy to find out the cause. There are several possible ways of explaining their fear of the flying moustache, Alfie’s reaction to the runaway Og-Pog and Connie’s to the

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breaking rope in “Sports Day”. One is to note that all three involve the breaking of an attachment: the moustache detaches itself from Mr Pontipine’s upper lip, the Og-Pog breaks away from its rightful place near Macca Pacca and the rope breaks and throws everyone on to the ground. It is tempting therefore to see them all in terms of attachment theory (Bowlby, 1975) and, perhaps particularly in the case of the snapped rope, to Winnicott’s account of a child creating networks of string to join objects together, which Winnicott interprets as the child constructing a symbolic defence against his separation anxiety (Winnicott, 1960). If so, these events might be better designated as distressing for the child, rather than scary: they invoke the possibility of abandonment and loss of security, rather than direct physical threat. But Paul Kagan offers another explanation which I think explains Connie’s and Alfie’s fears more clearly. He describes how 18–24-month-­ olds can often be distressed by what they see as violations of states of affairs “which adults have indicated are proper”: his examples include broken toys, damaged or dirty clothing and things missing from their usual places (Kagan, 1981, Chap. 5). He links this to their interest in categorising objects into groups sharing physical or functional similarities (p. 88). It was certainly the case that both twins went through a period in their third year of being fascinated by order: Connie liked assembling toy animals into rows, often differentiated by species; Alfie liked to play with a wooden train set, making the train disappear into a tunnel and then reappear safely again. He was at that time greatly preoccupied with a Thomas the Tank Engine story, Percy and the Haunted Mine, which includes some startlingly gloomy illustrations of abandoned mine buildings mysteriously sinking into the ground.5 He devised many ways of working out how it might be possible to pull the buildings up again: “with a very big rope”, for example, and for several weeks demanded that I read him the story and make up some more reassuring sequels to tell him. Safety, order and restoring things to their proper state were thus important preoccupations for both of them.

5  Percy and the Haunted Mine is a book (now out of print) based on the 13th episode of the 6th Thomas and Friends TV series. The images in the book are stills from the TV episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuoWV7JLoMQ (accessed 05-11-2021).

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Narrative, Genre and Ambivalence It may not be so obvious to characterise the moustache episode as the breaking of an attachment. I am by no means certain that when the twins were 13 months old they had ever seen anyone with a moustache (which were not fashionable then), let alone developed any concept of what moustaches are and whether they are detachable; they were certainly rather taken aback when on a train journey, aged just 2, they noticed some men with moustaches and kept staring anxiously at them. The Og-Pog event could also be seen as evidence of Alfie being not yet able to grasp a basic element of story structure: the disruption of a state of equilibrium that sets the story events in motion (Todorov, 1966). The concept of “disruption” itself does not have to be very sophisticated to cause distress: toddlers can object as much as anyone else to items being, in their opinion, out of place. Alfie could perceive the Og-Pog’s escape as disruption, and be upset about it, but he had no concept of the generic conventions that tell older viewers it is bound to be rescued. In the case of the tug-of-­ war episode, it is possible that Connie was already attuned to the convention that a narrative containing several failed efforts is likely to conclude with a final successful one, cued in this case by Peppa’s interest in winning a prize, and perhaps also that the tug-of-war was girls versus boys and she wanted the girls to win. So although the episode follows the series’ own convention of ending each episode with everyone falling down and laughing, this may have been overridden by Connie’s expectation that Peppa (and in this case the other girls as well) ought finally to succeed at something. While both Winnicott and Kagan offer explanations that relate to children’s real-life experiences, it seems at least possible to extend this into their cultural learning. Older movie-viewers’ generic learning tells them when a movie is meant to be funny or will have a happy ending, and at a more sophisticated level can even enable them to enjoy movies that set up those expectations and then break them.6 But very young movie-viewers have a more limited repertoire of movie-viewing experience. Although Peppa Pig’s narrative convention of ending in laughter should be fairly 6   See for example https://screencraft.org/2020/02/11/10-films-that-defy-genre-­­ conventions/; https://raindance.org/7-films-subverted-genre-codes-better/; https://thescriptlab.com/features/the-lists/1464-top-10-movies-that-broke-the-rules/ (accessed 5 November 2021).

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easy to learn, especially for fluent speakers, this may well not have been a secure principle for Connie at only just two years old. The “contagion” of children’s anxieties about one movie spreading to several others, as mentioned by Netmums Jo A and Karen S, happened to some extent with the twins, in that for a while they tended to be a bit anxious about viewing anything new, in case it turned out to be scary or distressing. When they were ambivalent about the potential scariness of a movie, the seeking emotion was clearly still in force: they were interested in viewing it, but at the same time a sense of apprehension was complicating their feelings: they were keen to investigate, but also wary. There were several movies about which they held this combination of emotions, not only during viewings but also in discussions about what to view, changing their minds frequently before settling on a compromise. This happened with increasing frequency after the age of 30 months. It would seem during these exchanges that the seeking and fear emotions were battling for supremacy: they wanted to find out more about a particular movie; it still held intellectual challenges for them in terms of “what happened” (see Chap. 8); but at the same time, fear about what they might see, or anxiety about potential distress, was warning them to retreat from this choice. Of course, an added complication for both children was the fact that most of these choices had to be negotiated with a twin: there were no criteria of seniority or “age-suitability” to invoke. In these circumstances, then, it seems likely that the seeking emotion kept them alert and attentive, while the noticeability of features such as heavy breathing, bracing, lip-licking would relate to the level of fear or distress that they were experiencing. The precarious balance between the positive, “forward-moving” promise of “seeking”, the negative, “running away” warning of fear, and the inescapable anguish of distress, can tip in either direction. This ambivalence never went away, and indeed it is part of what keeps us all glued to the screen or the page when following a thriller or horror narrative, even when our generic knowledge tells us what the outcome will be. Grodal suggests that this happens when “the emotional force of the situation is relatively immune to high-order knowledge, like reality status information and knowledge of outcomes” (Grodal, 2009, p.  160). However, there may be a further factor at work here: the phenomenon of diakresis, which I discuss in Chap. 8.

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Distress About Endings The twins also showed continuing distress that could be related to deeper anxieties. Most of these could be interpreted as relating to anxieties “about separation, from the parents and from body products” (Woods & Pretorius, 2016), but also, or instead, to Kagan’s account of toddlers’ interest in categorisation and order, cited above. Connie had an increased interest in what Phoebe described as “relationship toys, so she has collections, she has like all the toys in her bed sorted into pairs of mummy and baby, a big thing and a small thing … I mean like she’s got sort of twenty toys in her bed”. A continuing issue, which affected both of them but particularly Alfie, was distress about the endings of movies. This was first noted by Phoebe when they were 28 months old, when she commented to me that “he’s very attached to whatever he’s viewing – we viewed Mr Tumble,7 and he burst into tears cos that finished. Any time a thing finishes, it’s like a major catastrophe at the moment”. Two months later, Alfie also started using a naming/conversational trope to manage many everyday routines, as in this dinnertime dialogue, reported by Phoebe in one of my interviews with her: A  Make the water talk to me! Hallo water! P  Oh, hallo, I’m your water. Are you going to drink me up? A Yeah! P  OK then, Here we go!

She followed this with an account of similar scenarios of conversations with poo, which had to thank him (via Phoebe) for letting it out and then ask to “go down the water slide in the toilet”. She then added a lengthy description of Alfie’s anxieties about the plug being pulled out of the bath and the water running away while he was still in it. In the same interview, she explained that he now dealt with the movie-ending issue by turning off the television: “He knows when the end of the programme’s coming and he goes and turns it off before it finishes”. At the same time, she reported that Connie had developed a different kind of separation anxiety, similar to her much earlier distress about the breaking rope, and possibly even the moustache:

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/something-special (accessed 5 November 2021).

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they listened to a story last night about a bear buying a hat for the moon, and he loses his hat, and at the end of the story Connie threw herself on the floor in a rage and I was like “Connie what are you cross with?” and she said “Hat!” and I was “Ooh, are you cross cos they lost the hat?” “Yes!”

Alfie’s anxiety about endings continued for nearly a year. Several of my videos from the three months before the children turned three years old show Alfie running from the room as soon as an impending narrative resolution led him to anticipate (usually correctly, even with something unfamiliar) that a programme was about to end. Finally, at age 37  months, when they were viewing a Meg and Mog episode (Absolutely Productions, UK 2003–2004), I caught Alfie on camera checking the screen as he prepared to run from the room, his jaw clenched and lips pursed, and decided to follow him out to the kitchen where Phoebe was preparing their dinner. In the conversation that ensued, in which Phoebe urged him to remember how much they both liked Meg and Mog, he could not explain why it was frightening, until suddenly I asked, “Is it frightening to see the ending?” With a great shudder and bodily contortion he answered, “Y-e-e-eh!” as though it was an enormous relief finally to have the core problem actually named. My question here was similar in effect to Phoebe’s statement to Connie about the Peppa Pig rope-breaking incident: “you don’t like it when the rope breaks, do you?” whereupon she immediately stopped crying. My question to Alfie did not altogether stop the endings-aversion phenomenon but seemed to ease it considerably. It seems that as long as parents and carers attempt to counter children’s inexplicable fears or distress with appeals to adult-level logic and reality (as in “it’s not really frightening!” and “it’s not real!”), the children may go on developing them into more and more exotic and wide-ranging aversions. Adults tend to worry that by acknowledging the child’s fear in all its surreal unlikelihood they may be understood as conferring the stamp of truth on it, and the child will go on believing it forever. In fact the reverse may often—if not always—be the case. The child’s distress or fear is already real to her: by acknowledging it, the adults convey their respect for her feelings. Addressing the cause of the fear or distress is another matter: a large part of it may be the child’s limited understanding of the episode in question, and she can come to terms with it once she understands it better.

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Managing Sadness: Baboon on the Moon Fearful responses to frightening things in movies are different from sadness. Grodal devotes a chapter to “Sadness, Melodrama and Rituals of Loss and Death” (Grodal, 2009, Chap. 6) in which he not only describes the emotions felt by audiences as they view sad films, but also seeks to explain why these films are popular. But the theories he offers to explain why people seek out sad movies and like viewing them again all relate to highly socialised individuals, that is adults and much older children. One theory—that viewing sad events in movies contributes to our sense of social bonding and the “sublime submission” of accepting what we all know cannot be avoided—does at least relate to the basic contagiousness of sorrow: we may feel like crying when we see someone else cry—as mirror neuron research explains (Ferrari & Rizzolatti, 2014). But in viewing events where the children felt very sad, the anxiety they felt about the prospect of re-experiencing “the sad bits” usually led them to resist seeing them again, because the sadness invoked unmanageable distress. Sadness is primarily linked to separation and loss. Panksepp identifies maternal nurturance as one of the “innate emotional systems” essential to early humans’ evolutionary survival. When successful, it results in the maternal and social bonding that facilitates individual and group survival. Panic (as distinct from fear), one of the four emotions that Panksepp links to human’s early environmental challenges, is sparked off in situations where the maternal or social bonds are—or seem to be—broken (Panksepp, 2004, Chap. 3, p. 50) and results in, for example, the anguished crying that is usually very successful in catching caregivers’ attention. Sadness is what follows if the separation is prolonged: Grodal calls it “a more passive form of separation reaction” (Grodal, 2009, p. 127). But my focus here is on the children’s recognition of sadness in a movie. A very interesting “sadness phenomenon” occurred when the twins were 30 months old: they both viewed Baboon on the Moon (Duriez, UK 2002)8 for the first time, with me, Phoebe and their Grandad Terry in the room as well. This was another of my impulsive decisions to show them “something different”: following a few minutes of rather chaotic and irritated behaviour that had involved the adults as well as the children, I spotted the DVD that contains this movie (which none of them had seen 8  Available at https://vimeo.com/58445945 (retrieved 22 October 2021; log on to Vimeo to view); also published by the BFI in Starting Stories 1, (2004) (accessed 05-11-2021).

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before) and suggested that we all sat down and viewed it, saying hopefully, “because I think you might like it”. The description that follows is detailed because this viewing event revealed an interesting strategy on the children’s part, for dealing with sadness. The movie is made in chunky clay and paper 3D model animation and shows the daily activities of a baboon who lives alone in a small house on the moon. After his morning routine of cleaning his teeth and making his breakfast, he sets out for work. His job is to start up an engine every day which, when he pulls a lever, starts the Moon shining. After that he sits on the edge of a crater from where he can see the brightly sunlit, blue and green Earth, at which he gazes tearfully, hearing in his head the noises of animals and birds in the African jungle. He stands up, points his trumpet towards Earth and plays a sad tune as the film ends. The movie starts with a slow zoom-in to the baboon’s house on the moon, during which we start to hear the baboon’s snoring. This is very quiet at first, so I had asked Phoebe and the children to listen carefully. Connie whispered something very quietly to Phoebe, who whispered “What can you hear?” After a few more seconds’ viewing Connie pointed to the screen whispering “Mummy!” and Phoebe whispered back “is it Mummy snoring?” (Phoebe is a notorious snorer). Connie whispered “Mummy” again and then turned to point at Phoebe, saying brightly, as though she now felt confident about her interpretation: “It’s you, Mummy!” Phoebe replied, “It’s me sleeping”. At this point the baboon’s radio alarm goes off and Connie was very surprised to see in the next shot the somewhat grotesque, multi-coloured, long-snouted head of the baboon lying in bed, opening his big staring eyes. She enthusiastically continued the “guessing game” dialogue, struggling at times with the fricative and liquid consonants that she still found it hard to say: C  P    C  P  CB  C  P  C  P 

[raises R forefinger] Ooh. What dat? What is de man? [chuckling]It’s, it’s a baboon [On-Screen music starts} [points again] It a PIG! It’s a bit like a pig Makes a noise like a pig, doesn’t he? [snorting] [sharp intake of breath] It a BOY!” Ooh [after the baboon gets up and reveals its long  hair]It a ’ady! It’s a lady?

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C  P    C  P    C  P   

yeh OK [All 3 view intently as baboon goes to bathroom] What is - what is name? I don’t know. What do you think his name might be? [On-screen: baboon brushes his teeth] [hesitantly] b’u’in ’is teep he is [  On-screen CU: baboon’s hand stirring a cup of tea; cut to LS kitchen] C  makin’ ’imsel’ a tea .... he’ dwinkin it!

At this point, Phoebe’s mobile rang: she got up, answering it, and left the room to talk. The children were momentarily distracted now that the dialogue with Phoebe seemed to be over: Alfie ended up sitting on the stool next to Terry and Connie, after wandering back to the coffee table to examine the DVDs again, and then being encouraged by me to continue viewing the movie, she returned to stand in front of the screen with her hands on the TV trolley, gazing intently and commenting as the baboon fills a fuel tank from his can of “moonshine” and starts the engine in order to light up the moon. But when the baboon’s tearful eyes are shown in close-up, she became silent, ducking her head and fiddling as if nervously with the edge of the trolley. Without Phoebe to snuggle up to, Alfie was now sitting near Grandad and viewing more intently. He started to offer comments on the rest of the movie: for example calling out “it’s a pear planet” when he saw the baboon-point-of-view shot of Earth, hanging alone in the darkness of space, with a simplified, pear-shape of South America visible on one side. Connie at this point turned away from the screen to announce to us that “it night time!” in confident, relieved tones, probably indicating her hope that the movie was now coming to an end—given that children’s stories often end with a “bed-time” scene. When a piano accompaniment joins the trumpet’s sad tune, she turned again to announce, even more happily (and revealing that she was by then aware of the convention that swelling music tends to come at the end of the movie) “it the end!” When I responded “It’s the end, is it?” Alfie immediately said “No”—adding, when questioned by me, that “the man” is going to sleep, but immediately switches this to “Mummy going to sleep”. Almost immediately, the credits then started to roll, and Connie waved her hand as if to make sure it really was the end, cheerfully calling out “bye bye!” and looking at me as if for

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confirmation. At this point Phoebe (who had never seen the movie before) came back in and asked brightly “What happened?” Connie dipped her head briefly again and then turned back to look at Phoebe, her eyes shining with tears (see Fig. 6.2). Phoebe asked, “What happened?” again, but this time anxiously. Connie lowered her head again and turned back to the screen. Phoebe asked again, “What happened in the film?” For a moment, Connie remained facing the screen, where the credits were still rolling and the music continued to play. She stood very still, her left hand still gripping the edge of the trolley, with her head dipped slightly to the side and her lower lip pushed out. Then she sighed sadly, and turned to walk towards Phoebe, who said, “ooh, was it a sad one?” Connie replied “yeah” in shuddering, sad tones and was gathered up for a hug with Phoebe, hiding her face. Then she pulled away and pointed at the screen, saying quite brightly, “YOU were there Mummy!” Phoebe asked, “But what happened to the baboon?” Connie brought her pointing finger back to her lower lip and pondered for a second, then said, “It … cried”. “Did he cry?”, Phoebe asked. Connie thought for a moment and then said “No” (possibly seeking to avoid the obvious next question if she said “yes”, which would probably have been “why?”). Both Phoebe and I then asked again about the crying, but Connie was already on to the next thing: pointing to the

Fig. 6.2  Inarticulate response to “what happened?” (Connie aged 30 months)

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screen, which was now showing the DVD menu, she asked for another film (which also involved the moon but was a comedy, and they had seen it before). I turned the camera to Alfie at this point, who was now close to the screen, pointing at the baboon icon and saying “Dat”—probably now interested to re-view the movie and see the part he had missed. Phoebe tried to get him to tell her what happened in the film, but Alfie just produces a series of slow, considered statements: “I liked the moon” “I like the dark” “I like to go to the moon”

It was clearly a challenge for the twins to deal with the distress they felt on seeing tears trickling down the baboon’s face and hearing the sad trumpet music, combined with slow dissolves between shots. The trumpet-­ playing starts with an over-the-shoulder shot of the baboon with his trumpet pointing towards Earth, which is in soft focus. As this dissolves to a shot of just Earth, in sharp focus, in space, soft piano (i.e. non-diegetic) music joins the continuing trumpet tune. Discussing the emotional “chills” that we may feel when we hear sad music, Panksepp and Bernatzsky suggest that A solo instrument, like a trumpet or cello, emerging suddenly from a softer orchestral background, is especially evocative. Accordingly, we have entertained the possibility that chills arise substantially from feelings triggered by sad music that contains acoustic properties similar to the separation call of young animals, the primal cry of despair to signal caretakers to exhibit social care and attention. (Panksepp & Bernatzsky, 2002, p. 143)

The “sadness” of this piece of music is also invoked by its being composed in the modern Phrygian mode, which is similar to the minor scale: commonly used in traditional Spanish music and in some modern jazz. A resonant atmosphere has also been incorporated in the sound design, so that the overall effect of the soundtrack is one of loneliness. It is clear from Connie’s silence and abrupt change of stance at this point, that she is affected by the sadness; it is also possible that her distress is amplified by the fact that she probably does not fully understand the baboon’s unhappiness.

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In her account of a project with a nursery class of three-year-olds that involved showing them Baboon on the Moon, Whitney describes how the whole class understood the movie very well and were in anguish about the baboon’s loneliness: in particular, they empathised with the fact that he is obviously trapped on the moon by himself. They developed the idea that he must be missing his mummy and daddy. The class—and some of their parents—spent a whole term devising ways of getting the baboon back to Earth and building a jungle environment so that he would feel at home when he arrived (Whitney, 2010). They had a powerful need to construct an alternative scenario that would be less distressing than the one they had seen, although none of the teachers or the parents felt that there was any problem about the children having been shown such a sad movie. How Connie and Alfie dealt with their viewing of this film took the form of a similar, if smaller-scale, scenario. They devised an alternative element to the film, based on the initial whispered exchange between Connie and Phoebe about the possibility that the snoring on the soundtrack might turn out to come from Phoebe herself, which is then apparently confirmed by both of them in the Connie’s exclamation “It’s you Mummy!” and Phoebe’s playfully confirmatory response “It’s me sleeping”. Although Alfie was half asleep on Phoebe’s lap during this exchange, he had clearly heard it and had hung on to the possibility that Phoebe really was in the film somewhere. This is indicated by the fact that five minutes later he believed that the film couldn’t end before a “Mummy going to sleep” scene occurred. Connie took this even further when Phoebe asked about the baboon’s weeping, excitedly announcing the imaginary alternative version: “YOU were there Mummy!” Both children, separately, had seized on the playful exchange at the beginning of the movie as a preferable alternative to what they clearly felt to be the unbearable sadness of the lonely baboon. What is really interesting about their “re-versioning” of the film is that they clearly seem to believe it, and in Alfie’s case at least it was sustained into his second viewing of the film, later the same day. This happened through a misunderstanding: he woke from his afternoon nap before Connie, and wanted to come and view another movie on his own with me. I thought he had asked to see Baboon on the Moon again, though when it began, it seemed that he was expecting something else: either he had confused the titles, or I had misheard him. He had, of course, missed some of the first viewing by going to sleep. This time he started to view the movie intently, pointing to the moon in the opening zoom-in, observing that “it’s getting bigger…it’s getting bigger and bigger!” I

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asked, “what can you hear?” He first mouthed “Mummy” silently, then turned to me, saying, “I can hear Mummy”. He then viewed the rest of the film quietly and calmly, though he did betray some tension (holding his fists clenched by his sides) and sadness (slightly tearful eyes and jutting jaw during the sad scene). Immediately after the end of the movie, the following conversation took place: A  CB  A  CB  A  CB  A  CB  A 

[turns to me] Don’ wanna baboon you want the baboon? [looks past me and shakes head slightly] No You don’t want the baboon? I don’ like er baboon You don’t like him? Yeh Why don’t you like him? [turns back to me slightly] I like Mummy, in bed...I like  Mummy in the office9 CB Mmhmm A   [tilts his head away] and I wanna ask Mummy a question [slides forward and stands up] CB  What’s the question you want to ask her? A   [stands beside me looking down at table then up; jiggles slightly] I been viewing Baboon Mummy [v softly] CB  Are you going to tell her? A  Yeah CB  What’re you going to tell her? A   [looks up] The big big moon and the big big train...the train is SO LONG! [gesturing “length” with both hands raised] CB  Which train is that? The train you made? A  No CB  Which train? Is there a train in the film?A No there isn’t! [impatient sigh] The long train on the track that we saw, and we got on it, and we went for a tiny ride10 on the big train!

9  “The office” refers to the spare room in their house where the computer was and where Phoebe would sometimes sleep. 10  “Tiny ride” was their term for when both of them sat on the footrest of the double buggy, rather than in their seats.

