ABSTRACT
Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York revolve around Kevin McAlister's attempts to find his family after being left behind on a family Christmas trip to Paris and being separated from his family on a Christmas trip to Miami. One scene in Home Alone highlights the decline of the public space in postmodern America. While Kevin's parents attempt to arrange a flight from Paris to their home in Chicago, the rest of the family watches It's a Wonderful Life dubbed into French on TV. Although Home Alone and Home Alone 2 work hard to deny it, they are about an unwanted child, as are many other films of the 1980s and early 1990s. The comedic form supposedly renders the unwanted theme harmless, in the process revealing contemporary views of parenting and the abandonment of children. After World War II Americans began to realize that childhood was becoming a phase of life distinctly separate from adulthood.
