ABSTRACT
This chapter will explore the image of the child in several groundbreaking American movies. Taken together, these depictions reveal a shift from the late 20th century to the early 21st century in how the image of the child has evolved in the American psyche. The change lies in the attitude toward self-development as a preparation for the future. Whereas in 20th-century film the child was most often read as an image of obvious inexperience coupled with a potentiality to learn and whose emotional education was aiming toward a foreseeable future of eventual mastery, in recent films the conception of a child’s process of individuation is of a strikingly present-centered approach to pragmatic adaptation, already evincing a stubborn but promising competence.