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CB Today? A  Yeh CB  Oh, the train to Finsbury Park? A  yeah[nodding] CB  Oh, that one, ok [A  exhales and gives an ‘about time!’ sort of smile]

Perhaps at the beginning of this viewing, Alfie was hoping that Mummy actually would appear this time, conforming with the memory they had both invented during the first viewing. When she didn’t, he then continued to divert my questions towards his own concerns and away from the distressing memory of the movie. The children’s behaviour during these viewing events is something like the disorder described by psychologists as dissociation, in which the brain blocks traumatic memories (Dell & O’Neil, 2009). Here it is clearly much milder and more fleeting, and from the children’s point of view functions as a useful device. In my conversation with Alfie, we can see how his thoughts slide easily into alternative topics of conversation, which seem not to be a conscious diversionary tactic, but an almost instinctive preference for the more attractive memory images that have come into his mind. The children have not repressed all their thoughts about the movie: they retained the “mummy snoring” image but they also retained the memory of the movie as something distressing that they did not want to see again. This links to my discussion about how the children made decisions about what they did and did not want to view (see Chap. 8): they tended to give a movie enough time to establish its dislikeable qualities before asking for it to be turned off. This did mean that they could register elements of dislike in their minds and retain them for future reference if they happened to come across them again.

Different Distress Scenarios I had first seen the children showing inarticulate, empathetic sadness when I showed another animated movie, The Tiny Fish (dir. Ryabov, Russia 2006),11 to them both (aged 29 months): at the end, they both turned to me, their eyes brimming with tears, and did not want to view it again. But a month later, Connie did ask to see “the girl and the fish” movie. It was a hot day, and she had just woken up from her nap, with sweaty tangled  Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DFCpR6eMkc (Accessed 22-10-2021).

11

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hair and a sleepy expression; Alfie was still asleep. She settled back on the sofa holding her two stuffed elephant toys, her knees drawn up. The first part of the movie involves a scene on a frozen lake where the little girl protagonist12 and her cat meet an old man fishing through a hole in the ice. He catches a fish and throws it down on the ice, chuckling gloatingly, but the girl is distressed to see the fish’s frightened struggles, and throws it back into the water. The old man instantly snatches it out angrily, stuffs it into his bag and walks away across the ice. Slow piano music starts while the girl watches him go, with an expression of dismay on her face as the sombre music continues to play and snow starts to fall. In the subsequent scenes, the little girl makes a paper cut-out model of the fish and then falls asleep, having a scary dream in which the old man chases her. When she wakes up, she returns to the lake with the cat and drops the paper fish into the hole in the ice. The fish seems magically to come alive and swims happily away; the girl and the cat return to the house. Throughout the first sequence, Connie had been showing signs of anxious tension, breathing more heavily and jutting out her jaw as the old man stuffed the fish into the bag. At the first notes of the piano music, she gathered up an elephant toy in each hand and hurled them away. One toy landed on the floor but the other remained on the sofa; she repositioned it on the left beside herself and turned to the camera briefly with an expression that could denote either anguish or rage—although possibly she simply turned to check my reaction (Fig. 6.3). She then turned back to view, leaning her head against the sofa, viewing the long, deep-focus shot of the old man trudging away as snow starts to fall ever more thickly and his boots are heard crunching through it. She raised her right hand to point to the screen, saying wonderingly “It’ ‘tartin’ to ‘now” [It’s starting to snow] and viewed the rest of the film attentively, only showing a little anxiety during the dream sequence, and tremulously asking me to “turn it off now” as soon as the paper cut-out fish had been returned to the lake and miraculously come alive again (perhaps here she feared another sudden snatching of the fish by the old man), but I talk her through to the girl’s return home with her cat at dusk and the tender final moment when she allows the cat to come indoors instead of staying in its usual place outside. 12  Ryabov has stated online that this character is meant to be a boy, but I have always thought it was a girl and so has everyone I’ve ever shown the movie to, so I will persist in this error here.

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Fig. 6.3  Connie turns to me: appeal or reproof? (aged 30 months)

Why Connie decided to throw her beloved elephant toys on the floor remains unclear. Clearly she had remembered, or realised, that the fish was not going to be rescued this time. There is a possible parallel with the on-­ screen action of the girl throwing the fish back into the water. So it could be that Connie was instinctively trying to reverse events and re-play the throwing-down action, but successfully this time. However, the action suggested rage rather than sadness. She might have been cross with herself: that the fish-killing moment simply came before she expected it to and she had failed to ask me to stop the film, because her “seeking” emotion had won out over her anxiety over having to endure the sad bit. Or she might have been angry—rather as she seemed to have been in her solitary re-viewing of the breaking tug-of-war rope, six months earlier—that the man still threw the fish into the bag, despite her hope that this time he might not. After all many of us have similar thoughts when we anticipate an upsetting scene. For example, when viewing Romeo and Juliet, we may harbour a vestigial, irrational hope (despite knowing the ending) that this time Juliet will wake up before Romeo kills himself. It might also be possible that Panksepp’s argument about rage being aroused by frustration (Panksepp, 2004, p. 50) could account for Connie’s apparent rage here

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and in the tug-of-war episode, if at least part of her emotion in both cases was fury that they weren’t turning out as expected. But Keating (2006) offers a different theory, which can also be invoked here despite his “Hollywood narrative” reference. He suggests that two kinds of emotions are at work when we view a protagonist dealing with challenges: First, we have an anticipatory emotion: hope. A Hollywood narrative typically encourages us to anticipate future events and revelations. If these anticipated outcomes are emotionally weighted (generally, by sympathy for the protagonist), we experience hope: hope that the protagonist achieves his or her goals. By throwing obstacles in the way of the protagonist the narrative can generate another anticipatory emotion: fear that the protagonist will fail. (Keating, 2006, p. 7)

I think it is significant that Connie did not immediately throw the toys when the old man retrieves the fish, but at the sound of the first few, slow notes of the piano music. As Walsh (2011) argues (with reference to Brown, 2000; Donald, 1991; Mithen, 2005; Sissanyake, 2000; Wray, 2000) music probably pre-dates language in human evolution, so “it is plausible to suppose that the relationship between narrative and music is more fundamental, more primitive, than the relation between either one and language or symbolic thought” (Walsh, 2011, pp. 54–5). The tempo and pitch of these notes simply suggests an irreversible, sad finality and it may simply be this that triggered an instinctive response for Connie. Given that by this time their generic knowledge of how movies work (as well as Alfie’s aversion to endings) had made them both quite sensitive to the ways in which movies signal impending conclusions, I think it is also possible that she had forgotten the actual ending of the movie, and identified the music, with the old man’s slow walk away into the blizzard, as signalling the ending or at least some sort of irreversible conclusion. If so, she would have felt not only distressed but also cheated by such an unsatisfactory resolution. There could be parallels here with her much earlier distress about the Peppa Pig tug-of-war episode: both might be seen as reactions to a story that isn’t working out as expected. We see here an interesting range of possibilities concerning a two-year-­ old’s difficulties with movie narratives (see also Chap. 8). Once children have enough generic knowledge, they can expect that a sad event early in a film is likely to be resolved later, thus increasing the desire to find out how this happens. At two, it is hard to remember the whole narrative arc

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from a single viewing. In this case the sentimental resolution (as expressed in Ryabov’s YouTube comment “kindness of the baby soul is capable to work a miracle”) may also be hard to remember, given that it rests on the belief that love and desire are enough to bring something back to life. So if the rest of the film has been forgotten, the girl’s failure to save the fish at this point just seems irretrievably tragic: the viewer’s sympathy is with her and yet she has failed. But then Connie’s sudden change of mood must also be accounted for. Her brief violent action—a reprise in miniature of her anguished paroxysms over the Pontipine moustache and the Peppa Pig tug-of-war—may have functioned cathartically as a way of defusing her distress; maybe she was just immediately intrigued and distracted by the start of the snowfall or reassured by my calmness. The fact that the snowfall begins here signals further action in the story; it might have been prompting Connie to remember that the movie does go on: the next scene involves igloo-building and has quite a different mood. The competing possibilities for interpreting Connie’s behaviour here cannot be resolved by ever-closer analysis of the video evidence and emotional responses cannot always be “read” from expressions and gestures. What is important, I suggest, is that we do at least allow for a two-year-old’s responses being complex and conflicting. Neither of them wanted to view the movie again until they were 38 months old. Alfie, who by then was not having a daytime nap (though Connie still did), asked to see some movies while she was still asleep. He first viewed another favourite three times and then chose The Tiny Fish: with a little encouragement from me he managed to view it right through quite calmly, only getting nervous during the scary dream sequence. But four months later still, he dealt with it quite differently. At their request I had shown them a series of movies chosen by them from the same DVD and ended up with The Tiny Fish. When it came to the fish-in-the-bag scene, Alfie began to weep hysterically, screaming “TURN IT OFF!” It should be noted that he was unaware of how Connie had reacted when she saw it nine  months earlier. He had to be left alone for a while to recover, after which I talked with them about the movie for a bit (I could not record or make notes on this, given the emotional atmosphere) and Connie then decided she wanted to view it through to the end—but Alfie immediately refused and ran out of the room. It seems therefore that Connie had found successful ways of dealing with her powerful negative emotions; perhaps even her earlier, apparently fearful, outbursts also had a cathartic effect. This may relate to the fact

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that she was able to re-view the Peppa Pig episode until she had, as it were, drained its emotional charge, without adult help. Alfie, in contrast, had sought adult involvement in his extensive set of concerns between 30 and 40  months—part sad, part anxious—stemming from his preoccupation with Percy and the Haunted Mine (see above) and amplified by viewing The Gruffalo’s Child when he was 33 months old. He used these stories to generate games about “spooky” things: darkness, the use of torches, and the concepts of rescue and safety. Connie sometimes joined in—happily running about in a local woodland with a stick, screaming “monsters!” for example. When the twins were three  years old, they had started to view the feature-­length animated movie My Neighbour Totoro (dir. Miyazaki, Japan 1988) but for some time could not get past the scene where the big bear-­ like adult Totoro first appears and utters a friendly but extremely loud roar as he yawns hugely. Finally they did: in Fig.  6.4 the children—aged 41  months—can be seen clearly managing their curiosity/fear ambivalence as they re-view the scene that had previously alarmed them: riveted, but hunched and huddled together safely with each other, and with their teddy bears.

Fig. 6.4  Viewing My Neighbour Totoro (aged 41 months)

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Research on Movies and Fear There has been no shortage of research studies on children’s fearful or distressed responses to movies, much of which has attempted to identify the long-term psychological damage that such experiences are assumed to cause (Hamer et  al., 2009; Harrison & Cantor, 1999; Owens, 1999; Singer, 1998; Wilson, 2008). There are obvious ethical difficulties in studying fearful responses: certainly with large subject samples and with the use of experimental methods: parents would never agree to scary movies being inflicted on their toddlers in order to find out whether or not the children turned out to have been traumatised! It could be objected that I behaved unethically in asking Phoebe to re-show the flying moustache episode to the twins and continuing to video their responses despite their extreme distress. But this was only possible because we had a shared view of how to deal with fearful responses to movies: to try and get the children to view to the end and were both interested in trying to discover the causes of the original event. It is thus probably impossible to study children’s responses to frightening or sad material, without undertaking longitudinal, ethnographic studies, conducted by researchers who know the children—and their parents—extremely well. The studies I have cited above all use surveys and/or questionnaires completed by teenagers or university students, which ask about their memories of traumatic viewing experiences. While these are interesting in terms of finding out what older people remember of frightening events in their childhood, they are inherently unreliable in terms of accuracy and consistency, being susceptible to high variations in how and why the past events are deemed frightening, and the judgements that individuals may later make about earlier frightening events in their lives. An extreme example is quoted by Harrison and Cantor in the introduction to their paper. They refer to press coverage of two ten-year-old boys who had seen the programme Ghostview—a now notorious spoof documentary broadcast on Halloween night in 1992 (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-­ england-­41740176), which did alarm many people who did not understand that it was a spoof. Four months after the broadcast, both boys were referred to hospital for persistent anxiety, where one of them remained as a patient for eight weeks. It could be significant that this boy had refused to view the ending of the programme: Harrison and Cantor assert that this is evidence of “enduring fright caused by a media presentation”, without considering whether it could have been the parents’/carers’ method of

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handling the situation, and indeed perhaps their own fear, that had traumatised the boys, as much as the effects of the programme. However, little of the extant research on this topic addresses toddlers’ fearful responses to apparently innocuous material, of the kind that I have described in this chapter—unsurprisingly, given that few people can remember events from that early in their lives. As the Netmums discussion demonstrates, fearful responses like these seem to be quite common in two-year-olds, but quite unpredictable. And they are only part of a much wider range of seemingly inexplicable emotional behaviour in this age-­ group, accounts of which for most of us are a rich source of amused or exasperated anecdotes within families, and in live or online conversations between parents and carers. Those who believe that movies are a uniquely malign force in our culture may seize on movie-related fears and distress as evidence to support a policy of trying to ensure that their own children never view them. But close observation of such responses as described in this chapter suggests that movies—like fairy tales—may offer children another context in which to explore powerful emotions and learn how to resolve them, as Bettelheim suggests in relation to fairy tales (Bettelheim, 1976). That these “inappropriate” reactions to movies that are meant to be harmless fun do not seem to happen in slightly older children, is another indicator of progression in two-year-olds’ movie-learning. Being able to make judgements about how “real” a movie is meant to be, and being able to follow longer and more complex narratives, demands repertoires of skills that enable a child to move on to material that would have been too challenging only a few months before. The learning-processes that lead to these skills are the subjects, respectively, of Chaps. 7 and 8.

References Bettelheim, B. (1976). The uses of enchantment: The meaning and importance of fairy tales. Thames and Hudson. Bowlby, J. (1975). Attachment and loss: Separation, anxiety and anger (Vol. 2). Penguin. Brown, S. (2000). The musilangauge model of human evolution. In N. L. Wallin, B. Merker, & S. Brown (Eds.), The origins of music (pp. 271–300). MIT Press. Dell, P. F., & O’Neil, J. A. (Eds.). (2009). Dissociation and the dissociative disorders: DSM-V and beyond. Routledge. Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the modern mind. Harvard UP. Ferrari, P. F., & Rizzolatti, G. (2014). Mirror neuron research: The past and the future. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 369(1644), 20130169.

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Grodal, T. (2009). Embodied visions: Evolution, emotion, culture and film. Oxford University Press. Hamer, M., Stamatakis, E., & Mishra, G. (2009). Psychological distress, television viewing, and physical activity in children aged 4 to 12 years. Pediatrics, 123(5), 1263–1268. Harrison, K., & Cantor, J. (1999). Tales from the screen: Enduring fright reactions to scary media. Media Psychology, 1(2), 97–116. Kagan, J. (1981). The second year: The emergence of self-awareness. Harvard University Press. Keating, P. (2006). Emotional curves and linear narratives. Velvet Light Trap, 58, 4–15. Mithen, S. (2005). The singing Neanderthals. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Owens, J. (1999). Television-viewing habits and sleep disturbance in school children. Pediatrics, 104, e27–e27. Palmer, S. (2006). Toxic childhood: How the modern world is damaging our children and what we can do about it. Orion. Panksepp, J. (2004). Affective neuroscience. Oxford University Press. Panksepp, J., & Bernatzsky, G. (2002). Emotional sounds and the brain: The neuro-affective foundations of musical appreciation. Behavioral Processes, 60(2), 133–155. Sigman, A. (2007). Remotely controlled: How television is damaging our lives. Vermilion/Ebury Publishing. Singer, M. (1998). Viewing preferences, symptoms of psychological trauma, and violent behaviors among children who watch television. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 37(10), 1041–1048. Sissanyake, E. (2000). Antecedents of the temporal arts in early mother-infant interaction. In N.  L. Wallin, B.  Merker, & A.  Brown (Eds.), The origins of music. MIT Press. Todorov, T. (1966). Les catégories du récit littéraire. Communications, 8, 125–151. Walsh, R. (2011). The common basis of narrative and music: Somatic, social and affective foundations. Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, 3, 49–71. Whitney, C. (2010). A learning journey. In C. Bazalgette (Ed.), Teaching media in primary schools (pp. 75–84). Sage. Wilson, B.  J. (2008). Media and children’s aggression, fear, and altruism. The Future of Children, 18(1), 87–118. Winnicott, D. (1960). String. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 1(1), 49–52. Woods, M.  Z., & Pretorius, I.  M. (2016). Observing, playing and supporting development: Anna Freud’s toddler groups past and present. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 42(2), 135–151. Wray, A. (2000). Holitic utterances in protolanguage: The link from primates to humans. In C. Knight, M. Studdert-Kennedy, & J. Hurford (Eds.), The evolutionary emergence of language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge UP.

CHAPTER 7

Reality and Make-Believe

Moviemakers invest a great deal of time and effort in trying to provide audiences with audio and visual evidence to convince them that what they are showing actually is real. Conspiracy theory enthusiasts use an increasingly diverse battery of video techniques in order to get audiences to accept misinformation as truth. Just as the earlier magic lantern technologies evolved to present ever more startling scenes, movies’ technological and stylistic innovations have been dominated since the 1890s by the drive towards the ever-greater realism afforded by, for example, camera movement, colour, sound, 3D and larger screens—each of which continued to develop throughout the twentieth century. More recently, computer-­ generated imagery (CGI) has been used since the 1970s to create realistic-­ looking settings and characters in movies (as in Walking with Dinosaurs (BBC 1992) or The Lion King (Favreau, USA 2019)), while video games use real-time computer graphics to create the illusion of moving through three-dimensional environments. However, experienced movie-viewers expect to be able to judge correctly the “reality status” of what a movie is showing—that is, how “real” or “true” it is.

Parts of this chapter have appeared in Green et al. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children, NYC and Abingdon: Routledge, and in Film Education Journal 1 (2018). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_7

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The practice of doctoring images to deceive audiences into thinking that they are looking at genuine factual material also has a long history. In the Soviet Union in the 1920s, the images of political figures no longer in favour, such as Trotsky, were neatly removed from news photographs. A movie example of a similar technique in reverse, in a fictional context, is Zelig (Allen USA 1983), in which moving image clips of Woody Allen as the character Zelig are seamlessly inserted into archival footage of famous twentieth-century events. With the wide availability of image-altering software such as Photoshop, it is now relatively simple to alter still images and re-edit soundtracks, and thus to make significant contributions to the thriving twenty-first-century “fake news” industry. The increasingly blurred distinction between truth and lies in digital media sources of news and comment is finally beginning to alarm some policy-makers, as populist leaders around the world sail into power on the basis of fraudulent claims that often include faked images and are hugely magnified through social media (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017).

Making Judgements About the Reality of Movies Although philosophers have been arguing for thousands of years about how we should understand and use terms such as “reality”, “real” and “true”, my focus here is simply on how two-year-olds may start to think about these concepts and to use these terms in relation to what they see in movies, and on whether they ever seem to believe that something they see in movies is actually real, in the sense of something physically present, that they can touch, or that might be able to touch them (which may have been the case with the moustache episode, described in Chap. 6). The predominant view in everyday discourse is that children are easily “confused” by what they view, or that they are easily “taken in” by movies, believing that the things they are seeing are “real” when clearly (to an adult audience) they are not real. I believe that these are condescending assumptions, which fail to recognise the way children make judgements about what is real. They may make mistaken judgements, but their ability to assess reality status—not only of movies but also of many other artefacts and cultural representations—is developing rapidly at this period, and they may use different criteria in these judgements, depending on context. An interesting account of this process comes from David Tripp’s essay “Television as Educator” (Tripp, 1992). He asked a six-year-old called Natalie to explain the difference between “real” and “unreal” by giving

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him some examples of comparisons between characters from real life with characters from television, in some of which one was “more real” than the other, and in others, both were the same. She came up with what at first sight seem some surprising judgements: for instance that her friend Nicole and the horse character Mr Ed (from the US TV sitcom Mister Ed, 1961–1966) were equally real. Her explanation for this judgement was “Because Mr Ed’s a horse, and like he lives in where the horses – he lives in a barn, and Nicole’s here”. However she also judged that the family dog, Misty, was more real than Mr Ed, because “Misty’s realer, like we’ve got him, that’s our dog and Mr Ed’s only on television” (p.  261). Summarising Natalie’s responses to adults’ insistence on precise distinctions between real and not real, Tripp paraphrases her remarks thus: “Well you can call them real if you look at them like this. But if you look at them like that, they’re not” (p. 263). He agrees that her answers are “conditional, fluid, even capricious”, but argues that she does in fact draw upon five constructs which, although they are not exactly consistent with each other, are all carefully thought-out and plausible: 1. Things are more real if they continue to exist in places other than on television; 2. Things are more real if they are representations of things which exist in places other than on television; 3. Things are more real if they behave in ways similar to the things being represented; 4. Things are more real if the manner of their representation is more like that of their other-than-television appearance; 5. Things are more real if their behaviour is consistent with the system of reality in the world in which they are represented as existing. (p. 264)

Obviously Natalie does not actually express these constructs: they are inferred by Tripp. They come from a child much older than two, who was therefore much more able than a two-year-old to express complex ideas. But I include this account because it shows how children’s statements about who or what is real are highly context-dependent, in contrast to what some scholars have assumed they must be doing (e.g. Hui et  al., 2015). Finding out to what extent the context-dependent view may also hold true for two-year-olds was an important objective of my research. I also bore in mind Hodge and Tripp’s recognition that older children, at least, tend to calibrate the assumed reality status of movies (Hodge &

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Tripp, 1986): essentially, some things may be judged “realer” than others. Drawing on linguistic theory, Hodge and Tripp propose that the question of whether or not children believe that what they see on television is “real” could more usefully be approached through the concept of “modality” as used in linguistics to “indicate degrees of certainty of a message” (p. 104— my emphasis). So, rather than expecting viewers to make cut-and-dried decisions about whether something they are viewing is “real” or not, they suggest that it makes better sense to assume that they (in this case, school students, not toddlers) are usually making, or trying to make, judgements about how real, or true, a movie is meant to be. Hodge and Tripp call these “modality judgments”. I wanted to try and find out whether the twins were making any kinds of judgements about the reality status of what they viewed. Because my research was deeply immersed in the family’s daily life with the twins, it was impossible for me to have structured plans about what I was going to look for and ask about. Clearly, some of the children’s modality judgements related to their fearful and distressed responses, as described in Chap. 6, with a prime example being the still-unresolved question of what they thought the escaped moustache was. In order to discover whether—and if so, how—the children might be making modality judgements, I could only ask fairly impulsive questions when it seemed, from the children’s mood as well as from that they were viewing, that one or both of them might be willing to answer a simple question like “is X real?” As it turned out, this happened most often during viewings of the short animated movie Animatou (dir Luyet, Switzerland 2007). As this movie is not publicly available, I include a detailed account of it here.

The Example of Animatou Animatou is a 5.5  minute non-mainstream movie, originally made for the Animatou film festival in Geneva, and not intended for children. It uses the cat-chases-mouse trope of the Tom and Jerry series of animated movies (Hanna & Barbera, USA 1940–1958) and other classic animation series in order to illustrate the development of animation through five key techniques: drawn, painted cel, sand, clay and 3D computer animation, each illustrated by a chase sequence. The opening sequence of the film introduces the mouse and then the cat as hand-drawn figures, mixes the live action of the animator’s hand and worktable with the animated action of the figures, and introduces a rhythmic, repetitive musical soundtrack.

