Happy babies in movies
I would like to talk to you about a cause that is close to my heart. A decade ago I realized babies aren’t actors. And since then, I have been trying to raise awareness among the movie viewers that making/letting babies and toddlers cry in films is pointless and can be harmful.
Please sign the petition:
https://chng.it/vRzW48ZS
Photo credit:
La Leche League
https://www.lllfrance.org/1337-da-61-ne-laisser-pas-pleurer-les-bebes
(consulted April 25, 2020)
Babies are human. I like to see babies in movies and I certainly don’t want to see that change. But I want to see happy babies. I’m speaking about babies and toddlers, i.e. human beings who can’t speak yet to express themselves in another way than by using their body or tears to express their needs. When a baby is happy and is feeling safe, they will smile, be joyful, calm. If a baby cries, it means they need something, they are tired, hungry, scared, the have pain, they are thirsty, hungry, cold, or I don’t know but it will never be because they are happy or feeling safe. Why do we like to watch movies? Because we can let go and let ourselves be carried away by a fiction and forget for a moment our real life and when it gets sad, awful or scary, we can confort ourselves by thinking it’s just a movie, it’s not real, the people are acting. Except that babies are not. They cry for real because they are too young to understand they are part of a fiction. Their tears express their feelings.
Some of you may have been among the millions of Internet users to watch the video that made the buzz a few years ago on social networks, a dad whose children burst into his office while interviewed by the BBC. « Hilarious, the most laughable video… », commented users. Am I the only one who did not laugh? Am I the only one who saw how roughly the mother took the girl out of the room? If the video was played in slow motion, would people see the brutality? And if it was a puppy or a kitten that the woman would have brutally pulled by its front leg - nearly dislocating the shoulder - and then dragged on the floor? Wouldn’t animal welfare organizations firmly criticize it? When focusing on the girl, you can see she firstly hits the edge of the table with her ribs and then you can clearly hear her scream when her mother pulls her arm: Ouch Ouch! while the lady makes the child almost pass under the little brother’s baby walker, the space left between it and the door frame being too narrow. If you listen carefully, you will hear the girl scream in pain.
Meanwhile, the video became viral and the family released new videos showing the little girl is fine. The mother had reacted in a rush because of the live interview and the parents were probably able to explain to their daughter why her mother hurt her.
What about written, scheduled scenes of a movie? Do parents explain to their children someone is going to make them cry for entertainment, to make people laugh or be emotionally touched?
According to neuropsychologist Bérengère Guillery-Girard*, "Although we can’t remember anything of our first few years, they nonetheless leave a long-lasting mark on our adult personality".
Do I really want to have young children traumatized for my entertainment?
How do directors think it can feel right? Because it doesn’t! It doesn’t feel right at all, once you conscientiously prevent yourself from getting carried away by the story.
Besides, I always wonder how directors do. Do they starve the children or what? Do they keep them awake and wait until they are exhausted? Or do they prevent them from seeing their parents?
Is there no way to protect those babies and toddlers who are deliberately left crying it out when other options exist? Some directors simply use baby crying sound effects to match the picture of an adult actor or actress holding a newborn facing them. They trust the viewers will be intelligent enough to know what a weeping baby looks like without needing to traumatize one!
I started to notice the suffering of children when I saw Lore, an Austro-German-British film by Cate Shortland about Hitler's children.
I had been invited to the preview in Brussels. I remember coming out of the movie overwhelmed with sadness and regretting not having left the theatre at the beginning of the film. The nine- or ten-month-old baby was the best of all actors. The film is not available on the streaming website I subscribed to and I certainly don’t want to pay any money to the movie makers to watch it again and find extracts of it but in my memory, the baby was crying from the beginning to the end of the film. For real. That's for sure: the little one did not play comedy.
When I see this film won 14 awards and 15 nominations (!), shouldn’t I need to worry about the future of humanity?
I had been invited to the preview in Brussels. I remember coming out of the movie overwhelmed with sadness and regretting not having left the theatre at the beginning of the film. The nine- or ten-month-old baby was the best of all actors. The film is not available on the streaming website I subscribed to and I certainly don’t want to pay any money to the movie makers to watch it again and find extracts of it but in my memory, the baby was crying from the beginning to the end of the film. For real. That's for sure: the little one did not play comedy.
When I see this film won 14 awards and 15 nominations (!), shouldn’t I need to worry about the future of humanity?
Ever since, I immediately stop being carried away by the fiction when I see young children crying in movies. But before, I was like most people. I think we are just getting used to seeing such scenes and do not realize the little ones are NOT acting. The problem is the more we see them, the more insensitive we get.
Next time you see a little child crying it out in a movie, I’d like you to focus on them. Listen to them calling for their mummy. Look at their eyes probably looking at their mother I guess, but they seem to say « why are you doing this to me? »
Before I wasn’t aware of that but now that I am, I don’t want to pay anymore movie makers to harm babies and young children. Especially for my entertainment! It’s not fair. It’s chocking. Babies are human.
How can we allow this? Why do we keep looking and letting it happen? "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who watch and don't do anything about it.", said Albert Einstein. Well, I do not want to remain passive anymore. I no longer wish to see in movies young children whose needs were deliberately denied in order to get them to cry long enough to get the scenes shot. And this for my entertainment. It's chocking!
I ask the European and international authorities to enact legislation on the use of babies and young children for entertainment, to investigate the long-term psychological effects on them and to prohibit the exploitation of feelings of sadness, fear, pain, distress of babies or toddlers for the shooting of movies, videos or any footages.
And I wish to see one day the disclaimer "No babies or toddlers were harmed during the making of this film" on EVERY movie.
And I wish to see one day the disclaimer "No babies or toddlers were harmed during the making of this film" on EVERY movie.
What about you ?
Several people around me think so too. So if you do, too, please sign the petition.
Thank you very much.
Please sign the petition:
https://chng.it/vRzW48ZS
*Article
Le mystère de l’amnésie infantile se dissipe, article de Bérengère GUILLERY-GIRARD paru dans la revue La Recherche hors-série n° 22 « La Mémoire », p. 41.
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