Little Girls and Legal Defendants: Theatricalization and Performances of Innocence in Modern American Culture

The goal of my dissertation is to produce a new understanding of the theatricalization and performance of innocence in twentieth century America as an idealization of citizenship. I define innocence as essentially opposed to and disavowing of experience. In this way, I am attempting to present innocence as foundational to the identity of the ideal American citizen. My dissertation tracks innocence across four domains which establish a path of fetishization from naturalness, to uncanny, to monstrous, and reclamation through original research of academically under-explored cultural phenomena.;The first chapter proceeds from traditional notions of innocence as a natural category, through cartoon animation attribution of innocence exclusively to children. Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics provides a framework to consider traditionalist cartoons Strawberry Shortcake and the Care Bears against the satirical The Simpsons as a demonstration of universal reliance on the innate innocence of children.;In the second chapter, the strangeness of innocence is read through Disney cosplaying, the practice of amateur hobbyists to create costumes and pretend to be characters from Disney films and cartoons at popular arts and fan conventions. Adult cosplayers make innocence uncanny through their attempts to temporarily divorce from their own identities in an effort to live as their characters.;The third chapter moves beyond strangeness: innocence is made monstrous in baby beauty pageants as the extreme fetishization of innocence. The sexuality of children is simultaneously elevated and ignored in rituals to beauty and innocence.;My study concludes in the courtroom, where innocence is sterilized by the rationality of law. Chicano drama strategically uses hyperbolic violence to demonstrate assumptions of inherent criminality and the impossibility of innocence in Chicano identity and innocence is made ideally racially and ethnically void.