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This mixed animation/live-action sequence ends when the animated images become full-screen, and we view the chase that ensues. After this chase sequence, the elaborated rhythmic soundtrack and sound effects that accompany the chase change to a tapping rhythm and an urgent rising tone that accompanies a speeded-up live-action sequence where another animator’s hands reappear, creating a cat image in a new medium, painted cel.1 The cel sequence show the cat chasing the mouse through a room, then out of the window into a busy street, and ends with them both running into darkness. Two eyes appear in the dark, created by sand animation, and the soundtrack changes again to a rhythmic buzzing. An animator’s hand reappears, using a fine-nozzle air blower to puff away the sand and create a white cat’s face around the eyes, in the middle of the black screen. The hand disappears and the rest of the cat’s body starts to appear in stages as it swipes the darkness (i.e. the sand) away to search for the mouse which keeps running across the white bits of the screen and disappearing again. The chase resumes with the sand-animated figures of the animals running in profile along a black line representing the ground. When the line ends, the cat performs the classic cartoon “oops!” shock-suspension in mid-air before falling; on the way down, it is replaced by a black-painted blob which then lands on another—real—animation table as a lump of black clay. Live-action hands appear and start speeding up to form the clay around a wire armature. Once the clay cat is complete, a live-action finger enters the screen to poke at its head, which then becomes animated. The cat now walks across the animation table to a computer screen and spots a digital mouse running across it. The cat snarls and flexes its long metal claws, then dives through the computer screen. A reverse angle shot shows it emerging inside the computer, its body transformed once again: this time into a digital armature—a 3D figure composed of white netting (see Fig. 7.2). The computer’s “insides” look like a rather dilapidated workshop, illuminated by a single, swinging, buzzing light bulb. The cat seems to peer back through the screen at the audience; then a reverse angle point-of-­ view shot shows the cat’s view of a computer animator’s hands dimly outside the computer, flickering over the keyboard, trying out different body-colours for the cat, whom we then see somersaulting in surprise at 1  In cel animation, images are painted on to transparent sheets or “cels” so that figures can be easily superimposed on to backgrounds.

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Fig. 7.1  Viewing Animatou for the first time (aged 28 months)

each transformation of its own body. The light bulb inside the computer flickers and goes out; seen from outside the computer, the cat jumps up to the inside of the darkened screen and peers through. Another point-of-­ view shot reveals a computer mouse on the animator’s desk which suddenly sprouts ears, eyes and whiskers. The cat hammers angrily on the inside of the inside of the computer screen, and the “mouse” struggles to get away: in doing so, it pulls its tail—or USB cable—out of the keyboard and the picture vanishes to a white dot, ending the movie. What makes this movie significantly different from anything else the children viewed with me are the constant transformations of the cat and the mouse, the random sequence of settings and the fact that the chase narrative is never resolved. The children saw the movie for the first time when they were 28 months old. I started it when they were still milling about in the room, but as soon as they heard the “swanee whistle” that accompanies the mouse’s first appearance, apparently “falling down” the page of drawing paper, they walked to the screen and remained motionless for the 5.5 minutes of the movie, apart from the occasional sleeve-wipe of their runny noses, both open-mouthed and gripping the TV trolley (see Fig. 7.1).

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Making Modality Judgements? They viewed the movie once more that day, two further times a fortnight later and more than 20 times over the following five months. For the third and fourth viewings, three other children were present, and all five sat on the sofa to view some familiar children’s TV programmes, followed by Animatou. When this began, Connie stood up and hurried towards the screen, viewing it both times from a similar position to that in Fig. 7.1. So it was already becoming apparent that she was starting to claim Animatou as “her” movie—the one that, for several months, she would ask for whenever a viewing session was proposed. But an interesting episode took place during this fourth viewing, which seemed to relate to a brief exchange that Phoebe and I had had during the second viewing, two weeks earlier. Phoebe had noticed that, in its digital armature version, one of the “normal” features that the otherwise simplified digital cat retains, along with whiskers and eyes, is a bellybutton. Phoebe expressed surprise that it had a bellybutton and I replied, “well, cats have bellybuttons. They must do”. In the fourth viewing, two weeks later, Connie gathers both her hands together and holds them at waist level, viewing intently, when the digital cat appears. She then places her right hand on the screen, apparently aiming for the swinging light bulb, but the shot changes and her hand lands on the digital cat as it turns towards the “audience”. Connie carefully repositions her hand to cover the cat’s bellybutton (Fig. 7.2). It seems likely that on seeing the bellybutton, and then deliberately masking it, she is remembering the conversation she had overheard two weeks earlier. Whether she masks it in order to see what it looks like without one, or because Phoebe thought it shouldn’t be there, or to resolve the difference of opinion between her mother and grandmother, is uncertain, although Connie did recall—unprompted—the conversation between me and Phoebe while re-viewing the movie nine years later. It is certainly an unusual moment, and one that could be related to thoughts about modality, as in: is this very unrealistic cat more realistic, or less, without its bellybutton? The fifth viewing took place when the twins were 30.5  months old. Connie had asked for “cat and mouse” (as they now called it) and began viewing it on her own while Alfie was still out of the room with Terry. She sat leaning forward, swaying in time to the rhythm of the sound track, gazing intensely and eagerly at the opening sequence of the hand-drawn mouse: the animator’s hand tries to flick the mouse off the page but it

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Fig. 7.2  Hiding the cat’s bellybutton? (Connie aged 30 months)

keeps returning (this is why he then starts to draw a cat, to chase the mouse away). I asked, “Is that a real mouse?” and Connie replied immediately, smiling confidently and not taking her eyes off the screen: “No, it’s a p’tend mouse”—“pretend” being the only word she had at that age to designate anything as “not real”. Connie had just seen the animator’s hands creating the mouse with a pencil: she was not too concerned with whatever it was that suddenly enabled the drawn mouse to start moving, but she was confident that it was not a real mouse. But it is possible that by using the word “pretend” she was acknowledging the animator’s role in creating the mouse. I was intrigued by this because earlier responses to this kind of question had usually been more playful, saying “yes” or “that’s me!” as if part of a game. This time I replied “Is it?” and she affirmed “yeah!” in a descending, assertive tone. A few seconds later I asked whether the cat is real, but she ignored the question because she was already starting to identify (by pointing and shouting excitedly) the second speeded-up sequence in which an animator recreates the cat in the painted cel technique. During the painted cel chase sequence I repeated the question and Connie replied confidently “yeah” (i.e. it is a real cat). Her different answer here may have

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been based on the enhanced realism of this chase sequence, as opposed to the simple, pencil line drawing of the initial appearance of the characters. She seemed to have distinguished between the drawn figures with minimal backgrounds and the painted cat and mouse, who move through three-­ dimensional (i.e. using perspective and shadows), full-colour spaces, knocking bottles off a table (with a crash), jumping out of a window, and dropping into a busy street with cars rushing noisily to and fro, in which the action is conveyed through changes of camera angle and a shot/ reverse shot cut (i.e. from inside the window to an external view from across the street) as well as with the new addition of naturalistic sounds. Connie’s “yeah” might be seen as a modality judgement along the lines suggested by Hodge and Tripp, that is, that she had recognised the animator’s actions that precede this sequence as intentionally trying to make the sequence more realistic. It is an exciting, speeded-up painting process in which an animator’s hands colour in the different parts of the cat and insert a second, black-painted cel behind it, to convey the darkness of the room it’s just emerged from. At the same time, Connie had applied a variation on Natalie’s construct 4 (things are more real if the manner of their representation is more like that of their other-than-television appearance). In this case, the scene may be judged as more real because it not only has colour but also perspective, shadows, sound and editing, that combine to convey the spatial layout of the scene. It was assumed in the family that what attracted Connie to this movie in particular was the presence of a cat, but I suspect it was as much or more its revelation of film-­ making processes: she has always been interested in how things work and how they are made.

“Confusion” and Pretence Some scholars argue that when children make erroneous “real/not real” distinctions, they must be “confused” about the relationship between representations of scenes in movies or still images, and real life. For example, Troseth claims to demonstrate this “confusion” by citing a two-year-old whom she observed “viewing a home video of herself and her family building a tower of books and blocks. She retrieved a block and tried to hand it to the people on the TV set, saying, ‘Here.’” (Troseth, 2010, pp. 156–7). Assuming that this must signify confusion, Troseth argues that two-year-­ old children still “need to master a set of conventions comprising the ‘grammar’ of video [sic]”—apparently ignoring the possibility that this

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might be a deliberately playful gesture. At 27 months, Connie did a very similar thing, going up to the screen with a strawberry on a fork and offering it to the very hungry caterpillar in the movie version of the Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Stories (The Illuminated Film Company for Scholastic Productions, 1993)—who was also eating a strawberry at the time. This was clearly a playful performance for the other people in the room, of which part of the intended humorous appeal was precisely its violation of—not so much movie “grammar”, as established and shared knowledge about the impermeability of the screen. Two-year-olds’ playful engagements with movies are ontologically complex. Flavell et al.’s work in the 1980s on children’s “pretend-real” distinctions (Flavell et al., 1987) offers a usefully nuanced view on how children may come to develop clearer judgements about the “reality” of objects: “once the ability to simultaneously think of something as ‘pretend this but really that’ is sufficiently developed, it may be available for transfer to appearance-reality and perspectival situations”—which is what Connie was doing in the strawberry offering “game”. There is a sense in which an emergent notion of modality judgements is appearing here: playing with the “reality” of a movie which is clearly based on picture-book drawings that they were already familiar with, indicates a shared pleasure in combining the knowledge of its constructedness with the pleasure of pretending that it is real. After all, the notion of “pretend” is itself a complex issue in children’s play. Harris’ account of children’s imagination is extremely pertinent here (Harris, 2000). He explains that “the capacity to imagine alternative possibilities and to work out their implications emerges early in the course of children’s development and lasts a lifetime” (p. xi). Using observations of children and parents, he demonstrates that pretend play starts in the second year of life and suggests that it is the foundation of “absorption in novels, films or theatre” in later life (p. 6). Pretend play is of course also very much encouraged by parents, carers and older siblings when they entertain babies. Harris offers a developmental hypothesis, in which very young children become completely absorbed in a story or a movie and “appraise it as if it were real” (p. 78). His counter-argument to the idea that children may “confuse fantasy and reality” (a recurrent trope in adult anxieties about movie effects) is that children are perfectly well aware that fictional narratives and pretend play are not real, but that “this ontological distinction is not deployed in processing make-believe or story episodes” (ibid.). Coleridge’s account of the same phenomenon, expressed as

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“willing suspension of disbelief”, equates it with “poetic faith” (Coleridge, 1817 (2004)); Harris claims that this must have been an essential part of humans’ early cultural development, associated with the paintings, bodily ornaments and burial practices that, as far as we know, only began to appear between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, in the Upper Palaeolithic period (p. x). It could also be argued that the ability to envisage alternative scenarios and their consequences, which is so important in make-believe play, must have conferred evolutionary advantages on those early humans who were good at it, for example in hunting or tool-making. We can also see that much of the play behaviour by other young mammals—pretend fighting and chasing, for example—is rehearsing later, more dangerous situations. Play is a serious business! The Danish film scholar Torben Grodal (2006) develops a model of film experience based closely on neuroscientific findings about the relationship between emotions and thought, describing “the flow from perception, via emotional activation and cognitive processing, to motor action” as an essential component of understanding movies (Grodal, 2006, p. 1). This leads him into an account of the way viewers handle the reality status of what they see, which provides an interesting contrast with Coleridge’s formula: “contrary to the common credo that fiction demands a suspension of disbelief, it actually demands a modification of belief so that film viewing does not produce full-scale illusions” (Grodal, 2006, p. 154). The reason for this, Grodal says, is that if we really did believe the amazingly realistic moving images and sounds that movies present to us, we would be constantly screaming or hiding under the seat—as the first film audiences are alleged to have done (see Chap. 4) and as I did when I first saw Psycho (Hitchcock, USA 1960). We have learned to accept—most of the time—that “it’s only a story”.

Playing with Reality As my discussion of co-viewing indicates, two-year-olds are immersed in a world of fluctuating behavioural modes, where they can negotiate—or ignore—agendas set by adults. Each of these modes has a bearing on reality status: not only of what is being viewed, but also on associated comments and behaviour. Thus when Connie (aged 26 months) was viewing the “Painting” episode of Peppa Pig, in which Daddy Pig puts on a beret when he paints a picture, and she was reminded by Phoebe that she too had a beret, she rushed to find her own beret and put it on (Fig. 7.3).

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Fig. 7.3  Connie becomes Daddy Pig (age 26 months)

As she posed in front of the screen, she murmured “me Daddy Pig” and then more confidently repeated this as she turned to Phoebe, who interpreted her utterance as “like Daddy Pig”. But Connie insisted “No, ME Daddy Pig!” until Phoebe agreed with her. It is perfectly possible to be Daddy Pig when one feels like it, without ceasing to be Connie just as, in the star system of mainstream movies, it is not only possible but absolutely necessary for Daniel Craig to be James Bond, for example, without ceasing to be Daniel Craig, because that is part of the appeal of the star phenomenon, and indeed the fascination of any kind of performance. The “slipperiness” of fantasy-reality distinctions is illustrated in the following exchange which occurred when the children were aged 42 months. Phoebe suddenly decided to ask the children about their modality judgements in relation to the continuity presenter they were viewing on Milkshake (Channel 5), who was talking about the Jellyjamm animated series, set on “Planet Jammbo” (Vodka Capital and 737 SHAKER, Spain 2011–2013). I quickly snatched up my iPhone and began an audio-­ recording, whose quality is considerably compromised by the loud TV sound so that several utterances are inaudible and speakers sometimes difficult to identify, but in which Phoebe’s bright tone of voice clearly indicates that her questions are intended to be playful.

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P

  Can we go and see … can we go to the castle, where they live? C?   Yeah P   we can? [pause/loud sound track] No? A?   [??teacher? + inaudible] P   ooh look! [Presenter VO: let’s go to Planet Jammbo!] You think she can see us? A?   I think she can! P   You think she can see us? Do you think that she can see us, that lady? A?   Yeah P   Is she waving at you and saying hallo? A?   Yeah P   Do you think we could go and sit in that room with her? That’d be good wouldn’t it? C?   Yeah P   Yeah? A   I’d get to know her name P   Yeah I don’t know her name either, I wonder. If we went there, we could ask her, couldn’t we? C+A Yeah A   [inaudible] …and we could see her kids P   see her what? Oh you’d like to see her kids [A yes] you’d like to see her children [both children talk at once] A  They’re Milkshakers2 P   They’re Milkshakers? Her kids are? Ah so when she’s saying ‘hello Milkshakers, well done Milkshakers’ is she talking to her children? A   Yes. I think she is P   Oh I thought she was talking to you. Is she not talking to you? A   I think she was talking to her children. P   Ah I see [both children talk at once] They were asleep, her children? A   Or waiting outside [A – inaudible] P   So she’s inside, and they’re outside. [TV noise] What about Jammbo? Could we go to Jammbo Planet? Do you think 2  Continuity presenters on Milkshake address the child audience as “Milkshakers;” perhaps this is what leads Alfie to conclude that he is not one of them.

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we can? It’d be fun to go to Jammbo, wouldn’t it Connie? How would we get there? Connie? [TV noise] How would we get to Jammbo? C   We’d jump through the telly P   We’d jump through the telly [TV noise] Shall we do it now? Go on then. C  No-o! [P no?] The glass’s come off P   Oh I see, the glass has to come off the telly and then we could jump through. Aah. Do you think we could go to Jammbo Alfie? A   [decidedly] I think we could! P   Oh. Ok.

Phoebe asked apparently serious questions about the reality status of what they were seeing, but she also added several clear invitations to fantasise: “that’d be good, wouldn’t it?” and “it’d be fun to go to Jammbo”. Alfie played along with this; Phoebe eventually decided to encourage Connie to join in with her theory about how to get to Planet Jammbo. But Phoebe also managed to extract two interesting and probably serious theories from the children: that the continuity presenter is speaking to “her” children (Alfie may have been thinking of her as a teacher rather than as a parent here) who remained invisible to us; and that “the glass” must be taken off the TV screen before one can jump through it. Here Connie may have been proffering this as a technical objection to Phoebe’s probably rather alarming proposal that they might try to jump through the TV screen there and then; but it is also interesting that she referred to it as “glass”, when she had ample experience of touching the screen surface and must have known that it doesn’t feel like glass. It could be that the reference to “jumping through the screen” may have reminded her of the moment in Animatou when the cat not only does jump through a screen (though it is a computer screen rather than a TV) but also, once inside, turns and taps on it with its claws, making a sharp “glass-like” sound, and later hammers on it loudly. Or it may simply be that she is using the word “glass” as a generic term for any transparent barrier. In this dialogue, both children demonstrate a willingness to join adults in the sort of playful conspiracy that Woolley describes as “fantastical thinking” (Woolley, 1997, p. 992). The children’s explorations of fantasy-reality distinctions came up several times in my interviews with Phoebe and Dickon. When the children were 20 months old, Phoebe told me about their relationship with the highly realistic animal glove puppets that they liked adults to “animate” for them:

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P It is almost like they think they’re real, in a way, but they know that when I take my hand out then it’s not real any more. CB So they’re enjoying the tension between almost real and not really real at all? P Yeah.

Three months later, when it was midwinter and the children had had numerous opportunities to see the moon, the children’s father, Dickon, recounted an exchange with Connie about the Eric Carle book and film Papa Please get the Moon for Me (see Vignette C and Chap. 5): D The first time she saw the programme, the DVD, the next day, we saw the moon, and she was saying “oooeeeh! Get me the moon!” … And I said “I can’t get you the moon!” you know, and erm so when we view it, I say “no one can get you the moon” in one breath, and in another breath, it’s like, yeah, daddy can get a ladder and go to the top of a mountain, you know, so they know there’s a reality/non-­ reality, sort of, you know, relationship vis a vis TV, so the first time she’s seen it, she asked me to get the moon and she kind of expected me to, and when I said no, I can’t, she was angry, but now she sort of understands that I can’t get the moon. CB Was she really angry? D Yeah! She was like GRRR, doing all that, but like when she watches it now, she doesn’t get all angry with me cos I can’t get her the moon. And when we see the moon, she might reach up to it, but she doesn’t expect me to get it. I think he also wanted it, he was going “I want it. I want it” and he was trying to sort of, as though he was pinching it off the screen, but I don’t think he really thought he was going to get it off the screen.

“Getting the moon” featured in two other movies that the children saw—Laughing Moon (see Chap. 2) and Little Wolf (Vrombraut, UK 1992: not available online). This is of course a familiar thread in the vast array of magical and fantasy scenarios in cultural products for children, including literature and movies, and extending to toys and games. In this wider context, some scholars offer more nuanced accounts which are closer to the indulgently ambivalent line that both Phoebe and Dickon take in these interviews. Woolley points out that “both children and adults entertain fantastical beliefs and also engage in magical thinking” (Woolley, 1997, p. 991) and urges that we should think in terms of “a continuum of

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ontological commitment to what we think the world is really like” (p. 991) rather than getting obsessed about hard and fast real/not real distinctions. She also points out that there is a dearth of research about this topic on children between the ages of 18 months and 3 years, suggesting that it may be in this period that “boundary confusion” takes place. A later paper (Sharon & Woolley, 2004)—although based, again, on 3–6-year-olds— argues that “rather than having misplaced the boundary between real and fantastical entities, young children are still in the process of actively constructing it” (p.  308). “Active construction” should not necessarily be taken to imply serious, individual effort: an important dimension of the twins’ exploration of modality, as exemplified above and also in the self-­ conscious co-viewing events described in Chap. 9, was its sociable playfulness. The innumerable games and rituals from peek-a-boo onwards, that parents and carers play with children, are ways of safely exploring emotions, desires, jeopardy and safety, identities, ethics, metaphor—and modality (Edmiston, 2008), within the pleasurable safety of intersubjectivity (Trevarthen, 2005). Edmiston takes from performance theory the idea of the provisionality of play: that it is a context in which we see the world as dynamic and changing: this can be seen clearly in two-year-olds’ avid experimentation with the boundaries of the real.

Proximity and Touching: Delusion or Exploration? At an early stage in my research, when the twins were not yet two, proximity to the screen was a high priority for them. The folk memory of 405-­ line images on bulging glass screens, which was supposed to be “bad for your eyes”, lingers on. But few adults have actually tried viewing a large modern flat screen with its tiny, densely packed pixels in millions of colours, from a distance of six inches. It is a remarkable experience. The images are still recognisable, and the screen exceeds one’s field of vision: in other words, it is more “lifelike” in the sense that one has to choose what to look at. The urge to get close may also be related to the assertion by Steemers’ BBC interviewee that wide shots are over-complex for two-­ year-­olds (Steemers, 2010, p. 127; and see Chap. 3). For an adult, striving to take in the multimodal array of image, movement, sound, mise-en-­ scène, iconography and genre in the service of narrative, getting close to the screen is unhelpful. For a 22-month-old, getting close to the screen may follow fundamental, evolved instincts, in which “the main sensory modalities (eg vision, hearing, touch)” (Damasio, 2000, p. 159) must be

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employed together in the process of perception. Touching items on the screen has been imagined by some scholars as evidence about children’s alleged inability to distinguish between “mere pictorial representations” and “real, physically-present objects” (Flavell et al., 1990; Pierroutsakos & DeLoache, 2003). But Damasio’s invocation of evolved, instinctive behaviours offers a more plausible rationale for what the twins seemed to be doing when they touched the screen: toddlers tend to want to touch whatever they see, and feeling the warm smoothness of a flat-screen TV can be pleasurable. And of course they may want to find out if something like touch can be experienced, without necessarily thinking that the things on the screen are as real as the things around them in the room. The twins’ interest in touching the screen occurred within the 18-month–3-year period, where Woolley surmises that “boundary confusion” may take place. The episodes of careful, directed screen-touching that I describe in Chap. 4 differ from occasions when the children are touching the screen to point out something to an adult. I only saw it done in second or subsequent viewings, except with Taps (see Fig. 7.4)3 and usually it happened when the child concerned was close to the screen on their own. It is a considered, exploratory gesture, and in most cases seems to start with a single item (e.g. beak, teddy bear, orange, cat’s tail) but then the child’s attention seems to be drawn to the uncontrollable flow of images that is an essential feature of movies. Thus two things are going on during screen-touching: the attraction of the original object and the change of the child’s original focus to the flow of images beneath the finger. On each occasion, screen-touching starts when an object or character is in close-up, and the child’s gaze then shifts to scan the moving images or to accommodate a change of shot. The touching is gentle and exploratory, and ends quickly, perhaps when the child realises that by concentrating on a small sector of the image, they are missing what else is going on in the film or is missing what is going on elsewhere in the room. It is important to state that at this point, the family did not own an iPad or a smart phone: the children had virtually no experience of “swiping” a screen and had not yet shown any other indications of knowing touch-­ screen technology. But in any case, the screen-touching I observed did not look like swiping. It is worth pointing out, though, that the common practice of referring to the phenomena of touch-screen-savvy toddlers touching pictures in 3

 Available at https://vimeo.com/63959241 (accessed 5 November 2021).

