(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Hi y'all, I have a quick question.

We've been doing "Matilda" in English at the moment, which has been really fun. Some things people have suggested in terms of the kind of film/text it is is as a part of a kind of "children's noir" or "family black comedy", texts that are darker, more sophisticated, and much more intertextual than books or films for children are generally considered to be - children reading/watching these texts have some understanding of stereotype, parody, they understand the conventional storyline and they also understand when the conventional storyline is deliberately being twisted. A really good example of this is A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is another good one. I was wondering if anyone else had any examples? it's a really interesting idea and I'd like to look at it in more detail, maybe for an essay I'm writing.

Comments

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

Un Lundun looks like a good example of recent ones, the hero gets beaten early and the sidekick has to try and save the day.

I'm trying to find the title of an old book I read once where the prince had to collect egg cartons in order to make a cardboard dinosaur to win the princess, I think it kinda made fun of quest fantasy.

The Phantom Tollbooth is very reliant on all sorts of outside sources, though more of a straight quest.

Obviously you also have Coraline which is just scary.

Um... His Dark Materials? Are we getting older than you expected?


Its funny that you talk about Matilda as if its much more sophisticated than children's books are meant to be (expected to be?), cos I know you'd love it if people had that expectation of kid's books ;)

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

N.I.M.H.? Never actually read it, just seen the movie, but it certainly seems dark enough.

The Ending of The House at Pooh Corner pretty somber. What about Peter Pan?

Geez, I'm just trying to list every kids book I know. Do you have any more parameters??

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, HDM is much older than I was thinking, but it's also not really satirical, in fact I think it takes itself terribly seriously :P I mean, I love it, but. Coraline is a good example - I'd have to re-read The Phantom Tollbooth to really be sure, but I'm not sure if it's quite what I mean - it needs to be dark, but also a bit sort of... self-aware?

In re: sophistication, I don't mean sophisticated like the writng, I mean sophisticated in the sense that in some ways - especially the movie - depends on a knowledge of other texts. Like the movie has an additional subplot about the FBI, which is a total send-up - but it just wouldn't be funny if there wasn't the awareness of, like, cop shows.

Peter Pan, Pooh corner - um, probably not. :P