This article explores an antithetical re-framing of Lewis Carroll's insurrective Alice texts. Rather than highlighting the novels' fundamentally subversive messages, film versions often try to channel Carroll's chaotic impulses into more orderly narrative arcs. Geer focuses on Willing's domestication of Alice from Carroll's curious child eager to explore the possibilities both within and around her, to a stereotypical late-twentieth century child who needs adults to shape her identity and build her self-esteem. Geer pointedly reminds us that children's media, like children's novels, often are designed less for children's delight than for the comfort of the adults who function as their gatekeepers and protectors.
Journal
The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's LiteratureISSN
1551-5680Volume
15Issue
2Publisher
La Trobe UniversitySection Title
Alice's AcademyAuthor Biography
Jennifer Geer is an associate professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she teaches children's literature and Victorian studies. She has published on Alice in Wonderland, Mopsa the Fairy, and film adaptations of The Wind in the Willows and Peter Pan, and is currently working on a book about nostalgia in Victorian children's fantasy literature.Date Created
2011-07-22Rights Statement
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OJS data migration 2025: https://ojs.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/273