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books or on screens, as based on a delusional belief that any image can be swiped, is probably condescendingly un-self-aware. I am sure that I am not the only adult who occasionally tweaks at a printed image, absent-­ mindedly forgetting that swiping won’t work in this case. We could at least wonder whether a toddler’s misplaced swiping may be simply experimental. Connie and Alfie seemed to want to do what most of us want to do with art objects, if exhibition staff would allow it, which is to touch the art object, to explore its “there-ness”. This is not about whether the chocolate cake or the cat are “real” or not: at this level of exploration they are self-evidently real images on a real screen. The urge to touch, I suggest, is not about attempting to find a “real” object within the screen, but about exploring the screen reality further: for example, finding out whether the object’s texture can be felt, or enjoying the sight of an object passing beneath one’s finger without tactile evidence of its passing. Having tried this myself, I also find it fascinating: almost hypnotic. Embodiment theories remind us of the fact that we experience the world through all our senses, and that emotion is the initial trigger of our responses (Panksepp, 2004). Film’s high modality status—sound, image, movement, colour, depth of field, duration—generates instinctive emotional responses, whether or not we are able to fit these into a causal chain of narrative. At two years old, Alfie and Connie quickly cottoned on to the game-like structure of predictable appearances and actions which characterised most of the movies they saw. But especially when viewing close-up to a large screen, they found themselves confronted with images which did not seem to connect with the basic story elements that they already knew. Sequences like the food flow in The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the cat’s uncharacteristic stillness in the Animatou computer sequence, were both fascinating and disembodied: they didn’t seem to belong anywhere. To a two-year-old, they may be like what Grodal calls temps mort: “periods in a film where nothing happens” (Grodal, 2009, p. 211). He claims that Such experiences are felt to be more permanent than the emotions and feelings cued by an ever-changing online narrative. This sense of permanence is central to the experience of higher meaning; since the meanings cannot be straightforwardly visualized, it is the saturated sense of some transcendent and abstract meaning that anchors the experience. (Grodal, ibid.)

While Grodal is describing adult experience here, we cannot discount the possibility that for a two-year-old the movement and change of images

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underneath their pointing finger may be a richly mysterious moment, drawing their attention to some of the basic characteristics of movies: they move; the movement cannot be stopped; the images change. What is coming next? Something new, or something I can remember, and name? To Connie and Alfie, being able to identify and name things on the screen was their priority at this stage of movie-viewing, and touching the screen was often linked to this: pointing out the toucan’s big beak in In the Night Garden (see Fig. 4.2) and pointing out the cel-painting in Animatou were social gestures, accompanied by excited shouts. But some pointing events were not social: they both touched the screen—or held on to their touch— in moments of what looked like quiet contemplation. A further (and, in terms of my data, final) episode of screen-touching occurred later on when the children were 29  months old, in their first viewing of Taps (Gravelle, UK 2003), another short animated movie. This was the only occasion when they actually did look as though they were trying to manipulate objects on the screen (Fig. 7.4). Two of the three tap characters have bent over and turned to look crossly at the other tap. Connie brushes her hand across the left-hand tap while Alfie pokes at the middle tap with his forefinger, exclaiming “up tap!” exhorting it to resume

Fig. 7.4  Touching the taps (aged 29 months)

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its original upright position (which it soon does). But even these gestures are tentative. They are, I suggest, still exploring the modality of the image, rather than being “confused” about it, and/or taking advantage of the size of the tap images and the fact that they stay in the same places throughout the movie, to collaborate playfully with the anthropomorphic tap characters.

Truth and Uncertainty Connie and Alfie’s temperamental differences added yet another dimension to their explorations of modality. Dickon and I discussed these differences in an early interview: D [for Alfie] the Gruffalo story was … all about fear and status and relationships, whereas Connie’s much more, erm, seeing the pattern and the sequential, you know, she learns the story, it seems to me, whereas Alfie’s looking at the story and at the relationships., but she knows it, she knows what’s coming next. CB Which is kind of like their behaviour, isn’t it, that Alfie’s I feel always more kind of aware other people [D: other people’s attitudes] whereas Connie is interested in how do things work – D Yeah, “how am I going to get into that!” [laughter] CB Yeah, “can I take it apart?” D Exactly! Yeah, what are the workings of it, whereas Alfie’s much more in tune with people’s energies, he’s a lot more interactive, which makes him more fearful, with new people, and situations. (Interview 19 January 2012)

Alfie often wanted to invent scenarios and play them out. It was he who would more often ask me to use a favourite pair of glove puppets—a lion and a monkey—to enact scenes that expressed the resolution of quarrels and the reinstatement of sibling friendship. One day when he was almost three, after Grandad had been cross with him, Alfie took the female of a pair of conventionally “gendered” toy fish (i.e. in this case the one with added eyelashes) from our bathroom and tucked it into our bed, “to get better”—perhaps to reassure himself after the telling-off. He then continued this ritual for several weeks, every time he came to our house. I referred in Chap. 6 to his preoccupation with the “spooky” scenes of collapsing buildings and foggy landscapes in Percy and the Haunted Mine,

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and to his anxiety about story endings. It seems to me that at least one common thread between all these scenarios was that of testing the reality of apparent threats and seeking ways to render them innocuous. If Connie had turbulent anxieties like Alfie’s, she did not act them out in the same way. Her modes of dealing with emotional crises tended to be inward-turning, silent and rejecting, until she felt ready for comfort. For some time her speech was a lot less fluent than Alfie’s, which no doubt made it harder for her to initiate fantasy scenarios with others. But one day (aged 31 months) she suddenly came out with a complete, perfectly articulated sentence, demonstrating not only her newly developed fluency but also her developing sense of self (Bauer et  al., 2011): “I’m not in the kitchen with Grandad any more, I’m in here with you, Nana”. Working things out for herself, naming things and finding out how things work remain some of her major characteristics, while Alfie has continued to like generating playful and fantastical narratives. So her engagements with modality judgements, when she felt like doing so, tended to be considered and precise, which is why, in this chapter, there are more examples from her than from Alfie. She continued to offer interesting responses to my questions about Animatou’s multiple modality levels, including, eventually, at age 34 months, “I don’t know” in response to my question about where the animated mouse has come from when it suddenly drops on to the animator’s “real” desk from the top edge of a sheet of paper—an example of “awareness of the self’s actions, intentions, states and competences” as described by Kagan (1981, p. 118). In the same month, on an occasion when I was alone with Connie at nap time, she asked me to read her “the dragon one”, that is The Paper Bag Princess (Munsch, 1980), and before I could start reading, asked me, “Is it true?” (I replied that dragons aren’t true but that people do sometimes change their minds about whom they want to marry). However, both children remained resistant to the concept of known figures adopting different identities. At age 35 months, both refused to believe that the actor Justin Fletcher played all the different characters in Gigglebiz (Fletcher, BBC 2009) and furthermore disagreed that he was the same person who played Mr Tumble in their former favourite Something Special (Johnston, BBC 2001–2012). This is consistent with Fernie’s finding (Fernie, 1981) that more than half of his sample of five-year-olds did not understand that TV characters are played by actors (quoted by

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Chandler, 1997). However, the movie industry has since the early twentieth century assiduously sought to blur the boundary between stars and their roles, playing on the power of desire to affect everyone’s modality judgements (Woolley, 1997). This perhaps correlates with Connie’s extreme distress (aged three) when she saw an animated e-card I had made, using the website http:// www.jibjab.com (accessed 5 November 2021), which featured a cut-out photo of Dickon’s face rolling helplessly downhill inside a large snowball. Her affection for her father and concern for his wellbeing overrode her usually quite astute modality judgements. Strangely, Alfie laughed at this card along with the rest of the family: perhaps in his case it was the social solidarity of laughter that overrode the alarm about Dickon’s fate that we would have expected him to have. Two years later, when they had both become fans of the Walking with Dinosaurs series (Haines, BBC 1999) featuring Nigel Marven and amazingly realistic CGI dinosaurs, Alfie did know that the dinosaurs were not real, but nevertheless would argue that “if you could get really deep down in the sea, you might find dinosaurs”— such was his hope that some of them might have survived somewhere. I also know that the dinosaurs in the movies aren’t real, but this does not stop me shrinking away instinctively (especially while viewing the series on my own) when Nigel Marven gets too close to one. As Hodge and Tripp (1986) point out, therefore, “judgements about ‘reality’ are complex, fluid and subjective”. Modality is “so strongly affected by innumerable forces that it cannot be treated as a simple variable” (p. 130). But to my mind it is the very complexity and variability of modality judgements that make them such an interesting and important part of children’s developing understanding of movies, and their roles in our culture. Being interested in the fine distinctions and guesswork that are involved in modality judgements is a large part of the pleasure of movie-viewing, and of being able to understand narrative. In the next chapter, I discuss the challenges that are involved in developing that understanding.

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References Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). NBER working paper 23089: Social media and fake news in the 2016 election (Working paper 23089). Retrieved from Cambridge, MA. Bauer, P. J., Larkina, M., & Deocampo, J. (2011). Early memory development. In U.  Goswami (Ed.), Wiley-Blackwell handbook of Children’s cognitive development (2nd ed.). Blackwell. Chandler, D. (1997). Children’s understanding of what is ‘Real’ on television: A review of the literature. Journal of Educational Media, 23(1), 65–80. Coleridge, S. T. (1817 (2004)). Biographia Literaria. (1817). Damasio, A. (2000). The feeling of what happens. Vintage. Edmiston, B. (2008). Forming ethical identities in early childhood play. Routledge. Fernie, D. E. (1981). Ordinary and extraordinary people: Children’s understanding of television and real-life models. In H. Kelly & H. Gardner (Eds.), Viewing children through television. Jossey-Bass. Flavell, J. H., Flavell, E. R., & Green, F. L. (1987). Young children’s knowledge about the apparent-real and pretend-real distinctions. Developmental Psychology, 23, 816–822. Flavell, J. H., Flavell, E. R., & Green, F. L. (1990). Do young children think of television images as pictures or real objects? Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 34(4), 399–419. Grodal, T. (2006). The PECMA flow: A general model of visual aesthetics. Film Studies, 8, 1–11. Grodal, T. (2009). Embodied visions: Evolution, emotion, culture and film. Oxford University Press. Harris, P. L. (2000). The work of the imagination. Blackwell. Hodge, B., & Tripp, D. (1986). Children and television: A semiotic approach. Polity Press. Hui, L., Boguszewski, K., & Lillard, A.  S. (2015). Can that really happen? Children’s knowledge about the reality status of fantastical events in television. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 139, 99–114. Kagan, J. (1981). The second year: The emergence of self-awareness. Harvard University Press. Munsch, R. (1980). The paper bag princess. Annick Press. Panksepp, J. (2004). Affective neuroscience. Oxford University Press. Pierroutsakos, S.  L., & DeLoache, J.  S. (2003). Infants’ manual exploration of pictorial objects varying in realism. Infancy, 4(1), 141–156. Sharon, T., & Woolley, J. D. (2004). Do monsters dream? Children’s understanding of the reality-fantasy distinction. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22, 293–310. Steemers, J. (2010). Creating preschool television. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Trevarthen, C. (2005). Stepping away from the mirror: Pride and shame in adventures of companionship. Reflections on the nature and emotional needs of infant intersubjectivity. In C. S. Carter, L. Ahnert, K. E. Grossman, S. B. Hardy, M. E. Lamb, S. W. Porges, & N. Sachser (Eds.), Attachment and bonding: A new synthesis. Dahlem workshop report 92 (pp. 55–83). The MIT Press. Tripp, D. (1992). Television as educator. In M.  Alvarado & O.  Boyd-Barrett (Eds.), Media education: An introduction. British Film Institute. Troseth, G. L. (2010). Is it life or is it Memorex? Video as a representation of reality. Developmental Review, 30(2), 155–175. Woolley, J. D. (1997). Thinking about fantasy: Are children fundamentally different thinkers and believers from adults? Child Development, 68(6), 991–1011.

CHAPTER 8

Understanding Narrative

We are all familiar with stories. We tell them to each other all the time, in face-to-face and online chats, in letters and emails and blogs: stories about what we’ve done or seen or heard from someone else; stories that are funny, sad, shocking, mysterious or scary. Accounts of things that have happened in families may get passed on and repeated often and become part of a family’s oral history, passed on to new family members—spouses, partners, children. Storytelling has been a significant human activity for a very long time. Research on the few hunter-gatherer societies that still exist indicates that storytelling must have been a central part of human culture for at least 200,000 years (Sugiyama, 2017). Today, we not only continue to tell stories to each other, but also to consume those (both fiction and non-fiction) created by others in many different media—television, radio, cinema, books, theatre, sport—and in many different genres. As Barbara Hardy claims, “narrative is a primary act of mind” (Hardy, 1977): something that we do instinctively. We create narratives for ourselves as we organise our own thoughts, memories and plans; and we bond with others in the ways that we tell our stories. But understanding and

Parts of this chapter have appeared in Brown (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Film (OUP 2022), in Green et al. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children, NYC and Abingdon: Routledge, and in Film Education Journal 1 (2018). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_8

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enjoying the stories we read and view involves many skills that are mediumand genre-specific. This chapter is about how two-year-olds learn to make sense of the ways in which stories are told in movies. This is not just a question of understanding the kinds of stylistic device that I described in Chap. 4. Understanding narrative includes understanding point of view (who is telling this story?), what is included and what is left out, what is shown and what is implied, what order events are recounted in, what the settings look like, how characters are presented and what seems to motivate them. All of these are inflected by the generic features of the narrative, which can help viewers/readers/listeners to interpret the narrative, and to make predictions about what is going to happen. Our predictions may be correct, except that we usually don’t know how it is going to happen, so even seeing an expected outcome played out is still pleasurable. And if our predictions turn out to be incorrect, then we may still have the pleasure of surprise, or laughter or the thrill of shock. Learning to understand narratives is thus an enormous challenge to two-year-olds, involving a wide range of skills. But they are motivated to do this because of the expectations of significance (Lancaster, 2001) that are also driving their desire to learn their own language(s) and to share and enjoy their family’s activities. This is something they have already been doing for a long time. Trevarthen and Aitken describe the “protoconversations” that even new-borns have with their parents: “intricate coordinations of expression and awareness… in relation to the expression of feelings, purposes and interests of another person who is entering into engagement with the infant’s expressions” and suggest that these may soon become the starting point for their lifelong engagements with narrative: The fascination that even 2-month-olds show for the narrative of feelings in protoconversations with a parent may hint at a further, much more important, function of innate human emotions. The feelings they project into the engagement seem to take on a life of their own, as if both adult and infant are each tracking the experiences of imagined protagonists  – an other or others, different from themselves. Such a fictitious emotional experience appears even more clearly in the poetry of baby songs and nursery rhymes. Maybe the infant’s absorption in the drama of the mother’s talk or song is foreshadowing the wonderful inventive imagination that motivates fantasy play in toddlers. (Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001, p. 20)

And Trevarthen and Aitken could well have added “…and is enriched by the fictional worlds they encounter in books, movies and games”.

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Learning to Understand Narrative Structures In her study of language in cognitive development, Katherine Nelson traces the links between children’s early experiences of episodes such as participatory routines, games and songs, and the later emergence of the “linguistic/narrative world” (Nelson, 1998, p.  91). She points to the importance of cultural artefacts such as clothes, furniture, toys, pictures, books, pretend play, and communication through shared gaze and pointing, as the foundations for symbolic communication; and to the importance of routine events in helping to develop the ability to hold in mind a potential sequence of actions. In her chapter “The Emergence of the Storied Mind” (pp. 183–220) she acknowledges that “story understanding at 2 years has not been extensively studied, although it is widely observed that children hear books ‘read’ to them by parents from as early as 12 months” (p. 207). She emphasises the significance of narrative both as a discourse genre and as a form of thinking, enabling children to handle temporal and causal relationships; she also recognises the children’s need for the repetition of stories. Sadly, she does not include movies in children’s early experiences of narrative, even though we know that many children are viewing them from infancy (Marsh et al., 2005). Pretend play is a way of creating and playing out narratives. Paul Harris lists three features of pretence that he says are all understood by two-year-­ olds. “Pretend stipulations” are like diegetic rules, because they establish what is and is not possible in the imaginary setting; “causal powers” operate in pretend scenarios to determine the results of an event or action; the “unfolding causal chain” contains the inexorable results that follow from the exercise of the first two features. Like narratives, pretend play also involves processes of establishing an environment and protagonists (“this is the forest and I’m going to be the monster”), sequences of events (“I’m going to chase you and you run away”), and the rules of the game (“this is the magic tree and you can’t get me while I’m touching it”). A child playing on his own will establish similar rules and may be overheard instructing his toys or play objects to follow his rules and play out his planned sequences of actions and events (see Fig. 8.1).

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Fig. 8.1  Sustained individual play—Alfie aged 25 months

Establishing Expectations Television programmes aimed at very young children take up the simple structures of play narratives. They may involve a quest, such as the Pontipine family’s pursuit of the escaped moustache (see Chap. 6) in which a lost or misplaced object has to be found. A very common theme— driven by the need to counter parents’ worries that viewing movies may be “passive” and “time-wasting”—is an activity like jumping, waving, wriggling and encouraging the kids at home to join in. For about three months, when the twins were aged 25–28 months, they often wanted to view the movie version of the Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Stories (The Illuminated Film Company for Scholastic Productions, 1993)—see also Chap. 7—the main part of which shows the caterpillar eating increasing numbers of different fruits. This enabled them to anticipate and name the items that were about to appear. A two-minute extract from the transcript of a viewing when they were 25  months old

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demonstrates the fluidity of this viewing event, full of movement, gesture, and exchanges between me and the children (transcript includes extracts from voice-over—VO): A   [points] Dere da egg! CB  That’s the egg C   [points] Moon! [draws one leg up] A   De kind of leaf C   [points] A bik haan! A bik haan! [a big sun]   VO One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and pop! Out of the egg... [C points] A  [points] caterpillar! C  Me! [pointing back at herself] Me! [looking at CB] CB  Is that you? [A continuing to point] C   Yeh! CB Oh! [A’s hand drops] CB  Are you a caterpillar? C   [draws hands together then points behind both ears] ear ear A   [points again] Apple! ..Apple! [C mimes bite and gulp] CB  That’s the apple, yeah, you knew the apple was coming, didn’t you? C   Cung [plum?] A   Dat apple C  Cung [A points] Ga be da cung [going to be the plum?] VO  On Monday, he ate through... A   On Monday CB  [assent]Monday . . .there he goes, inside the apple C   ‘side d’apple...p’um! [inaudible] [looking at CB] p’um! [plum} A   ‘side d’ apple..core C  [does more big bites 1st at screen 2nd with eyes swivelling to CB; both view] A   [still, holding bottle, C fidgeting bottle >< knees] Be a going[?] [at screen] Be a going [at CB] CB  Where’s he going? A   Cocoon.. [?] CB  What’s he eating now? Oh it’s still plums isn’t it?

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VO  On Wednesday, he ate through three plums A   T’ree p’ums! [at screen] T’ree p’ums! At CB   [C drinking again] A   [getting up] More p’ums [walking forward] more CB  [inaudible]   Uh? CB  There’s lots of plums on the tree, aren’t there?   [A stands holding bottle viewing] VO  On Thursday, he ate through four strawberries A   [points v emphatic] DAT der caterpillar! [leans forward pointing more] DERE da caterpillar!

This was the second viewing of this movie that I observed, but at least the fourth time they had seen it, and they had for a long time been familiar with the picture-book on which it is based. So by the time of this viewing, both children were actively anticipating, commenting on and responding to events in the story and utterances in the voice-over. The nature of their engagement goes some way towards explaining why children demand to view the movies that they are interested in, over and over again. They are developing their language skills and their memory, and consolidating their understanding of the story, through the game-like rituals of anticipation and naming. This movie offers a balance of predictability and change: the caterpillar’s practice of eating some kind of fruit every day of the week provides the basic, stable framework, but the fact that it’s a different fruit each day, and that every day he eats one more than the day before, also provides a narrative development format, leading up to the breaking of expectations when he discovers an abandoned picnic, eats too many non-­fruit items, and becomes ill. In this viewing, the performative qualities of their utterances had become very noticeable and they were very much aware of my presence, turning to me to repeat what they had said, and to get a response. When the movie got to the over-eating scene and its consequences, I commented “his tummy hurts” when we saw the caterpillar with a stomach-ache after over-eating. Looking at the screen, Alfie repeated my comment “tummy hurts”, then turned and repeated it again directly to me, adding a highly emotional emphasis (which I had not used)—responding, perhaps, to the caterpillar’s yellow face and anguished expression in close-up on screen— “Tummy hurts!” This emotional response to the physical state of a character was relatively new. It was similar in some ways to Connie’s attempt, three weeks earlier, to mimic Monica’s supplicatory handclasp in Papa Please get the Moon for me, which I described in Chap. 5: her focus then was the

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peculiarity of the gesture, but that in turn may have contributed to her understanding of the emotional state that generated it. In both of these cases, the children were moving closer to an understanding of character motivation, which is one of the main elements that contribute to the construction of causal sequences, the backbone of most narratives. Exercising skills in recalling and predicting what was about to appear or happen, as they did with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, was an important precursor to understanding that a character wants to do or get something, and that in turn leads to an understanding of the consequences. This is what the children were starting to do at around 25 months old: Connie recognised the intensity of Monica’s yearning for the moon, and Alfie recognised the gluttonous caterpillar’s reaction to pain.

Emotion, Memory and Laughter Before they became fluent enough to express character motivation, it was not easy to figure out how much the twins understood. As I speculated in Chap. 6, Connie’s distress (at 24  months) over the snapped tug-of-war rope might have related to a recognition of character motivation in terms of Peppa Pig’s and the other girls’ need to win a prize in the sports day. Six months later, however, the more complex emotional states of the baboon on the moon and the little girl trying to help the tiny fish were both a bit beyond them: they were aware of the emotional force of both scenes, but this empathy was unfocused: they didn’t really seem to understand in either case what was driving the characters’ actions. In particular, the sequence at the end of The Tiny Fish, in which the girl drops the paper fish into the hole in the ice and it magically becomes a live fish again, seemed to be too strange for them to take in and they were too upset to try and make better sense of it by viewing it again. Based on the principle that “narrative is fundamentally shaped and oriented by our emotion systems”, Patrick Hogan argues that the structural analyses of “classical narratology”, though valuable, have neglected to consider emotion and failed to recognise that “to identify an event or attribute a cause to it are both functions of emotional response” (Hogan, 2010, pp. 65 and 67). This is what was happening in both of these cases: it was the children’s empathy—with the yearning and the tummy pain— that illuminated their understanding of the characters’ needs. Recognising a need and empathetically understanding its emotional strength, induces a shared desire: hoping that the need may be satisfied and following the narrative intently to find out whether it is. In both of these stories, the twins

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recognised needs through the physical signs that each character expressed: Monica’s supplicatory gesture and the caterpillar’s contorted face. But Patrick Keating points out that following a narrative requires us to be able to hold earlier narrative events in memory as well as understand character motivation. He suggests that “it might be more useful to see [narrative] as a complex weaving together of anticipation/culmination structures in which our emotional reactions to present events are just as important as our anticipatory reactions to future events” (Keating, 2006, p. 4). Following narrative therefore makes quite substantial demands on memory, which is still in development at this age. In Patricia Bauer’s account of infant and toddler memory (Bauer, 2002) she points out that in many studies “the capacity for recall has been linked with the ability to provide a verbal report” (p. 137) which obviously meant that toddlers’ recall capacities were often underestimated by researchers. However, she describes experiments involving imitation which show “that long-term recall processes are emergent by 9 months, and that they become reliable over the 2nd year” (p. 138). The problem about finding out whether two-year-olds can follow a movie or not is that imitation tasks are unlikely to reveal much about their understanding of character motivations or causal chains, while the question “what happened?”—whether referring to movies or to real life—can be quite challenging, sometimes even to adults. One very simple—but unfortunately quite rare—basis for recognising that a toddler has understood a narrative is if she laughs—not simply the laughter of pleasure at a recognised scene or character, but a genuine laugh at a movie gag. When Connie and Alfie were aged 27  months, Phoebe observed them spontaneously laughing at a movie (for the first time, she thought). This was the “Water” episode of Teletubbies Season 2,1 which involves suspense and surprise about whether any of the other Teletubbies is going to get splashed by the water in a puddle, after Laa Laa has accidentally stepped into it. Dipsy steps over it and Tinky Winky steps round it, but then Po rides through it on her scooter and splashes them all. Laughter indicates a significant step forward in narrative understanding and is dependent on memory in order to hold in mind the build-up to a gag. Listeners, viewers and readers either have to be able to anticipate the payoff and be delighted to find out how it eventually happens; or to be surprised by the payoff and enjoy features such as appropriateness, skill, character typicality and narrative neatness. 1

 See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aggfLc_FLyM (accessed 18-11-2021).

