Son of Rambow -- What is Children's Media?

The Son of Rambow is a nice, complex answer to the question, what is children’s media? It is a film about children and their family and friendship problems, yet it has a PG-13 rating and deeper themes that suggest an older audience. Although it is a film about children, some of its content, especially that involving the family situations of Lee Carter and Will, move it away from the “children’s movie” label. However despite its rating, I believe it is a children’s film and it’s more mature themes of parental neglect, religious conformity, and fickle social status make it a valuable film for both children and those who have claimed to move beyond childhood.

The depiction of Will’s imagination by overlaying his drawings onto real life appeals to children and to the memories of being a child in adults. Will and Lee’s adventures in skipping school and chores in order to shoot an action movie of their own is a form of wish fulfilment for young viewers, a realization of freedom and fantasy that they’re unable to experience. It reminded me of the make-believe games my sisters and I would play when we were young, acting out the worlds of our favorite books because it was the closest we would ever come to living in them. Although Will and Lee are childish, the lessons and experiences they have relate to children but aren’t inherently childish, making the story accessible to people of all ages. For example, the neglect and bullying Lee receives from his absent mother and exploitive brother resonate with children’s experiences with bullying, sibling rivalry, and lack of attention from a parent. But for adults viewing the film, it allows them to not only reflect on their childhood experiences but analyze their own behavior toward children, as well as translate the “childish” experiences into adult situations. The same idea applies for Will’s conflict with his extreme religion—a form of authoritative oppression for him and children viewers, and a larger issue of conformist and moral but narrow-minded education of children and people for adults.

Just like the child he is, Will completely inhabits the character and life of Rambo, which brings up the power of children’s media. Children, unlike any other audience, will take what they see at face value and believe the storyteller and his/her opinions. If a kid walks off a bus looking like the latest European pop rock star, then he has to be popular, someone to aspire to. But as we came to realize at the end of the film, Didier was the uncool kid, the bullied rather than the popular icon he was seen as by the English students. Likewise, the moment when Will actually becomes Rambo, when he is sitting in the hospital after the crash, getting the mud and blood washed off and being stitched up, is the moment that the dream of Rambo crashes for him. The closest he gets to being Rambo is the farthest he is from wanting to be him.  

Though I believe Son of Rambow is a children’s film, it’s scenes, characters, and themes are crafted in such a way that it loses all the diminutive, constraining connotations of that label.