“Let’s get this party started!”: the carnivalesque rise of the evil child in film

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts to the Media: Screen + Sound Department, School of Communications, Arts and Critical Enquiry, Faculty of Arts, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

Romantic notions of innocence persist in popular representations of childhood. Innocent children are often seen as too small to do things for themselves and too young to understand. Ignorance and incompetence therefore become key characteristics of innocence. The protection and preservation of innocence is concerned with maintaining the child’s ignorance and incompetence by restricting their social spaces and access to knowledge, as well as maintaining strict surveillance. In short, innocence becomes a form of prison for the child. Normative readings of the evil child film justify calling the child evil because of the violence and crimes perpetrated by the child against adults. However, a carnivalesque reading reveals that evil child characters in cinema are not evil. Rather, they are empowered individuals who challenge the established order and push against the oppressive forces of innocence that seek to subjugate and control the child. In a number of evil child films, this empowerment is first made plain during a festive event, such as a party. The party becomes a catalyst for the child’s shift from victim of innocence to an empowered individual. The contention here is that, irrespective of their size, buried within every festive event is carnivalesque energy waiting to burst forth. The carnival inversion of hierarchies can be seen in the evil child film as the empowered child and the oblivious parent change roles. A carnivalesque analysis of the children in The Birds reveals that they attempt to escape from oppressive cages of innocence but are continually caught and dragged back in to them by the adults of Bodega Bay. Of particular significance is Cathy’s birthday party, which is dull and lifeless until the arrival of the birds. The analysis of The Birds springboards into three additional case studies that show how carnivalesque inversions take place as the consequence of a party that occurs in each film’s narrative. These films are: The Children (Tom Shankland, 2008), Who Can Kill a Child? (Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, 1976) and Bloody Birthday (Ed Hunt, 1981). Close textual analysis of these films identifies a relationship between each of the evil child films and The Birds, suggesting that Hitchcock’s film has had, and continues to have, an important part to play in the development of the evil child film and its generic conventions.