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Moving on to More Complex Texts We can however infer how much children can actually understand a narrative, partly from how they view, but also from what they choose to view. By the time the twins were 29  months old, their arguments with each other about what to view had to be tactfully negotiated (or, failing that, arbitrated), but the question of whether they were going to view anything never needed to be addressed. If one of them then found that they weren’t after all interested in what was being shown, especially if it hadn’t been their choice, they would just walk away and do something else. The exceptions to this were when I would announce that I was going to show them something new, that they might like, when they would at least give it a chance. This mirrored Phoebe’s own practice: trying out new things with them and accepting their responses. In one of my interviews with Phoebe at this period, she explained their ways of responding to new movies: with Babar,2 they were looking at it very intently for kind of ten minutes and then they were like “don’t like this, turn it off”. They give it a chance, like “ok, what’s it going to do?” it’s not like kind of two seconds “no I don’t like it”, they will view something for a good 10 to 15 minutes and then “no this isn’t going anywhere that I like, turn it off now”.

In the same interview, she pondered the ways in which their preferences were changing: P Peppa Pig was MASSIVE for ages, wasn’t it, they just… CB How long is “ages”? P A couple of months. CB And it’s not any more? P Mmm … they had it last week – and they got a bit bored of it – we’ve viewed all the ones they have at the library – now, a couple of times, and they see – say one DVD has ten episodes on it, and they view it, you know, they see probably each episode five or six times.

However, we were both conscious that these expressions—“massive”, “bored of it”—were not capturing what we felt was going on as the 2  This was Babar King of the Elephants, an animated feature film by Nelvana Ltd. and Astral Films, released theatrically by Alliance Films and direct to video by New Line Cinema in 1998.

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children’s preferences changed over time. It was Phoebe who came up with the phrase “used it up” during one of our informal telephone conversations. Over time we agreed that this best reflected our sense that the children were “working” to make sense of movies until they reached a point where they wanted a new challenge. Linking this to Lancaster’s phrase “expectations of significance” (Lancaster, 2001) draws attention to its implications: when the expected significance has been found and the child “has sucked all she can out of it” (another quotation from Phoebe) then she is ready to move on. While she may be happy to see more of the same genre or series, which will at least give her variations in narrative and thus the pleasure of finding out what happens, she is likely to welcome movies that offer other new challenges as well. By 28  months, the twins were starting to make more adventurous choices in their viewing, including the mainstream broadcast material that they were viewing at home. A series that became their favourite for several months was Tree Fu Tom (Shaw, UK 2012–2016) despite Phoebe’s concern that it was too old for them (though it claims to be for 2–6-year-­ olds—an implausibly wide range). Each episode, which is 28  minutes long, starts with a live-action sequence, accompanied by a rousing choral song, to introduce eight-year-old Tom as he emerges from his house buckling on his “power belt” and runs into the woods where he is transformed into a tiny, animated version of himself that whirls up into Treetopolis, a miniature world located in an old tree, presided over by a benevolent, dignified human female called Treetog. There he has adventures with various characters including a woodlouse, a twig, and a feisty Texan butterfly called Ariela (with whom Connie closely identified). The narratives are highly dependent on dialogue, much of which was certainly beyond the children’s linguistic capabilities when they were 28  months old, but nevertheless, the series as a whole kept them interested for several months. There is a lot of fast action and rapid changes of setting, shot and framing: 28 minutes of this represents a considerable demand on memory for a 2-year-old. The show is designed to help children with dyspraxia and other movement disorders, so the action periodically stops while Tom models a series of exercises direct to camera, ostensibly to invoke “big world magic” in order to resolve a tricky situation. This soon became the least interesting part of the programme for them: before long they both refused to obey Tom’s instructions for each exercise; and one afternoon when Connie (aged 34 months) was viewing it on her own with me, she spent each of these segments literally rolling around with boredom and

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looking for other things to play with. It seems that they both made a modality judgement about the requirement to believe that Tom really could see them and that their imitation of his actions could contribute to the narrative outcome by creating “big world magic”. So this was a step forward in modality judgements: they not only recognised that these segments were meant to be real but made their own critical response to the patronising assumption that children of their advanced age were expected to believe that they could affect the course of the narrative. But they did continue to enjoy viewing streamed repeats of Tree Fu Tom and adopted phrases and actions from the programme that they were able to use appropriately. Alfie playfully identified with Tom, ironically performing “big world magic” to open the doors of a tube train; calling out “we’re a team!” when he found his swing’s movements in the local playground harmonising with that of another (unknown) child swinging next to him; and shouting “Disaster Strikes!” when he pooed in his pants. Connie liked to whirl things around her head and yell “yee hi!” in imitation of Ariela with her lasso. But her gendered identification was not necessarily maintained when Alfie was not around: when by herself with an adult, she would readily claim that she was Tree Fu Tom. The children’s interest in this programme continued until they were nearly three, being finally overtaken by Abney and Teal (Stewart, UK/Canada 2011–2012) an animated series from Ragdoll (production company for Teletubbies and In the Night Garden) which is more carefully tailored to that age-group and in many ways less talky and stylistically complex, and less demanding on memory, than Tree Fu Tom, although, like other Ragdoll productions, its diegetic “rules” are more playfully variable. Several short non-mainstream animated movies that they viewed and re-viewed over the period between 28 and 36 months old presented them with different challenges in working out character motivation and causal chains. A children’s TV series establishes its characters over time and tends to have somewhat similar plots in each episode. The viewers are thus able to get used to the characters and their typical motivations. Short—five to seven minute-long—non-mainstream movies don’t give their viewers long to “tune in” to their style, and as they don’t have time to develop much of a causal chain, they can rely a lot on inference—but they are of course easy to re-view. The two short movies I discussed in Chap. 6—Baboon on the Moon and The Tiny Fish—were chosen by me, and as a result the twins soon became rather wary of anything else I suggested that they might view in case it might also be scary or sad; but they both chose

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several others for themselves, using thumbnail images on the DVDs that were lying around at our house. They wanted to view most of these more than once: so their decisions to view them also gave me time to observe their responses. Little Wolf (Vrombaut, UK 1993) is yet another “getting the moon” story, this time involving a pack of wolves who are chasing a sheep when they are suddenly distracted by the newly risen crescent moon and have to stop and howl at it for a bit. When they resume chasing the sheep (which has co-operatively waited for them) the youngest wolf in the pack remains mesmerised by the moon and eventually manages to jump up and hang on to it. The rest of the story involves the other wolves’ increasingly desperate attempts to get him back down again. The appeal of the movie lies in its surreal character design and amusing soundtrack; the story is extremely simple, and the twins had no trouble interpreting it. It did not become a major commitment for them, but they did ask to re-view it when they remembered it or saw its thumbnail image on the DVD case. In A Slippery Tale (Seidel, Germany 2004), a male frog falls in love with a decorative female frog made of stuffed cotton, stitched on to the front of a woman’s slipper, which he notices as the woman walks across a bridge over the stream where he lives. The amusing consequences include some unfamiliar cultural tropes and references, such as the nesting and eating habits of storks and the stereotypical behaviour of hopelessly deluded lovers. The children were intrigued but a bit baffled, and I had to offer some explanations at some points, as in “he thinks she’s a real frog but she isn’t”. But as the movie does have a satisfying, traditional ending (the frog finally finds a real frog and they fall in love with each other) they could at least understand the beginning and end of the story arc. They could also enjoy the stork’s frantic attempts to kill the frog and the frog’s swift actions to avert them each time. Two movies that provided them with intriguing puzzles about character motivation were Propellorbird (Locher & Hinke, Germany 2005) and Nightshift (Kukkonen, Finland 2004).3 In Propellorbird, three sparrows are irritated by an annoying creature who is flying with the aid of a very noisy and smelly motorised backpack propeller. After failing to get away from him, they devise a trick which results in the propellorbird falling to the ground, the backpack fallen off and damaged. It seems that he’s a 3  Available to Vimeo subscribers only at https://vimeo.com/16887200 (accessed 5 November 2021).

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disabled bird who can only fly with the help of this prosthesis, so the sparrows devise a way of getting him up in the air again. In Nightshift, a fierce-­ looking bat’s daytime slumber is disturbed by a noisy family of mother woodpecker and chicks, nesting in the same tree, and especially by the mother’s loud drumming on tree trunks in her relentless search for food. Furiously, the bat devises a plan, and flies about all night to catch insects and worms, although we don’t see what s/he does with them. The mother bird is shocked in the morning when she cannot hear the chicks screaming for food. To the viewer, it seems likely that the bat has killed them all, but when the mother bird looks into the nest, she finds that the bat has brought lots of worms and insects for the chicks, which they are quietly and busily eating. Both movies, therefore, change the viewer’s assumptions about the characters’ motivations, and hence their moral virtue. We start out thinking that the sparrows in Propellorbird and the family in Nightshift are innocent victims, and that the propellorbird and the bat are malign, but we end up realising that nobody is malign and all the characters can get on nicely when they help each other (a frequent trope in children’s fiction, of course). All of these movies offered the children opportunities to engage with a very short narrative but also some not immediately understandable features, which encouraged them to view them more than once. On the other hand Cyber (Eling, Germany 2007)4 which is a short animated movie about a video game addict playing a super-virtual reality game that allows him to ride various vehicles and enter a series of apparently real 3D environments (sky, sea, desert, etc.)—each of which ends with him crashing into some other creature or object in that environment and being flung back violently out of the game and on to his living-room carpet. Finally, he accidentally changes places with one of the virtual environment characters (a motorcyclist pig), who immediately makes himself at home. We are left wondering what has happened to the original character, or whether he was not in fact the original, but might also have originated in a virtual world. Aged 35  months, the twins viewed this quite tensely— both with jutting jaws, Connie with clenched fists—and at the end Alfie said rather cautiously “I like the man….but I don’ wanna see him again”. Connie was particularly shocked by the addict’s repeated face-down thumps on to the carpet. Neither found the movie at all funny, ignoring my chuckles as I viewed it with them. However, searching for 4

 Available at https://vimeo.com/192453855 (accessed 05-11-2021).

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entertainment during the COVID-19 lockdown, when they were 11 years old and were expert computer game players, they decided to view it again and were both amused and fascinated.

Animatou and the Development of Narrative Understanding Animatou, as the movie that they re-viewed most often, over a seven-­ month period, became a “test case” for me in trying to find out how much they understood of its quite enigmatic structure. From early on in the Animatou viewing sequence I began asking “what happened?” at the abrupt end of the film: to the extent that eventually the children started asking it themselves in a ritualistic way at the end of each viewing of the movie. I also cautiously began to ask more complex questions, for example seeking modality judgements with my “is it a real mouse?” question, which I first asked Connie on her seventh viewing (see Chap. 7). I was so taken by her immediate, amused response that it is “a pretend mouse” that I asked similar questions again several times. During the children’s 8th viewing of Animatou when they were aged 32 months, 3 very brief exchanges signalled Alfie’s readiness to talk about his understanding of the narrative: [On screen: the “real” desk appears as the cel painting sequence begins] CB   Oh! What’s happening now? A   He’s gonna paint it. His cat [licks lips] CB   Who’s going to do that? A+C  The man CB  Aha. The man [on-screen: painting finishes]

Here, Alfie and Connie both ascribed agency to “the man” (“he’s gonna paint it”) in the cel painting sequence, but Alfie also ascribed ownership (“his cat”), inferring relationships between characters in the film: a key basis for later understanding of character motivation in narrative, though useless in this one. Fitting the painting process into a causal framework (i.e. the sequence needs to demonstrate the cel animation process) would demand sophisticated cultural knowledge, but the building blocks of “agency” and “relationship” are nevertheless an important foundation, and he reveals that he is on the way to articulating them.

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[Both serious now gripping cups as cat and mouse enter arcade] A   He’s gonna catch him again CB  Will he catch him? A   Almost

It is tempting to load major implications on to Alfie’s response here. By realising—and articulating—that the key narrative element of Animatou is that the cat always “almost” catches the mouse but never actually does, he unconsciously summed up the appeal of the entire Warner Brothers and Halas and Batchelor cartoon oeuvre from the 1940s onwards, in which the “almost catching him” trope is the key to the emotional drivers of audience response. These can include anxiety about whether the pursuer will achieve his goal, curiosity about how he will be foiled this time, delight in the ridiculous ingenuity of the escape—and, in the case of the Roadrunner series (Jones, USA 1949–1986), vestigial sympathy at yet another terrible punishment for the Coyote’s hubris. Alfie was here able to express an insight that might, later, enable him to unlock further reflections on “chase” formulae in narrative. Previously, he would only state that the cat “doesn’t” catch, or eat, the mouse (while recognising that it wants to). So this is an interesting step forward. Harris discusses 2-to-­3year-olds’ uses of “almost” when talking about real-life events such as “I almost fell down”, asserting that this provides “clear evidence that twoand three-year-old children understand how an observed action might have turned out differently” (Harris, 2000, p. 126). Being able to observe this in a movie could be construed as more sophisticated, given that, for all their multimodality, movies do set out to create more suspense and surprise than is usually encountered in real life. Alfie reflected further on the film after it had ended. He had taken to repeating the query I often made at the end of this film and in other viewings as well: “What happened?” usually as a kind of stock response that does not seem to expect an answer, especially as it was usually followed by me asking “well, what do you think happened?” But here he voluntarily, and for the first time, addressed the question to another adult in the room: Terry. A  What’s happened Grandad?” T  Er..um..has the film finished?  [A drinks]

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CB  Yeah, Grandad can’t see it from where he’s sitting [A lowers cup and looks at T] Can you tell him what happened?” A   [drops cup on floor and sits forward] He tried to catch him but he would’ve but [falling back on sofa] the mouse ran as fast as he could and then NEARLY got him! T   Nearly. Not quite? A  No-wuh! [flinging legs forward then levering himself upright]

This exchange amplifies the (“almost”) comment he made during the film, and underlines the fact that he could now remember, and was now able and willing to recount, the essential features of a story: using bodily movement together with his utterances to underline the force and importance of what he had to say, for which he did not yet have many words or much fluency. They were both by now just about at the stage of beginning to be able to handle the “what happened?” question. But this understanding seemed to be at least partially grounded in the mimicry that I discussed in Chap. 5: in other words, that narrative understanding emerges from evolved, instinctive behaviour that enables us to note, imitate and begin to understand the actions of others—including those on screen— and therefore that it begins at a very early age. Hood et al. were interested to discover that 2–3-year-olds could articulate causal relations, thus contradicting Piaget’s view that this could not happen until the age of 7 or 8 (Hood et al., 1979)—but they as well as Piaget were dependent on children’s levels of verbal fluency. What I have described suggests that narrative understanding begins well before verbal fluency, and that movie-viewing may play a key role in helping to develop this. In the 12th viewing of Animatou I paused the DVD several times throughout the film and asked several questions, much to Alfie’s excited response and Connie’s irritation. Once again this reflects their differing relationships to Animatou: Connie, for whom cats were her favourite animal, saw it as “her” film, to be re-viewed pleasurably and with relish; Alfie was readier to address the puzzles it presents and to turn these into humorous exaggerations as well. His answers to the questions quickly turn into playful exchanges which extend each pause in the screening, but Connie soon gets impatient at my “teacherly” procedure and her interventions mainly consist of shouting “TURN IT ON NOW!” Alfie’s playful responses to my first freeze-frame generated the following conversations:

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Cel painting sequence: A   Who’s those two hands? CB  [stops film] Yes, whose are those two hands? C   the cat’s/A [inaudible] CB  The cat’s? Are they the cat’s hands? C   Turn it on now! CB OK A   [pointing]I think those are a daddy’s hands painting the cat! CB  They’re daddy’s hands? A   They’re the da’ they’re daddy’s hands holding the paper to paint the cat in black and blue and – white and black and ..Purple! CB  Purple. OK

Sand animation sequence CB  A   CB  A   C   CB  C   A   CB  A   CB  C  

whose eyes are those?” They’re um [claps R hand over his eyes] they’re my eyes” They’re your eyes Yes. They ARE my eyes [turning slightly to me] They’re a bit like your eyes They’re a bit like my eyes? [inaudible] your eyes They’re MY eyes [clapping hand over eyes again] Alfie says they’re his eyes They’re my eyes Your eyes are blue Turn it on now!

Computer animation sequence (after cat jumps into computer) CB  could you go into the telly, into the computer?” A   raises his R hand C   no-oA   I could – but I could JUMP through it! CB  Could you? You could jump through it? How – have you tried? C   I haven’t! [leaning back on sofa arm] A   And stop that cat from chasing the mouse CB  you’d stop the cat from chasing the mouse? Would you?”

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C   [sitting forward] [inaudible] very fast! A   I’s stop [inaudible] stop chasing the mouse over! [holding out L hand palm forward in ‘stop’ mode – a Makaton sign] At once! Cat, don’t hit the mouse!”[hitting motion]

These exchanges were playful and light-hearted. Alfie took on board my questions and comments and added surreal extensions. But the variation on the “daddy” ascription of the hands in the painting sequence is intriguing: “a daddy”, “the da[ddy]” and “daddy” each positions the “daddy” very differently, first as a generalisation about the category “daddy”; second conferring a name on the unseen owner of the male hands; third, and implicitly, “my daddy”. Of course these are impulsive, playful utterances: they may just indicate the fluidity of the term in Alfie’s mind. There then followed a game in which Alfie claimed to be able to see the mouse on screen and we all ended up standing close to the still image on screen in a playful “where?”/“There!” exchange with Alfie poking his fingers on to the screen and exclaiming “I can make blue spots” (as he dented the plastic surface). Finally he went back to the coffee table, and Connie viewed the final few seconds of the film standing close to the screen, exclaiming “THERE’S the mouse!” as the computer mouse appears, then viewing the credits attentively right to the end, while I asked, “what happened to the mouse?” and Alfie replied, “It kept running! …. That’s just a naughty mouse. And it’s a naughty mouse and a naughty cat. Both naughty. Both naughty”, then becoming more interested in manipulating the big torch he had just noticed lying on the table. My 13th and final video of their Animatou viewings was two days after the twins’ third birthday. They both took up positions as the movies started: Alfie sitting upright on the edge of the sofa and Connie standing at the coffee table. Both viewed attentively throughout, with very few comments except for the following exchange after the cat enters the computer, appearing inside as the “white netting” digital armature: CB  What’s he made of?” C   [looks at screen and licks lips quickly, purses lips slightly, goes on viewing] He’s not made of anything!” [shaking head slightly on last word]

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Perhaps Connie was focusing here on the fact that the digital armature is transparent (see Fig. 7.2), but it is interesting that she gave this some thought and viewed the cat before delivering this verdict.

Repeat Viewing Animatou differs from most of the other things that they viewed in that its diegeses constantly change without—at least as far as the children are concerned—any rationale: live action is mixed on screen with animation, and there are changes between settings that differ in both structure and stylistic presentation, with no information about how the two animals get from one to another. At the same time the chase format is entirely familiar: a predator chases a smaller, much smarter and more agile prey, and never quite catches it. This combination of simple, repeated “story” and puzzling style and structure evidently appealed tremendously to the children and must have rewarded their continued re-viewings. If the rewards for their investment of time in this film had simply been the pleasure of familiarity, the children would not have continued to maintain their alert, often frowning, attentiveness each time they viewed. Connie repeatedly responded with delight when the film began, and noted the transitions from one sequence to another, excitedly identifying the cat each time it reappeared in another guise. For the first nine viewings that I filmed, she is seen standing or sitting upright, and leaning forward as she views, while Alfie, after the first and second viewings, sits back. While he tends to stay still and fairly impassive, it is he who makes far more spontaneous comments: from “Dere’s another cat” in the first viewing, to “He’s not a real cat, he’s a pretend cat” in the 12th viewing, with a particular focus on the sand sequence, which he still found disturbing. He is also first to respond to questions (when there is a response, that is: many of my questions are ignored). What these repeated responses indicate is that, in their repeated viewings, the children sought—and found—repetitions of their initial emotional reactions, whether pleasurable or fearful. Perhaps it was a function of the film’s stylistic and structural “strangeness” that guaranteed the repeat of these emotional “buzz” moments and maintained their commitment to studying the continual diegetic switches. As Miall (1988) says, “affect … acts in an anticipatory manner”, setting up processes of prediction and comprehension (Miall, 1988) as well as the anticipation of the repeated emotional experience. For its intended audience of animation

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professionals and enthusiasts, Animatou has little concern with affect: its chase narrative has a mechanical quality, functioning merely to enable the demonstration of different animation styles. But the children invested the film with affect, “reading” the cat’s changing expressions and the mouse’s wiliness. They “knew”—with no evidence from the film to support it— that the cat wanted to eat the mouse, from their generic knowledge of cat-and-mouse stories in other films and in books. But their emotional responses must have drawn upon a wider range of experience: fear of the dark; instinctive fears of speed and sudden obstacles; the cat’s anger, as shown in its expressions and urgency of movement; the mouse’s bravery and cheekiness as shown in the first few seconds of the film. Recognising these again and again clearly generated pleasure.

