I Am Watching Kids’ Movies To Renew The Joy I’ve Lost. Here’s What I Learned Instead.
Like most activities with my kids, watching old movies together wasn’t planned. Our first, “The Wizard of Oz,” was the byproduct of my daughter becoming obsessed with the “Wicked” soundtrack. I’d play the album in the car when I missed my mom (she loved musicals), and my daughter eventually began singing along, pausing occasionally to ask questions about Elphaba and her character arc from sympathetic outcast to talented witch to scapegoated villain. She was drawn to Elphaba’s complexity, to how a person can be cast as one thing while striving to be another.
My daughter’s fascination with Elphaba elicited many questions: “Why is Elphaba green? Is Elphaba wicked? Is she good? But how is she good? What about Glinda?” Answering these questions necessitated weaving together the narratives of “Wicked” and “The Wizard of Oz.” Together, the musical and movie paint a broader picture in which the Wicked Witch of the West can be a sympathetic villain, can be someone my daughter can understand and even root for, or, at least, not fear.
This is why even though both of my children are highly sensitive and always want me to fast-forward through the scary, mean and confrontational parts of a movie, they wanted to watch the nearly two hour “The Wizard of Oz.” They believed Margaret Hamilton’s character was more than her wickedness, which allowed them to endure her malicious cackling, flying monkeys and screaming as she melts into a puddle.
As a child, I remember being terrified of the Wicked Witch but loving the movie. I’d watch it with my mom and brother and imagine myself as Dorothy. I envied her ruby red slippers, pretending to wear them, clicking my heels together and saying, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”
Back then, I was fixated on the glittering, transformative magic of the shoes. I didn’t think much about the home part. Instead, I loved the journey, marveling at the trip through the magical world that culminates with the realization that the characters are seeking something they already possess: courage, heart, brains. Back then, Dorothy’s return home, her shift from feeling trapped to grateful, contained a lesson.
As a child, I could relate to Dorothy because home always existed within that duality of expectations and comfort. It was also where I, like my children now, curled up on the couch next to my mom and my brother and watched classic movies. Sitting next to my mom, I didn’t imagine that I’d become someone’s Auntie Em or Uncle Henry, a person who stays put, who makes the rules and meets society’s expectations.
This shift in perspective has followed me during the marathon of old movies that my kids and I have watched this year. After “The Wizard of Oz,” it was “The Sound of Music.” While my kids were enamored with the music and transformative power of Julie Andrews’ Maria, I watched Christopher Plummer’s Captain Von Trapp with a knot in my stomach. I don’t summon my children with a whistle, but I do make the rules. Are there too many? Am I trying to control my household in a way that is silly and overwrought and leaves too little room for spontaneity and play and art?
This concern continued to gnaw at me during “Mary Poppins.” As my daughter watched the iconic moment Mary Poppins slides up the banister, she turned to me and said, “I just love Julie Andrews.” I smiled, thinking how awesome it is that she is finally old enough to appreciate pieces of culture I’ve long loved but unable to forget why Mary Poppins has arrived in the first place; the father, Mr. Banks, is too busy with “adult” concerns to play with his children, to enjoy his life.
This is a theme that is common in children’s entertainment. Many of the adults, especially the parents, are given a bad rap. Adults just don’t get “it,” they have forgotten the wonder of being a child, the necessity of taking life with a spoonful of sugar. Instead, they perpetuate a boring status quo and spend too much caring about things that are obviously unimportant.
Now, as a parent, I understand why. Money needs to be made, the house needs to be cleaned, the laundry needs to be folded, taxes need to be done, events need to be scheduled and shared on the family calendar. There is less time for impulsiveness and joy, and the bar that Andrews sets as Maria or Mary Poppins can feel unattainable when you’re stuck checking your kid’s head for lice or trying not to forget the item that you’re supposed to bring to the class party.
I thought watching “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” would renew some of the joy that I’ve clearly lost as an adult. My kids certainly appreciated the magic: the candy man, the golden ticket, the chocolate river, the everlasting gobstopper, the glass elevator. But I couldn’t help but think of the burden and weight of being Willy Wonka, of not only creating the magic but also ensuring that everything you’ve built is passed down to the next generation.
For my kids, these movies are about the magical places — Oz, Cherry Tree Lane, the rolling hills of Austria, and the chocolate factory — and the characters who bring those places into fuller, brighter color — Glinda (and/or Elphaba depending on your interpretation), Mary Poppins, Maria and Willy Wonka. They watch these classic films and see children whose lives were changed for the better through a charm so powerful it ripples outward, impacting the adult characters as well, reminding them of that joy they’ve lost as a grown-up.
Now, as a grown-up (at least in my children’s eyes), I wonder if that’s what these movies are now doing for me as well. Are they a reminder of the child I used to be and the magic I used to see in the world? Is this realization a magic in and of itself that will finally pull me out of my rut?
Maybe this is why we often refer to classic movies as “timeless.” Maybe Oz and Maria and Mary Poppins and Willy Wonka have staying power because these films tether us to our childhoods, shaking us out of our restrictive routines and reminding us that there is still goodness and hope in the world. Perspectives can shift and adults can change for the better. Auntie Em can stand up to Miss Gulch, Captain von Trapp can sing, Mr. Banks can fly a kite and Grandpa Joe can get out of bed and fly through the sky in a glass elevator. Maybe, metaphorically, I can do all those things too.
I love watching old movies with my kids because I love watching the possibilities of what the world can become, and I want to believe the same can still happen to me. In the same way that my daughter wrestles with the Wicked Witch’s duality, I want to grapple with what it means to be an adult in a world that feels decidedly less magical, but possibly, hopefully, is still enchanted.