Narrative and Diakresis There is a very large collection of theoretical writing in Film Studies about movie narratives, which I do not propose to discuss here. Virtually all of it assumes movie audiences to consist of adult viewers, usually imagined as what David Bordwell, one of the major scholars in the field, calls “schooled perceivers in contemporary Western culture” (Bordwell, 1985, p. 34) sitting individually in darkened cinemas, and thus very different from two-­ year-­olds swarming around a living room or peering at a smartphone. Bordwell proposes that the adult viewers he envisages are creating movie narratives in their own minds as they view. To do this, they have to have at least some generic and social knowledge, and mature memories: two-year-­ olds don’t. But I think we can draw a helpful idea from the American literary theorist Hannah C. Wojciechowski, who writes from an embodied cognition perspective when she draws on an account of consciousness by the French neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene to offer a more fine-grained explanation of what goes on when we view movies (Wojciechowski, 2015). Dehaene argues that we cannot literally hold two thoughts in mind at the same time, despite the common assumption that we can. In fact, he says, our perceptions and sense impressions, ranging over the complicated world that surrounds us all the time, can’t all crowd into our conscious minds simultaneously (Dehaene, 2014). To illuminate this, Wojciechowski introduces the double metaphor of a bottleneck and a sieve, imposed by our conscious minds on the torrent of information we take in selectively anyway, explaining that “what reaches our conscious mind [through the

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bottleneck] is la crème de la crème, the outcome of the very complex sieve that we call attention” (Wojciechowski, 2015, p.  125). In other words, Bordwell’s argument relies on “schooled perceivers’” prodigious and probably impossible feats of memory: few people on a single viewing can take in all of the densely multimodal discourse of filmic narrative, yet experienced film-viewing adults do manage to keep following a movie narrative of 100+ minutes or, in the case of box sets, much more. To solve this contradiction, Wojciechowski proposes the concept of diakresis: “a separating out of information that is salient enough to enter into our conscious awareness, and the distinguishing of the salient from everything else”. Wojciechowski is, I think, focusing on how experienced viewers follow a narrative: that is, if they are concentrating on the events of the story, they are on the lookout for things they think are, or may turn out to be, salient to that specific story. This depends, often to a considerable extent, on generic knowledge, so it is not necessarily how two-year-olds follow movie narratives. Diakresis can also be seen as analogous to Lancaster’s and Kress’ accounts of the way two-year-olds select their own decisions about salience in their drawings (see Chap. 4). Wojciehowski’s adult viewers know (or think they know) what is narratively salient as they view; two-year-olds may not: but this does not merely mean that they “make mistakes” or “miss out” on features that “really are” salient to the narrative. What two-­ year-­olds are undoubtedly doing as they view with focused attention is separating out what is salient for them (e.g. in Connie’s case with the cat’s bellybutton—see Chap. 7). As children get older, their memory capacity increases, they see more movies and acquire wider knowledge of their culture, and they refine their ideas about salience. But the important thing is that diakresis originates in our evolved, instinctive survival mechanisms, and is therefore obviously present in toddlers. When they view movies, their ideas of salience may not at first relate to the narrative. The Pontipine and Og-Pog fear episodes that originally happened when the children were 13 months old, and the Peppa Pig episode that distressed Connie at the age of 24 months (see Chap. 6), illustrate instances of diakresis at work: the salience of escaped objects and a snapped rope generated extreme emotional distress, and overrode their ability to pay closer attention to the other narrative features of the movies. We can also see toddlers’ pleasure in pointing and naming characters and objects in movies as other examples of what we might call “early diakresis”: they are picking out the things they like, which tend to be the things

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the movie-makers have constructed as important features of the narrative anyway. But this functions as a stepping-stone towards understanding more complex narratives and more subtle clues about how stories will develop. However, it is still possible for diakresis to lead to misinterpretation, because every viewer brings their own personal memories and affiliations to what they view. The pleasure of post-viewing conversations for teenagers and adults often involves discovering the different expectations that had been at work during the viewing, as in, for example “I knew he was going to die in the end”—“Oh no, I didn’t, I just so wanted them to get together and live happily ever after!” from which we can also see that emotions may often be deeply involved in diakresis. A more extreme version of this could be seen in Alfie’s and Connie’s different responses to the film Finding Nemo (Stanton & Unkrich, USA 2003) which they viewed when they were just three years old. I did not observe this: it was recounted to me by Phoebe. As the reconstituted nuclear family of Nemo, Marlin and Dory swam happily away at the end, Connie remarked, “now they’re going to find the Mummy”. To Phoebe’s protest that “the mummy is dead, she was eaten by the big nasty fish”, Connie retorted that she didn’t see the mummy get eaten. A re-viewing of the beginning of the movie revealed this to be true: we do not actually see Nemo’s mother Coral get eaten (of course not: it would be too horrible for family viewing). But Connie had been unable to “correctly” interpret the death scene or even Marlin’s subsequent grief: not only because the death is implied and not shown, but also I believe, because she could not countenance it emotionally: an interpretation that I would argue is likely, on the grounds that she was able to construct what was, for her, an alternative narrative enigma—where has the mummy gone?—and hold on to it for over 100 minutes, certainly not accepting the build-up of hints that lead to Dory becoming the new mother. Alfie, being more interested in the one surviving male child, was content to follow his adventures and not worry too much about what had happened to Coral. Neither of them had yet got hold of the generic knowledge and the concomitant awareness of convention that would enable them to accept that Coral was dead and gone, but each of them was using diakresis as they identified what they found to be emotionally salient. Narratives often play deliberately on viewers’ and readers’ diakretic instincts, deliberately misleading them into thinking that they know what is going to happen, and then confounding expectations with a surprise ending. And our awareness of this, especially when viewing thriller and

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crime movies, is that we know we are constantly being shown clues, but often cannot be sure which ones are false and which ones will turn out to be hugely significant later on. So older viewers’ engagements with movies—and indeed any kind of fiction—partly involve the pleasure of being teased by the narrative. Toddlers are inclined to take up a “what you see is what you get” position in relation to the movies they view, so they are more likely to miss out on actions and events that are simply implied.

Inference Towards the end of my research, I was glad to be able to catch a little bit of evidence that one of the twins was able to remember and identify an implied action. This came at the end of one of their viewings of the animated Studio Ghibli movie My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki, Japan 1988), when they were 42 months old. I had been keen for them to view this for a long time, since I rate it very highly as a wonderful movie for children, but they found it hard to deal with the loud roaring sound that Totoro makes on his first appearance when he yawns and were so apprehensive that it might occur again, that they resisted viewing the rest of it. Eventually they did see it all, but their re-viewings were conducted with the help of the DVD menu, selecting scenes that they knew they would enjoy. Particular favourites were what they called “the Mummy bits”. The movie is about a father (Tatsuo) and two daughters (Satsuki, aged about 11, and Mei, aged about four) who move to an old house in the country to be able to make regular visits to the mother (Yasuko), who is a long-term inpatient at a nearby hospital. In the last section of the film, Mei is upset to hear that their planned visit to see their mother has to be postponed because Yasuko’s health has suddenly deteriorated. Mei had been ready to take Yasuko a maize-cob as a present and she can’t accept this change of plan, so she runs away with the maize-cob to try and get to the hospital on her own. The family and the neighbours search frantically for her. Satsuki asks Totoro for help: he summons the Catbus (a giant flying cat which doubles as a bus) which carries Satsuki to where Mei is, and they then go on to the hospital. The cat (now normal size) and the girls sit on a tree branch high up outside Yasuko’s hospital room and can see that she is sitting up and seems to be quite well. The scene then switches to inside the room, where Tatsuo is telling Yasuko how relieved he is that she has only had a slight cold and is now better again. Suddenly Tatsuo notices the maize-cob on the windowsill and reads the inscription “To Mummy” scratched on its leaves, and they wonder how it got there. The children

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have vanished from the tree branch, but the parents agree that maybe in some sense the children were there, if only in spirit—and the movie ends. My interest focuses on a tiny moment when the twins were viewing this final scene. After the cutaway from the children and the cat on the tree branch, as the scene between the parents in the hospital room began, Alfie suddenly said “they’re gonna throw something down”. Although we never see how the maize-cob gets from the children in the tree to the hospital windowsill, Alfie figures out that the children must throw it, anticipates precisely when this must happen, interpolates an action that is never shown in the movie, and has to make do with “something” because he doesn’t have a name for a maize-cob with its leaves still on. It may seem trivial and over-stated to make so much of a very brief utterance, but I think it is nevertheless significant: it is evidence that, at age three and a half, Alfie was able to make inferences and to identify an action that is not shown. Quite possibly he (and Connie as well) had been able to do this for some time, but it was only at this point that he was confident and fluent enough to say so. This episode also underlines the major difficulty of trying to understand toddlers’ movie-learning achievements, especially in relation to narrative. One cannot set up formal “test” situations with toddlers that will supply evidence about their thoughts and feelings: one has to just follow what they are doing and what they want to view, because it is only then that one has any chance of observing how they behave when they are really committed to a particular movie. And even then, one is often dependent on overhearing some quiet remark or observing a fleeting gesture or expression. So far in this book I have said little about the enormous importance of the contexts in which toddlers view movies. Although they may spend a lot of time viewing movies on their own—either in a room with no one else present or looking at a smartphone or tablet while their parents or carers are present but otherwise occupied—co-viewing is an important part of movie-learning and is the subject of the next chapter.

References Bauer, P. J. (2002). Long-term recall memory: Behavioral and neuro-­developmental changes in the first 2 years of life. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(4), 137–141. Bordwell, D. (1985). Narration in the fiction film. Routledge. Dehaene, S. (2014). Consciousness and the brain. Viking Press.

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Hardy, B. (1977). Narrative as a primary act of mind. In M. Meek (Ed.), The cool web. Random House. Harris, P. L. (2000). The work of the imagination. Blackwell. Hogan, P.  C. (2010). A passion for plot: Prolegomena to affective narratology. Symploke, 18(1–2), 65–81. Hood, L., Bloom, L., & Brainerd, C. J. (1979). What, when, and how about why: A longitudinal study of early expressions of causality. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 44(6), 1–47. Keating, P. (2006). Emotional curves and linear narratives. Velvet Light Trap, 58, 4–15. Lancaster, L. (2001). Staring at the page: The functions of gaze in a young child’s interpretation of symbolic forms. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1(2), 131–152. Marsh, J., Brooks, G., Hughes, J., Ritchie, L., Roberts, S., & Wright, K. (2005). Digital beginnings: Young children’s use of popular culture, media and new technologies. Retrieved from Sheffield: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265183910_Digital_beginnings_Young_children%27s_use_of_popular_ culture_media_and_new_technologies. Accessed 08 Nov 2021. Miall, D. S. (1988). Affect and narrative: A model of response to stories. Poetics, 17, 249–272. Nelson, K. (1998). Language in cognitive development: Emergence of the mediated mind. Cambridge University Press. Sugiyama, M. S. (2017). Literary prehistory: The origins and psychology of storytelling. In R.  C. Evans (Ed.), Critical approaches to literature: Psychological. Salem Press. Trevarthen, C., & Aitken, K. J. (2001). Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory, and clinical applications. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 3–48. Wojciechowski, H.  C. (2015). The floating world: Film narrative and viewer diakresis. In M. Coegnarts & P. Kravanja (Eds.), Embodied cognition and cinema. Leuven University Press.

CHAPTER 9

Viewing Together

Although it is extremely common and understandable for parents and carers to take advantage of movie-viewing as a way of occupying children at busy times, especially where they are managing more than one child all day, this is deplored in much of the developmental psychology research on children and media (see Chap. 2), and therefore by the AAP (2016). A major focus of researchers’ concern is the amount of time that children spend with moving image media, and this is reflected in everyday discourse, both face to face and online. It is widely assumed that television and other screen-based media are used as “child-minders”: that children are placed in front of them and kept quiet by the allegedly mesmeric effects of these media. In February 2021, Google’s 16.5 million results for a search on “lists of movies for toddlers” was headed by Good Housekeeping’s “The 15+ Best Toddler Movies for When You Need a Short Break”, whose introductory text, after a brief nod to the AAP’s “two-hour rule”, sympathetically supports television’s “child-minder” role, carefully emphasising what we are all supposed to believe: that parents will only want to leave their kids viewing movies for a very short time (although most of the recommended movies are at least 90 minutes long):

Parts of this chapter have appeared in Sign Systems Journal 48 (1) 2020 and in Green et al. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children, NYC and Abingdon: Routledge. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_9

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If there’s something that you need to get done and all you require is a little bit of time to tackle it without your little “helpers” making everything take twice as long as it needs to. For that, a good toddler movie can work wonders, entertaining your kids just long enough for you to get a break. (Lascala, 2020)

Movie-Viewing as Child-Minding? As I discussed in Chap. 2, Blum-Ross and Livingstone are concerned about parents’ stressfully ambivalent position as they negotiate between their “need for a break” and their vague awareness of the “two-hour rule” (Blum-Ross & Livingstone, 2018). The AAP’s rule is based on the numerous studies that have sought to identify the risks of “exposure” to movies (e.g. Christakis et al., 2004; Mistry et al., 2006; Stevens & Mulsow, 2006; Vandewater et al., 2005). But some scholars have identified factors other than mere “exposure” that are significant in considering children’s relationship with movies. In 2010 E. Foster and Watkins re-ran the study by Christakis et al. (2004), which claimed that the number of hours of television viewed by children in samples taken at age one and again at three correlates with the level of attentional problems they present at age seven. These findings did not hold up in Foster and Watkins’ repeat study. They point to vitally important contextualising factors that affect the role of television in children’s lives: the context in which children view television matters. Viewing behaviour— duration (hours viewed) and content (what is viewed), with whom children view (parents, peers, siblings), and how they view (restricted, monitoring) are important factors to consider. (Foster & Watkins, 2010, p. 369)

Also, as Kevin Durkin usefully reminds us, frequency does not correlate with salience (Durkin, 1985, pp. 68–69). Although children may spend a lot of time viewing on their own, or viewing material that does not command their most intense attention, this does not necessarily override the possibly greater salience of the less frequent occasions on which they view with adults, or view material that greatly interests them and that they want to view repeatedly. In other words, some of the factors that Foster and Watkins list may be more important than others, depending on the context.

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This chapter is based on the recognition that, while some parents are nervous about the amount of “screen time” their children have, those who enjoy movies may want to share this enjoyment with their children when they can. The idea that parents ought to co-view with children is not new. The Nuffield Foundation-sponsored study in the 1950s, Television and the Child, stresses its value, though in terms different from mine: it is so useful if parents can find the time to view with the younger children or, failing that, encourage them to talk to them about the programme afterward. In this way one can see if there is anything that disturbs the child, and use the opportunity for building on the new impressions he has gained. (Himmelweit et al., 1958, p. 49)

Jackie Marsh et al.’s important study of the use of digital media in early childhood shows that many babies start TV-viewing by the time they are three months old, and that this is more often positively valued by parents rather than being a source of anxiety (Marsh et al., 2005). In this chapter I discuss the ways in which the social contexts within which children often view movies can contribute to how they learn to understand and enjoy the medium. I argue that this can be an important part of how children learn to enjoy and participate in their family’s cultural life, as well as an important contributory factor in how they learn to make sense of the medium.

Viewing Practices To begin with, we need to understand something about the huge range of possible viewing practices, recognising that they vary widely between, and even within, families. By “viewing practices” I mean the devices family members use, the times and places where they view, and how they view. Some movies may be accessed only by some family members—computer games, for example, or YouTube videos—and then only on desktop computers, laptops, phones or tablets; and individuals’ favourite movies may be viewed on televisions or mobile devices in bedrooms. Smartphones can be used to distract infants for long enough to, for example, give parents time to eat their dinner (see Fig. 9.1). “Appointment viewings” of a broadcast television series episode, live sport event or feature film, involving some or all of the family gathered in one room to view a large flat-screen television are now comparatively rare, given the proliferation of different kinds of VoD availability and of

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Fig. 9.1  Four-month-old gazing at a baby video while her dad eats his dinner. (Photo: Cary Bazalgette)

portable devices on which movies can be viewed. Modes of viewing will vary from family to family or may depend on what genre is being viewed: some family members may be doing other things as they view, while others may sit and view intently from beginning to end; some may comment

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frequently to each other, while others may maintain an attentive silence. Some families will have their televisions on continually for much of the day; others will not. Some individuals prefer to view movies on a TV monitor or desktop computer; others prefer to view on a laptop, tablet or phone; many are happy to do any of these, depending on context, time of day, location or the urgency of what they want to see: live sport can be particularly tempting, for example. Viewing practices are also changing as delivery systems for moving image media change. This book is being written at a time of quite rapid developments in how we find out about, access and view movies. The British media regulator, Ofcom, produces valuable annual studies on children’s and parents’ media use and attitudes. Their 2020–2021 edition provides a snapshot of 2020 and the first weeks of 2021, that shows how these developments were facilitating changes in UK children’s viewing habits and the devices they used for viewing, but almost all in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the changes in social and cultural habits that developed in this period may be long-lived and others may not: at the time of writing (November 2021) it is too early to tell. Unfortunately, almost all of Ofcom’s data on movie consumption only relate to children of five and older. The 3 pages of their 51-page report for 2020–2021 that are devoted to “pre-schoolers” (i.e. 3–4-year-olds) include the following: TV consumption for 3-4 year-olds is no longer just about sitting in front of a TV set. While more than eight in ten in our survey used a TV set, the same proportion used a device other than a TV set to watch TV content; the most likely being a tablet (70%). Although their choice of content may be different, the way pre-schoolers watched TV had the same pattern as for older children, with VoD more commonly used than live broadcast TV (95% vs. 47%). This illustrates the range of age programming that these services provide and shows the effect of access to devices such as tablets, which more easily enable on-demand viewing. The vast majority (91%) of pre-schoolers used VSPs to watch video content in 2020. As with older children, YouTube was most commonly used to watch content - among 86% of pre-schoolers; TikTok was the second most-­ used platform, at a distant 15%. Eight in ten pre-schoolers used VSPs to watch cartoons/animations/ mini-movies or songs, while children aged 5–15 were more likely to enjoy funny videos, jokes, and prank challenges (80%). However, some

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­ re-­schoolers were using videos to help with learning (25%)100 or ‘how to’ p videos related to hobbies and interests (19%). YouTube Kids was in the mix for a majority of pre-schoolers (72%), and 43% of parents stated that their child only used the YouTube Kids app, while a quarter used both the main YouTube site and app and YouTube Kids. (Ofcom, 2021, p. 51)

Ofcom’s long-term tracking of family movie-viewing over many years has provided an excellent account of a rapidly changing media environment, in which increasing numbers of children have been moving to devices other than TV sets on which to view movies, while their interest in moving image material of all kinds (I include games here) remains strong. Their 2020–2021 study still affords some indicators of how the sociocultural adjustments to technological change may be affecting two-year-olds’ movie-viewing practices, although we can only infer these data, and the direction of change, from their information on pre-schoolers.

Solitary Viewing by Two-Year-Olds However, as any parent—and indeed any three-year-old—knows, three-­ year-­olds are not the same as two-year-olds! It is extraordinary how little research there is on two-year-olds’ media consumption, given that researchers, at least, have known since 2005 that many babies start viewing movies at around three months (Marsh et al., 2005). It is now common to see two-year-olds, in their buggies in shops, or in restaurant high chairs, focusing attentively on a smartphone or tablet; Fig.  9.2 shows a moment from two-year-old’s first encounter with a smartphone: it reveals that she has already adopted techniques for steadying the phone on the table-top, and can position her left hand in order to dab with one finger at the image on the screen. But it is probable that at home, when parents are too busy to supervise toddlers, they will be more likely to leave them to view a movie on TV than to hand over a phone or tablet, which might get dropped or fought over; and in any case, the younger the children are, the less likely they will be able to deal with menus on VoD services, digital recorders or DVDs, and may thus be more likely to view broadcast TV, switched on by a parent, carer or older sibling. So it may be reasonable to surmise that the percentage of two-year-olds viewing movies on a TV set could be higher than that of three-to-four-year-olds.

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Fig. 9.2  A two-year-old’s first encounter with a smartphone. (Photo: Sam O’Leary)

Either way, this could mean that toddlers may be viewing more movies than older children, when we add up the number of opportunities they get to view movies on any device. But it may also mean that they may now have more opportunities to view on their own, bearing out Ofcom’s claim that “consuming content is becoming a more solitary activity, with many children viewing on their mobiles” (Ofcom, 2019, p. 5). Ofcom also pointed out in their earlier survey that “it is the variety of content that children view via these services that is notable” (ibid.). However, this was an overall finding of the survey: it did not mean that any individual child was likely to be viewing a wide variety of movies. She might be ranging over many types of movie, or she might be going through phases of favourite genres, such as funny cat videos on YouTube. In either case, the more significant outcomes for a two-year-old using a portable device to view movies on her own would be, first, that she would be developing her own preferences as regards genres, styles and content,

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rather than having to go along with others’ choices; second, that her facility with the technology would rapidly improve; and, third, that she would be occupied in self-directed learning as she re-viewed those movies that she judged worth viewing more than once—perhaps even many times. My own experience of viewing a 27-month-old doing exactly this with the then-prevalent format of analogue videocassette is described in Chap. 2. Repeat-viewing like this is now much easier to do on a DVD menu or on various kinds of VoD services.

Viewing Movies with Others However, many toddlers still do view movies with others, and there are learning opportunities of a different kind in these contexts. One-year-olds and younger two-year-olds may not sit still to view movies, unless they are cuddled up on the lap of an adult or older sibling. There may be a lot of “milling about” as they explore the spaces they are in and look for things that will be interesting to investigate. Movies playing on a flat-screen television may be one of the things in their environment, but they will only pay it attention when they want to, often stimulated by sound-track elements that attract them, as much as by moving images (Alwitt et  al., 1980). Their attention may also be stimulated by a co-viewer, as in “ooh, look at that!” but only if a glance at the screen confirms that it is more interesting than what they are already doing. In other words, like most other things that toddlers do, their attentiveness—and hence their learning—is largely self-directed, and attempts to interfere with this can result in screams of rage. But what co-viewers do can still be an important part of how toddlers learn to view movies. Co-viewers are likely to exchange comments with each other, which toddlers will overhear: even if they do not understand what is said, they will take account of others’ talk as an aspect of their family’s viewing style and may pick up the emotional tone of the comments: amused, outraged, horrified, angry, serious and so on. When the movie being viewed is a family film, a children’s TV programme or a YouTube video that it is assumed the toddler will enjoy, co-viewers may direct comments to her, and may also utter—almost involuntarily—child-directed vocalisations such as “ooh” or “wow” or “look at that!”. So family viewing situations can be a rich experiential environment in which the role of the movie is one, albeit often important, element. Alternatively, the co-viewers may completely ignore the movie and carry on their own conversation. Sometimes the toddler will

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initiate dialogue, by naming or pointing at something on the screen and looking to co-viewers for approval: with well-known movies that have been viewed often, this can be a nice ritual that everyone looks forward to. Approval, repetition and sharing can thus be key elements of the family viewing experience, that contribute not only to a child’s growing ability to understand what she is viewing and to follow a narrative, but also to establish her expectations about the status of movies in that household. Jerome Bruner points out that “it is obvious that an enormous amount of the activity of the child during the first year and a half of life is extraordinarily social and communicative. Social interaction appears to be both self-propelled and self-rewarding” (Bruner, 1983, p. 27). This remains the case in the third year of life and, given two-year-olds’ greater social experience, increased powers of memory and linguistic ability, it is likely that social interactions also generate moments of high salience during viewing events. Of course, the presence of adults, especially if they provide frequent expressions of amused approval and physical contact, reinforces the family bonds of affection. But it also helps to shape children’s perception of what movie-viewing is all about: a social occasion in which what is seen and heard on the screen is to be shared and enjoyed, and perhaps can be questioned and commented upon. The way the adults view—where they sit; the amount of attention they give to the screen—models the cultural status of movies within the family. Movie-viewing with adults could therefore be considered as part of the “observing and ‘listening in’” learning processes described by Rogoff et al. (2003) and to Tomasello’s account of how infants “‘tune in’ to the attention and behavior of adults towards outside entities” (Tomasello et al., 2005). Children will become aware of how movie-viewing is framed—for example if one or more family members follow a soap opera or comedy series, or an eagerly awaited high-­ profile nature documentary. Viewing behaviour may well be part of the cultural practices that parents have learned when they were children, and which they may replicate with their own children. As Vygotsky wrote in the early 1930s, “human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them” (Vygotsky, 1978, p.  88). Social learning about movie-viewing is thus a part of how children come “to learn about the culture they [have] been born into” as Trevarthen explains in his important paper “The Child’s Need to Learn a Culture” (Trevarthen, 1995, p. 7) and thus it is likely that it also influences the way children view movies on their own.

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Co-viewing can take many different forms. I outline here three different, distinctive and recurrent “co-viewing modes” that I observed during my research. None of these would be likely to dominate an entire viewing event, but would occur at times, and often two or more modes could be seen during some of the longer events. I have named the three modes as Active co-viewing, Cuddled-up co-viewing and Adult-level co-viewing.

Active Co-viewing There are many widely recognised scenarios in which co-viewers enjoy sharing the movie-viewing experience: the excitable, highly reactive (and obviously performed) but diverse behaviours of adult co-viewers form the entire appeal of the Channel 4 “reality” show Gogglebox (Lambert, UK 2013 onwards). When smaller children are involved, active co-viewing may happen when adults or older siblings want to introduce the two-year-­ old to a movie that they haven’t seen before but that the older co-viewers hope they will like. So there can be an element of self-consciousness on the part of older co-viewers: they may feel they have to keep prompting the child to notice what’s happening, or to explain things. Alternatively, one or more older family members may be co-opted into viewing a movie they haven’t seen before, with a child who already likes it and wants to see it again. In both cases, the viewing experience includes the intense pleasure of anticipating what is coming next and, when the expected moment arrives, pointing and exclaiming: perhaps naming a character or commenting on what is happening. The moment captured in Fig. 9.3 shows Phoebe and the twins enjoying a typical episode of Tree fu Tom together. I identify this as active co-viewing when there is intentional interaction amongst the viewers, whether in the form of shared laughter, verbal comments, non-­ verbal reactive utterances (like “ooh!”), or physical reactions like pointing, squirming, jumping up and down, or expressing negative feelings such as fear or disgust.

Cuddled-Up Co-viewing Very young children sibling may view a movie with a parent, carer or older sibling, closely cuddled up on their lap, or next to them on the sofa, but without much active interaction between the co-viewers. Sometimes the child may demand this; sometimes an older co-viewer may suggest it—and the children would probably, though not necessarily, agree. In Fig. 9.4 the

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Fig. 9.3  Active co-viewing: an expected moment arrives (twins aged 30 months)

Fig. 9.4  Viewing Monsters, Inc. (aged 23 months) with Terry

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twins are cuddled up with their grandad to view, for the third time, the highly—though playfully—violent opening sequence of the feature film Monsters, Inc. (Docter, USA 2001), a week before their second birthday. This was the first feature film they had ever viewed, but it was one they had prepared for in the sense that they had acquired two of the movie’s character toys—Mike and Sully—before they first saw the film. Terry’s frown, smile and loosely clasped hands indicate attention but also an element of appreciative, if somewhat anxious, knowingness; the children, although sitting back comfortably on his lap, are seriously attentive. If they are still at all tense about the violence of the scene, it is likely to be mitigated by their closeness to Terry and his enclosing arms. In my video of this viewing event, Alfie points and exclaims “There!” as the monster starts to rear up over the bed (2.42 minutes into the scene); during the chaotic on-screen violence that ensues, Terry is chuckling, which the children can probably feel. Alfie points several times more; Connie points just twice briefly: first just before the opening scene changes abruptly when the “scary” bedroom sequence is revealed to be a corporate training exercise; then just as Sully is first seen, asleep in bed. Apart from this both children remain attentive and relatively still. Cuddled-up co-viewing is likely to be a situation in which the child is as likely to feel the co-viewer’s reactions— such as suppressed laughter, or tension—as well as hearing their comments or non-verbal utterances. He also has the added reassurance that the co-­ viewer may hug him closer if the movie starts to make him anxious. It certainly seemed to me that the twins’ responses to movies sometimes related to their awareness of the physical disposition and mood of the others in the room, especially through bodily contact with them, rather than to what they saw. Equally probable, however, is that they heard and may have registered the sounds made by others.

Adult-Level Co-viewing This may well be the commonest way in which little children experience co-viewing: when adults or older siblings are viewing movies in their company, but are exchanging comments and engaging in discussion without taking any notice of the toddlers. Whatever form this takes, it must still contribute to the younger children’s perceptions, both of the movies themselves, and of the viewing practices within the family. Adults may carry on a conversation about other matters, to which the children are apparently indifferent, as in Fig. 9.5, where the children (aged 22 months)

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Fig. 9.5  Mother and grandmother converse while children (aged 22  months) view TV

are intently following a familiar In the Night Garden episode: note that while she talks with me, Phoebe is actually supporting Connie’s milk bottle with one hand so that Connie can maintain her gaze at the screen while she drinks, and maintain her own right hand in readiness to point at the next interesting thing she sees. Figure 9.6 shows a different aspect of adult-level co-viewing, which took place six months later. This time the movie concerned is Mary Poppins (Stevenson, US 1964), a family favourite. Phoebe, Terry and I are enjoying the lengthy, wildly excessive “Step in Time” song-and-dance sequence, in which a troupe of chimney sweeps and Mary Poppins dance over the rooftops at night-time. Our memories of viewing this together go back more than 30  years to a cinema visit during a family holiday. Connie watches the sweeps’ self-evidently dangerous activity intently, and—as her

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Fig. 9.6  Connie (aged 29 months) and adults view Mary Poppins together

open mouth and frown indicate—with either anxiety or puzzlement, or both, while the adults laugh and exchange knowing comments. In both of these adult-level co-viewing situations, it is impossible to tell just what the children may or may not be gathering from the adult behaviour, except to note that in the case of Mary Poppins, Connie may well have taken in the fact that the adults like this movie a lot, and therefore she may have expected it to be meaningful and rewarding, although she is still having to work hard to follow it. Both children—viewing it for the second time—concentrated intensely. Alfie stood close to the screen, bracing himself with his arms on the TV shelf, for the whole of this sequence. In the section where Mary Poppins joins in the dance, his head movements clearly showed that he was trying to follow the high-speed choreography of her swirling red dress amongst the dark-clothed chimney sweeps. And despite children’s apparent obliviousness to adult talk in these kinds of situation, we cannot rule out the possibility that they are picking up clues about their co-viewers’ moods and attitudes, as they do with many background adult conversations. At two points in the Mary Poppins viewing, Connie did make whispered repetitions of adult phrases that presumably intrigued her, that is “a load of rubbish” (echoing Phoebe’s comment before the movie had started, referring to the idiosyncrasies of the DVD

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menu) and “bugger off” (echoing my suggested addition to the script as the sweeps scampered merrily away into the night, referring ironically to the movie’s bland portrayal of the working class). She was clearly listening to—and intrigued by—at least these two adult comments, while remaining focused on viewing the movie. When children co-view movies, they are immersed in an acoustic ensemble that includes the movie soundtrack but also the varied utterances of co-viewers, sometimes directed at the younger members of the group, sometimes at each other. During social viewing events with children, the older people in the room may often share interpretations of what is appearing on the screen and may echo or supplement those of the voice-­ over and point to fragments of narrative, as in “oh dear, Iggle Piggle has lost his blanket” or “where have the children gone?”

Modelling Responses But co-viewers may often model emotional responses such as laughter, anxiety, sympathy, admiration, through sounds such as gasps, grunts, chuckles and “paralanguage” (Desmond et al., 1985, p. 463) such as “uh-­ oh”, “ooh”, “mmm” These seem to be almost involuntary, “emotional” sounds, which supplement and extend the verbal comments that may be addressed to the children, or to (an)other adult(s) in the room. This “social noise” forms, especially for the children who are still negotiating the complexity of movies, an additional dimension to the sound design of the movie. Castigating the tendency in Film Studies “to emphasise the visual whilst dwelling upon the narrative” (Ward, 2015, p. 155), Ward points out that “sound has the capacity to shape visual perception and steer visual attention” (p. 158). As a film sound designer himself, Ward takes his examples from cinema, but the children’s TV that the children viewed also included what he defines as “a process by which many sound fragments are created, selected, organized, and blended into a unified, coherent and immersive auditory image” (p.  161). While I am not suggesting that the children cannot tell the difference between sound from the screen and sound in the room, it is likely that, given toddlers’ acute awareness of what adults do and say (Trevarthen, 2005, pp. 63–64), both verbal comments and emotive sounds from family members may contribute to their “reading” of a movie in the ways that Ward suggests when he comments on:

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the capacity of sound to intensify the ‘energy’ of a scene, even if the visual image is ‘slow’ or ‘empty.’ This last phenomenon – the energy of a scene – is as subtle as it is significant, for it refers, in movie-making terms, to an audience’s engaged attention. (pp. 159–160)

This was borne out by the way in which the twins contributed to the aural ensemble of viewing events: pointing, calling out “oh!” and “ooh!” and naming characters, in a variety of tonal patterns. Many of these sounds—whether from adults or from children—became ritualised, as an expected part of the “social soundtrack” for movies they viewed often. It is important to note that comments, reactions and explanations do not only come from the adults and children in the room, but also from the movies themselves. With rare exceptions such as Dipdap (Roberts, UK 2011) which was one of the twins’ favourites for a time, children’s television is full of voice-over guidance to viewers through both narration and commentary, and through characters’ mode of address. Derek Jacobi’s In the Night Garden voice-over effectively supplants adult co-viewer comment, with his exclamations of “ooh, look at that!” and his question “who’s this?” as a new character appears, switching immediately to participant dialogue such as “Hallo, Upsy Daisy! How are you today?” This in itself models a playful relationship to the programme for child viewers, which is nevertheless conceptually complex as it switches between diegetic and non-diegetic modes. In Peppa Pig there is a similarly complex mix of verbal address: Peppa herself speaks to camera at the beginning; the characters speak to each other during each story; there is also an invisible narrator (John Sparkes) who explains things to the audience, underlining events on screen as in “look out, the rope is breaking!” in the tug-of-war episode (see also Chap. 6). In contrast, none of the non-mainstream or feature films that the children viewed contained any voice-overs or address to camera. The types of co-viewing practices I have discussed here offer striking parallels between the likely outcomes of family viewing and the positive values attributed to the practice of parents reading books to children. Shared reading is seen as an important way of building children’s vocabulary and preparing them for later learning, especially through re-reading favourite stories (Snow & Goldfield, 1983); Adrian et al. suggest that parents’ use of “mental state language” in shared reading could be associated with the development of theory of mind (Adrian et al., 2005) in the sense of being able to recognise, and reflect upon, the emotional states of

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others. But in shared viewing as well as shared reading, ways of engaging with the cultural product are modelled for the child, and an ongoing dialogue takes place—especially in the case of picture books—with questions, answers and comments being made by both adult and child. In both cases, the situation is usually pleasurable and relaxed, reinforcing the bonds between adults and children. There are however obvious differences between shared reading and shared viewing. Shared viewing really is shared in the sense that adults and children view the screen together and may respond simultaneously: the adult may have little or no consciously performative role. In the “active co-viewing” mode, emotional responses in the form of spontaneous vocalisations, such as “ooh!” in a variety of intonations—generated and shared by both children and adults—are a feature of several of the “family viewings” I filmed, and they obviously occurred alongside the soundtrack of the movies themselves, rather than being interpolated, as they would have to be in a reading session. At the same time, children’s excited exclamations and pointing are clearly addressed to adult co-viewers. The co-viewing practices that I have discussed in this chapter very much bear out Tomasello et al.’s account of joint attentional processes. Drawing on Vygotsky in his use of the term “scaffold” as a metaphor for the adult’s role in the learning process, they first conclude that “extended periods of joint attentional focus” are “‘hot spots’ for early language learning” (p. 74); but they extend this to acknowledge that routine joint interactions may scaffold to an even greater degree. Apparently, joint attention with an adult on a perceptually present object provides a type of nonlinguistic support that allows the child to assume the topic and thus to concentrate on making appropriate comments and responses to adult utterances. (Tomasello et al., 1993, p. 77)

Co-viewing of movies would seem to present a perfect example of “joint attention with an adult on a perceptually present object”. But given that the “perceptually present objects” in this case have the complexity and rich multimodality of even the simplest children’s television, co-­ viewing must offer potential for scaffolding not only verbal language learning, but also essential cultural skills and practices such as making judgements about “real” and “pretend”, and following a narrative, which have been discussed in Chaps. 6 and 7.

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References AAP. (2016). American Academy of Pediatrics announces new recommendations for children’s media use [Press release]. Adrian, J.  A., Clemente, R.  A., Lidon, V., & Rieffe, C. (2005). Parent–child picture-­book reading, mothers’ mental state language and children’s theory of mind. Journal of Child Language, 32, 673–686. Alwitt, L.  F., Anderson, D.  R., Lorch, E.  P., & Levin, S.  R. (1980). Preschool children’s visual attention to attributes of television. Human Communication Research, 7, 52–67. Blum-Ross, A., & Livingstone, S. (2018). The trouble with “screen time” rules. In G. Mascheroni, C. Ponte, & A. Jorge (Eds.), Digital parenting. The challenge for families in the digital age. Nordicom. Bruner, J. (1983). Child’s talk: Learning to use language. Oxford University Press. Christakis, D. A., Zimmerman, F. J., DiGiuseppe, D. L., & McCarty, C. A. (2004). Early television exposure and subsequent attentional problems in children. Pediatrics, 113(4), 708–713. Desmond, R. J., Singer, J. L., Singer, D. G., Calam, R., & Colimore, K. (1985). Family mediation patterns and television viewing: Young children’s grasp of the medium. Human Communication Research, 11(4), 461–480. Durkin, K. (1985). Television, sex roles and children: A developmental social psychological account. Open University Press. Foster, E.  M., & Watkins, S. (2010). The value of re-analysis: TV viewing and attention problems. Child Development, 81, 368–375. Himmelweit, H.  T., Oppenheim, A.  N., & Vince, P. (1958). Television and the child. Oxford University Press. Lascala, M. (2020). The 15+ best toddler movies for when you need a short break. Retrieved from http://www.goodhousekeeping.com. Accessed 11 Feb 2021. Marsh, J., Brooks, G., Hughes, J., Ritchie, L., Roberts, S., & Wright, K. (2005). Digital beginnings: Young children’s use of popular culture, media and new technologies. Retrieved from Sheffield: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265183910_Digital_beginnings_Young_children%27s_use_of_popular_ culture_media_and_new_technologies. Accessed 08 Nov 2021. Mistry, K. B., Minkovitz, C. S., Strobino, D. M., & Borzekowski, D. L. G. (2006). Children’s television exposure and behavioral and social outcomes at 5.5 years: Does timing of exposure matter? Pediatrics, 120, 762–769. Ofcom. (2019). Children and parents: Media use and attitudes report 2018. Retrieved from London: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_ file/0024/134907/children-­and-­parents-­media-­use-­and-­attitudes-­2018.pdf. Accessed July 2021.

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Ofcom. (2021). Children and parents: Media use and attitudes report 2020/21. Retrieved from London: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_ file/0025/217825/children-­a nd-­p arents-­m edia-­u se-­a nd-­a ttitudes-­ report-­2020-­21.pdf Rogoff, B., Paradise, R., Arauz, R. M., Correa-Chavez, M., & Angelillo, C. (2003). Firsthand learning through intent participation. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 175–203. Snow, C. E., & Goldfield, B. A. (1983). Turn the page please: Situation-specific language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 10, 551–569. Stevens, T., & Mulsow, M. (2006). There is no meaningful relationship between television exposure and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Pediatrics, 117(3), 665–672. Tomasello, M., Kruger, A.  C., & Ratner, H.  H. (1993). Cultural learning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16(3), 495–552. Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(5), 675–735. Trevarthen, C. (1995). The child’s need to learn a culture. Children and Society, 9(1), 5–19. Trevarthen, C. (2005). Stepping away from the mirror: Pride and shame in adventures of companionship. Reflections on the nature and emotional needs of infant intersubjectivity. In C. S. Carter, L. Ahnert, K. E. Grossman, S. B. Hardy, M. E. Lamb, S. W. Porges, & N. Sachser (Eds.), Attachment and bonding: A new synthesis. Dahlem workshop report 92 (pp. 55–83). The MIT Press. Vandewater, E. A., Bickham, D. S., Cummings, H. M., Wartella, E. A., & Rideout, V. J. (2005). When the television is always on: Heavy television exposure and young children’s development. American Behavioral Scientist, 48(5), 562–577. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press. Ward, M. S. (2015). Art in noise: An embodied simulation account of cinematic sound design. In M. Coegnarts & P. Kravanja (Eds.), Embodied cognition and cinema. University of Leuven Press.

CHAPTER 10

The Value of Movie-Learning

During the 20-month period of observing the twins’ movie-viewing behaviour, I noted features of their responses to movies that, arranged chronologically, could be considered as indicators of progression in their movie-learning. The following table summarises these in chart form (Table 10.1). While I deplore over-dependence on learning progression indicators as targets that long-suffering teachers are expected to test for, I do believe in the value of standing back and considering the narratives of children’s learning. The most useful function of a chart such as this is probably as a spur to further research. How idiosyncratic are the features shown in the chart? Do other children—in different cultural and social contexts—follow a similar sequence of movie-learning? What other features can be observed that confirm, modify or extend this sequence? How do these and other features relate to other aspects of children’s learning and other cultural activities? Does cultural learning develop in similar ways for children with no access to movies? These questions can only be answered through larger-scale studies, but they would have to adhere to the ethnographic approach, as I argued in Chaps. 1 and 2: there are obvious drawbacks to experimental methods and to parental surveys. One distinctive characteristic of everything in this chart is that each feature was part of a largely self-directed process. The only significant intervention on my part was to introduce, from time to time, non-­ mainstream movies that I thought they might like. Key titles in relation to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. Bazalgette, How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97468-8_10

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Table 10.1  Response features chronology Age phase

Appearance of features that continued beyond age phase

Specific features noted in age phase

22–26 m Naming characters and things (includes use of signing) Anticipation of narrative events in well-known series (Very Hungry Caterpillar) Joy at achieving communication with adults about events in movies Empathy with characters (Very Hungry Caterpillar) Self-directed re-viewing

Ritual viewings of familiar broadcast TV series (In the Night Garden) Desire for proximity to the screen and exploratory touching Anxiety/distress about displaced or broken objects (Moustache and Og-Pog) Distress at unexpected ending

26–30 m Pretending to be a character Fear of endings (A until age 3) Laughing at a comic event (Teletubbies) Following character interaction and story over 28-minute episode (Tree Fu Tom)

“Self-therapeutic” re-viewing (Peppa Pig “Sports Day”) Mimicry of unusual action on screen Recall of adult comment re cat’s bellybutton Different preferences in choices of movies Following a character’s movements around the screen (Mary Poppins) Playful screen-touching (Taps) Modality judgement (C and Animatou)

30–36 m Distress at sad events in movies (Baboon, Tiny Fish) Ascribing narrative roles to characters Pleasurable shared anticipation of narrative events Discussion of modality Following a feature film

Identifying key trope in story (“almost”) Identifying with characters C saying “I don’t know” Construction of alternative narrative enigma (C and Finding Nemo) Boredom with direct address/urge to participate (Tree Fu Tom)

36–42 m Interest in discussing aspects of movies with adults

Judgement about audience for direct address (A and Planet Jammbo) Inferring action not shown on screen (A and My Neighbour Totoro)

this chart are Baboon on the Moon, Animatou and My Neighbour Totoro. Others were selected by the children themselves from thumbnail images on DVD covers. I think it is possible to argue that opportunities to view material that challenges a child’s expectations in some way may stimulate his curiosity and drive more intensive re-viewing. This may now be

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happening increasingly for children who are browsing portable devices (smartphones and tablets) on their own, to look for material on YouTube, for example—as many 3- and 4-year-olds are now doing (Ofcom, 2021). It may also happen for two-year-olds with older siblings and/or in families that view movies together, or who have already become adept at doing their own online searching. But as the chart indicates, significant developments in the twins’ movie-learning also happened in relation to the mainstream material they were viewing (movies based on the Eric Carle books, and In the Night Garden, Peppa Pig, Teletubbies, Tree Fu Tom, Finding Nemo).

Significant Developments? Naming characters and things and achieving communication with adults and/or older siblings can both be seen as part of a child’s own recognition of her learning progression. She anticipates the appearance of a character or object and triumphantly announces the correct name, perhaps leaping up and pointing at the same time. This is so pleasurable that it’s worth doing more than once. It’s a big moment for a toddler when she finds herself sharing the cultural experiences and pleasures of people whose other activities are so often hard to understand. On the other hand, anxiety and distress about apparently innocuous scenes in a movie may be signs that some aspects of the ability to follow a narrative—and especially the generic knowledge that makes this easier— are still developing. This is why Connie’s deliberate re-viewing of what was, to her, a distressing climax to a Peppa Pig episode (continuing from her initial viewings at around 24 months, but not revealed to me until she had reached 28 months) was an unusual self-therapeutic strategy, perhaps motivated by her realisation that none of her co-viewers was upset by it. An important counter-development to the distressed responses I described in Chap. 6 was the development of empathy for characters, which can lead eventually to a more nuanced understanding of their motivations, and can perhaps be fostered by imitative behaviour, such as mimicry of a gesture (Vignette C) and dressing up and announcing a new identity (Fig. 7.3). Loyalty to movie series (the Eric Carle films; In the Night Garden; Peppa Pig) also enables familiarity with the series’ characters and the beginning of narrative expectations, as children learn what characters “normally” do. In identifying self-directed re-viewing as a significant development I am to some extent in agreement with the numerous online sites that strive to

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reassure parents who are anxious—or extremely bored—by what seems to be obsessive toddler behaviour in wanting to view the same movie over and over again.1 But the advice given on these sites tends to relate only to the value of repetition in learning things such as movie plots and actions or episodes in movies, to the need for comfort and reassurance in seeing the same thing repeatedly; and to opportunities for learning new words. No reference is made to toddlers’ need to master the codes and conventions of movies, as I argued in Chap. 4. This is not surprising, given that the only evidence for this that parents are likely to notice is the development of children’s preferences in what they view, from simpler to more complex material, and most parents would regard this as a “natural” development as the child matures, not as the result of intensive study. That the twins’ developed different preferences in choices of movies between 26 and 28 months can be seen as an aspect of toddlers’ growing self-assertion, with movies assuming an important role for each of them as cultural markers of their individuality: a process that may be of particular value to twins. Older children and adults, whose cultural awareness has been enhanced through their wider social contacts and leisure activities, show a further development of this when they express loyalty to certain cultural forms as part of their membership of, or desire to belong to, particular social groups. Several features that developed around the 26- to 28 -month age period indicate the twins’ closer attention to how movie narratives are told: pretending to be a character, as when Connie insisted on being Daddy Pig; laughing at a gag in Teletubbies; her mimicry of Monica’s supplicatory clasped hands in Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, and Alfie’s distress about endings. All of these, including the endings problem, reveal the children’s growing interest in, and knowledge about, how movies work: the fact that characters can be distinguished by features as various as different garments, and different desires, types of behaviour and emotional needs. Connie’s apparent curiosity about the radically transformed cat’s bellybutton could be seen as part of the same category, helping to develop a heightened awareness of storytelling detail, which adds to the pleasures of viewing. By 30  months, their thinking about modality continued to 1  For example, https://jelliesapp.com/blog/ok-if-child-viewes-same-kids-videos-over-­ again; https://mom.com/toddler/53504-its-actually-good-thing-your-kid-wants-view-­ same-thing-over-and-over-again; https://directadvicefordads.com.au/toddlers/ toddlers-viewing-shows-over-and-over/ (all retrieved in October 2021).

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develop alongside their play activities as they explored the boundaries of the real and empathised with a character’s state of mind (Edmiston, 2008). It was in the second half of their third year that the twins moved on to viewing the more complex 28-minute episodes of Tree Fu Tom and were also able to follow full-length feature films, for example Finding Nemo. Both are indicators of their ability to follow much more complex narratives and to discuss what happened in them, even after a single viewing. A few months later, Alfie expressed an inference about an action not shown on screen at the end of the feature film My Neighbour Totoro: evidence of a more advanced stage of movie-reading—including, in this case, the memory of an earlier viewing—that enables children to deal with narratives in a more sophisticated way, by picking up on implied actions and motivations. I believe that these developmental indicators provide another argument for the value of considering toddlers’ viewing behaviour as learning in progress. They also take the concept of “learning how to understand movies” well beyond the skills of assimilating content or following a story arc. Being able to distinguish different levels of modality, or to articulate what a jump cut has hidden, reveal intelligent analytical skills. But what is the value of this learning? In this book I have argued that, when children act upon the “expectations of significance” (Lancaster, 2001) that a movie has generated for them, they are beginning to “enter into a culture” (Trevarthen, 1995) and are starting to learn the “nature of the system” (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982). There are two ways of valuing this process. It could be seen as a good way of developing what are called “transferable skills”—in other words, skills that will later be useful in schooling and employment. It could also be seen as an inherently valuable process of learning to engage critically and enjoyably with an important cultural form. I value the second of these more than the first, simply because there are many ways of developing transferable skills, and I am dismayed by the tendency to downgrade the cultural value of movies by equating “popular” with “lower cultural value” (see Chap. 2 on notions of the popular and on children’s rights). My experiences of trying to argue this case in the context of formal education is an illustration of the struggle between these two valuations.

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Teachers’ Responses to Movie-Learning When I was Head of Education at the British Film Institute we worked for several years with many other agencies—schools, local authorities, the Department for Education and equivalent organisations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—to develop classroom resources and teacher training to help schools teach about movies in mainstream schooling, starting at nursery level and going through to lower secondary level. Half of the local education authorities in England (and several in Scotland and Northern Ireland) were reached through these initiatives, and 130 “lead practitioners” were trained, who then went on to train others. The main materials used in these projects were DVD collections of short, non-­ mainstream movies (e.g. BFI, 2004, 2006)—some of which I later used in my research with the twins. Here is one report from a primary teacher we had recently trained, about her post-training classroom experiences: I used one of the short films with my literacy set. I found the children motivated, engaged and exceedingly attentive right from the beginning. Their descriptive, inference and predictive skills were extended and they found that they were better at this than they thought because this form of media was familiar to them. The biggest difference was in the participation and quality of work from the boys who were usually not easily enthused by literacy. By the end of two weeks the children had extended their vocabulary and were able to write for a variety of purposes and in different styles with greater confidence. (Marsh & Bearne, 2008, p. 27)

This response was typical of the kind of reaction I and my colleagues had been hearing from teachers for many years. Effectively—and sadly— the subtext of these responses must be “we didn’t know how smart our pupils were”—which is a terrible admission for a teacher to have to make, although understandable in an educational climate dominated by testing and school inspections linked to league-tables. Despite teachers’ initial, delighted discovery and recognition of movies’ unique meaning-systems, what soon happened in practice was that most reverted to using movies occasionally, as a stimulus for other learning. A few teachers recognised that this was missing the point. One reported that her training had “really moved my thinking/practice forward from using film as a springboard/ stimulus to writing to actually using writing/speaking and listening to analyse/appreciate film”. But she was in a minority group. The pressures on teachers and schools to adhere to conventional approaches and

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tick-box goals were hard to resist, especially after 2010 when a Conservative government began to marketize the school system and abolished the role of local authorities as a major source of advice and support for schools. To see movie-learning merely as a “way in” to literacy simply maintains movies as a low-status medium with no real place in the school curriculum. Even the teacher quoted above is still bearing in mind the attainment targets in writing and speaking and listening that her pupils have to achieve, and recognises that using movies as the topic for these is likely to improve their attainment. It is also worth bearing in mind that the success of the BFI’s initiative was substantially due to the anthologies of non-­ mainstream movies that we had published. To try and develop the same teaching approaches using “popular cultural” material such as mainstream feature films and children’s television would have been much harder, though this is not to deny the intrinsic value of enabling children to broaden their cultural knowledge. In 2008–2009, following the interest from schools in the BFI’s earlier developmental work, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in England funded the Universities of Sheffield and Nottingham to work with the BFI on a research project entitled Reframing Literacy, working with teachers and pupils in school years 1–6  in a number of primary schools in different cities. The research was trying to find out 1. What is involved in pupils learning to understand and use key elements of film language? 2. What is the relationship between this learning and the development of literacies? 3. What subject knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge do teachers require in order to teach film language? (Bearne & Bazalgette, 2010, p. 5) In the booklet on the project, edited by Eve Bearne and myself, there is a section on “Progression in reading, analysing and responding to multimodal texts” (pp. 7–11), which offers a way of thinking about progression in learning across both film and print texts: in other words, treating them more equally. The seven headings or “progression focuses” for this, suggested in the booklet as indicative, were: • Authorial intent • Stylistic expectations

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• Generic expectations • Affective response • Identification with character • Investment in the text • Modality Teachers using these progression focus headings would be looking for evidence of how children were developing their skills in:

1. Engagement, understanding and response 2. Inference and deduction 3. Structure and organisation of texts 4. Style and composition 5. Purpose, viewpoint and effect of text on the audience 6. Social, cultural and historical context (ibid., p. 7)

This really was a model that offered a way of studying both moving image and print texts side by side: both the progression focus list and the competence list could be applied equally well to either. So there was some potential here for the many teachers who felt nervous about showing movies for study and discussion in lesson time, to be able to assert that they were following expert guidance, if not actual policy. Unfortunately, with the arrival of the Conservative government in the same year that the booklet was published, the new Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, quickly re-established a much more traditional curricular regime.

Why We Should Respect Toddlers’ Movie-Learning Although it is not the main reason for my interest in movie-learning, it does seem remarkable that, in an era of alarm about “fake news” and the promotion of extremist views on social media, there is not some concern in education to ensure that every teenager, at least, can critically analyse the movie material that is used in these phenomena: be able to make well-­ informed modality judgements about it, for example (see Chap. 7), to figure out where information and opinion may be coming from and whose interests it may serve, and to try making movies that they feel are more truthful. To some extent in the UK, Ofcom’s responsibility for the promotion of “media literacy” should be driving policy on this, but then Ofcom is a media regulator, and has no say in education policy. These issues are

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beyond the scope of this book, although I would argue that by supporting and respecting little children’s critical judgements about the movies they view could be a good basis for becoming more media literate later on. I believe that the important thing about the sudden apparent increase in children’s skills and knowledge that so many teachers have observed when they instigate movie-learning in school is not merely that the opportunity to view and talk about a movie has somehow stimulated the children to try harder, but that the teacher’s interest in their movie expertise has made them feel “a head taller”. This is a phrase that Vygotsky uses about the way a child’s control of the play situation makes him feel more confident and resourceful: “in play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behaviour; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 102). When teachers—or anyone else who deals with children—show that they recognise a child’s own expertise or knowledge, the child grows more confident in her own abilities and self-belief. The fact that movie-learning is almost never consistently fostered in schools any more must indicate that formal education is missing out on a crucial area of knowledge and skills that many children bring with them when they start school. Those with concerns about children who show a lack of interest in school would do well to consider this as a possible cause. This book cannot claim to have done more than set out the case for a different approach to toddlers’ relationships with movies: an approach that recognises these relationships as inevitable in an age of easy and widespread access to moving image media. It is an approach that sees children’s attention and commitment to movies as a significant part of their early cultural and social learning, and as part of what helps them to become literate. In the Introduction, I quoted the question from Virginia Woolf that I have also raided for my title: “is there … some secret language which we feel and see, but never speak, and, if so, could this be made visible to the eye?” The only way we can know what two-year-olds are learning about movies is to take note as they move on from simpler movies to more complex ones, laugh spontaneously at movie gags and make comments revealing that they have guessed what is coming next. But what we can be sure of in any case is that they have been learning the secret language all the time, mostly by themselves, and that it is an astonishing achievement.

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References Bearne, E., & Bazalgette, C. (Eds.). (2010). Beyond words: Developing children’s response to multimodal texts. United Kingdom Literacy Association. BFI. (2004). Story shorts. British Film Institute. BFI. (2006). Story shorts 2. British Film Institute. Edmiston, B. (2008). Forming ethical identities in early childhood play. Routledge. Ferreiro, E., & Teberosky, A. (1982). Literacy before schooling. Heinemann Educational Books. Lancaster, L. (2001). Staring at the page: The functions of gaze in a young child’s interpretation of symbolic forms. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1(2), 131–152. Marsh, J., & Bearne, E. (2008). Moving Literacy On: Evaluation of the BFI Lead Practitioner Scheme for moving image media literacy. Retrieved from Sheffield: https://ukla.org/ukla_resources/moving-literacy-on/ Ofcom. (2021). Children and parents: Media use and attitudes report. Retrieved from London: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/ 217825/children-­and-­parents-­media-­use-­and-­attitudes-­report-­2020-­21.pdf. Accessed 08 Nov 2021. Trevarthen, C. (1995). The child’s need to learn a culture. Children and Society, 9(1), 5–19. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.

Glossary

3D computer animation  should really be called “computer-­assisted animation”. Animators can use computer software—and, in industry contexts, large, specialised computers as well—to help them create characters and settings that look three-­dimensional (e.g. characters turn round, cast shadows, move through landscapes). 405-line images  when television broadcasts were first made in the 1930s, the UK and many other countries used an electronic system developed by EMI (Electrical and Musical Industries) which used horizontal lines of electrons to compose monochrome images. This 405-­line system was gradually replaced between 1969 and 1985 by a 625-line system which produced much sharper images, in colour. Appointment viewing  a TV industry term referring to the audience practice of making sure that they get to see something when it is broadcast—much less significant now in the age of VoD, but still relevant to live broadcasts. Atmosphere  in movies, this refers to background sound (sound effects) that can add meaning to a scene by indicating a wider context than what is shown on the screen (e.g. birdsong, traffic). Broadcast television  term used in this book when distinguishing between television being viewed when it is broadcast, rather than streamed or on recordings.

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Camera angles  the various ways in which a camera can be positioned to film a scene (see also close-up, long-shot). Cel animation  a traditional animation technique, in which images are painted on to transparent sheets or “cels” so that figures can be easily superimposed on to backgrounds. CGI  stands for “computer-­generated images” which can be any kind of still or moving image that has been produced using computer software. See also 3D computer animation. Clay animation  a stop-motion animation style using clay or other malleable substance to create characters and objects: as for example in Aardman animated movies such as Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out. Close-up  an image created when the camera is close to an object; often used for emphasis. Computer-generated image  see CGI Cross-cutting  when sections of one scene in a movie alternate with those of another: for example to show things happening at the same time in two different places. Cross-fade  a transition from one scene to another in which one fades out as the other fades in. Sometimes also called a “dissolve” or a “mix”. Depth of field  the apparent distance between the nearest and furthest objects on the screen that are in sharp focus. Referred to in this book in relation to characters or objects moving between distance and foreground, for example as in Mr Pontipine’s Moustache Flies Away (Chap. 6). Diakretic  an adjective derived from Wojciechowski’s concept of “diakresis” (selecting out what the viewer finds significant or memorable in a movie scene) to refer to the ongoing process of doing this as “diakretic activity”. Diegetic  belonging to the “world of the story”. Seagulls appearing in the background in a scene set at the seaside would be “diegetic” (i.e. an expected part of the story); seeing someone in modern dress popping up in a scene set in Ancient Rome would be “non-diegetic” (i.e. it wouldn’t be an expected part of the story, though it could still be a deliberate surprise on the part of the moviemaker, so not necessarily a mistake). Direct address  when a person looks directly into the camera lens and appears to be speaking to us (e.g. as newsreaders do).

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Duration  an important but rarely discussed element of meaning in movies: how long a shot is held, for example, makes a difference to how we interpret it. Editing  the process through which different elements—shots, sound effects, music, dialogue and so forth are modified and joined together by transitions, in order to create the finished movie. Eyeline match  an editing technique which joins together two shots, each of a person looking off screen, are joined together in such a way that they seem to be looking at each other. Feature films  industry term for films that are long enough to be the main part of a screening, i.e. usually more than 75 minutes long. Generic knowledge  the knowledge a viewer needs in order to be able to make predictions about, and understand, a particular type of movie. Genre  a group of movies (or novels, or paintings, or pieces of music, etc) that share characteristics such as subject-matter, style, narrative structures. High angle  a camera angle in which the camera is positioned above the subject. Iconography  the visual features that you would expect to find in a particular genre or category of movies, for example horses, guns and desert scenery in a Western, or bright colours and cute animated animals in children’s television programmes. Immersive sound systems  sound systems that use loudspeakers positioned around the cinema to make viewers feel they are inside the scenes of the movie. Modality status  specific term adopted from linguistic theory by Bob Hodge and David Tripp in their book Children and Television (see Chap. 7 References) as a measure of how real or true a text (i.e. film, television programme, etc.) seems, or is meant to be. Mode (n) modal (adj)  these terms are used in many disciplines (e.g. music, semantics, philosophy); in film theory they tend to be used to refer to the distinctive elements of film that contribute to its meaning (e.g. movement, colour, lighting, sound, dialogue). More recently in education—particularly in discussions of topics such as literacy and/or digital technologies—these terms are used to refer to media such as television, video games, apps. Modified sequence  in music, a re-­statement of a sequence of notes at a higher or lower pitch or in a slightly different order (as in Happy Birthday, or the opening of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony).

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Multi-cutting  another way of saying “using lots of cuts”—that is changes from one shot to another. Multimodal (adj), multimodality (n)  referring to the use, or consumption, of content in different modes, that is, media or technologies. Non-diegetic  an element of a movie scene that doesn’t seem to be part of the “story-world”, such as atmospheric music—although this is arguable, given that such elements can often represent a character’s state of mind, so could be considered part of the story-world. Non-mainstream  a term used in this book to characterise movies that have not been made or distributed by large institutions (e.g. broadcasters, big film studios) and may not be widely available or well-known. Off screen  used in referring to something in a movie that is heard, looked at or otherwise responded to by characters on screen, but which is not seen on the screen. Off-screen space  elaborates the concept “off screen” to recognise that off-screen objects or events may enable the viewer to imagine their context, that is another space that is also part of the story but is just implied. Point-of-view shot  the shot that follows the moment when a character looks off screen, thus showing what they are looking at. Real-time computer graphics  also known as “real-time rendering” is the computer process that is used for making animated images move in a lifelike way and appear to be more realistic. Reverse angle shot  also expressed as “reverse shot” refers to a shot filmed at a 180-degree angle to the previous one: particularly used in twoperson dialogue scenes where shots alternate between the speakers, which is often summarised as “shot-­reverse shot”. Sand animation  an animation process in which the images are formed on a surface, often a sheet of glass, using sand, rather than drawn on paper or cel. The sand blocks out light, enabling the film-maker to create images by blowing away some of the sand to let the light through. Screen direction  the direction in which characters or objects on the screen appear to be moving. Movements on screen have to be consistent from one shot to another: a sequence of shots in which a dog is seen as running from left to right will be confusing if one shot suddenly shows the dog running from right to left.

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Sound designer  a person who provides and arranges all the audio elements of a movie (though there are also sound designers in theatre)— this can include recording, acquiring, manipulating or generating material such as sound effects, atmospheres and music. Synchronised sound  any kind of sound that has been manipulated to match movements, actions and speaking on screen. Tangram  a Chinese puzzle that consists of seven different flat shapes that can be assembled to make all kinds of figures and patterns. Travelling shot  a shot made from a moving platform (called a “dolly”), following an actor or an object moving from one place to another. VoD  video-on-demand, which comes in different forms, such as VSPs (video sharing platforms, e.g. YouTube, TikTok, most of which are really AVoD, i.e. advertising-based VoD). There are also SVoD (subscription video-on-demand, e.g. Netflix); and BVoD (broadcaster VoD, e.g. BBC iPlayer). Voice-over  a voice that is not part of the story-world (i.e. non-­diegetic), making a commentary on a movie. Wide shot  a shot that shows the subject (e.g. character(s) or object(s)) in a setting: often used to “set the scene” at the start of a movie or a new sequence.

Index1

A Abstract thought, 39 Addicted, 23 Aitken, K. J., 19 Alfie, 31 “Almost,” 173 American Academy of Pediatrics, 15 Anderson, D. R., 18, 19 Animation, 43 Animatou, 138–141, 148, 153, 155, 172–178, 205–209 Attachment theory, 113 B Baboon on the Moon, 118 Bazalgette, C., 38 Bipedal, 63–83 bipedality, 84 Blum-Ross and Livingstone, 21 Bordwell, D., 41 Brace, 51 bracing, 52

Bronfenbrenner, U., 47 Bruner, J., 193 Bryant, J., 18 C Chattah, J., 89 Children and television, 13 Children’s play, 144 Children’s preferences, 53 Children’s Television Workshop, 15 Chion, M., 89 Cognitive development, 17 Confuse fantasy and reality, 144 Connie, 31 Co-viewers, 192 Co-viewing, 103 Culture, 96 D Damasio, A., 50 Darwin, C., 84

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

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INDEX

Davies, M. M., 40 Descartes, 86, 166 Developmental psychology, 13, 16, 18, 19, 105 Diakresis, 179 Direct address, 77 Digital technologies, 2, 3, 14, 72 E Embodied cognition, 16 embodied cognition theories, 39 Emotion, 49, 87 emotional, 87 Ethnography/ic, 32, 33, 35, 62, 63, 75, 131, 205 Evolution/ary, 83–98, 5, 49, 53, 64–82, 85, 91–93, 97, 118, 128, 145, 160, 174, 176, 177, 212 Expectations of significance, 50, 53, 54, 93, 95, 103, 168, 177, 178, 209 Experiments/al, 17, 19, 20, 44, 72, 95, 98, 107, 131, 152, 166, 178, 205 F Facial expression, 52 Families, 35 Fantasy-reality distinctions, 146 Film theory, 18, 39, 43, 88–91, 168 Focused attention, 51, 53 Formal features, 42, 62 Frankfurt School, 11 Frazer, C. F., 22 G Gesture, 81

Gibson, J. J., 85 Grandparents, 36 Grodal, T., 118 H Harris, Paul, 161 Hoggart, R., 11 Huston, A. C., 19 I Imitation, 94 Immersion, 90 In the Night Garden, 59 Instinctive, 42, 87 Intersubjectivity, 42, 91, 96, 150, 172 J Johnson, M., 85 K Kagan, Paul, 113 Kress, G., 74 L Lakoff, G., 85 Lancaster, L., 50, 54, 75, 76, 95, 115, 160, 168, 178, 179, 209 Language, 41 Language of film, 41 Laughing Moon, 31–33, 47, 48, 98, 149 Learning process, 38 Lemish, D., 33 Longitudinal studies, 17 Lumière brothers, 42

 INDEX 

M Mainstream, 37 Makaton, 83–98, 48, 60, 64–82, 107, 186 Marsh, J., 31–33 Mass media, 46 Media education, 36 Messaris, P., 42 Michael Gove, 46 Mirror neurons, 91 Mobile devices, 2, 187 Modality judgements, 103, 138 Montessori, Maria, 51 Moral panics, 13 Movie industries, 43 Multimodal, 44 My Neighbour Totoro, 130 N Narrative, 39 National Association for the Education of Young Children, 21 Negative effects, 13 Nelson, K., 161 Netmums, 111 Neuroscience/ist, 49, 72, 83–98, 111, 111n4, 160, 168, 172–178 Non-mainstream, 46 O Ofcom, 189 data on movie consumption, 189 P Pandemic, 15 Panksepp, J., 49, 53, 54, 87, 96, 97, 105, 118, 122, 127, 152, 168, 185 Parents, 23

223

Passive viewing, 23 Phantom rides, 72 Phoebe, 47 Play, 70 Pleasure(s), 24, 62, 105, 144, 156, 160, 166, 168, 177–179, 181, 194, 207–209 Plowman, L., 34 Pontipines, 106 Posture, 52 Pretend-real distinctions, 144 Prior learning, 38 Proximity to the screen, 150 R Ragdoll Productions, 64 Reality judgements, 14 Rice, M. L., 33 “Risks or benefits” paradigm, 10 S Salience, 95 Salomon, G., 18 “Screen media,” 10 “Screen time,” 45, 187 “Seeking,” 39, 43, 49, 50, 52, 54, 115, 121, 127, 155, 172, 193, 194, 199 Self-directed learning, 93 Self-driven learning, 54 Sense of self, 155 Separation anxiety, 113 Sesame Street, 15 Social learning, 84 Social media, 2, 3, 14, 21, 38, 39, 76, 105, 111, 111n4, 136, 185, 187, 193, 205, 212 Sociocultural learning, 45 Sound design, 43 Staples, Terry, 37

224 

INDEX

T Teachers, 41 Technological determinist, 14 Technologies, 43 Teletubbies, 64 Television, 13 “Terrible twos,” 3, 34, 35, 72, 75 Theory of Mind, 12 The Tiny Fish, 125 Trevarthen, C., 19, 45, 84, 91, 96, 150, 160, 172, 174, 179, 181, 193, 199 Tripp, D., 87–136 “Two-hour rule,” 4, 21, 185, 186 Two-year-olds, 31–33 U “Used it up,” 168

V Verbal fluency, 39 Verbal language, 31–33 Video games, 14 Viewing behaviour, 35 Viewing practices, 187 “Visual media,” 44 Vygotsky, L., 47 W Ward, M. S., 89 Wartella, E., 17 Willing suspension of disbelief, 77 Wollen, P., 43 Woolf, Virginia, 41 Woolley, J. D., 148 World Health Organization (WHO), 22 Wright, J. C, 19